Christmas 2016

Welcome to the second edition of my now-annual series, Christmas Memories in Crayon. (Not to be confused with my maybe-annual series, Thanksgiving Memories in Crayon.) Below are five mini-essays about assorted Christmas memories, supplemented by bad crayon doodles. I may have written about

Everyone knows the gag by now. 2016 wasn’t a year, but a malevolent entity sent to spread misery and pain to all mankind. It was just a silly meme people used to ease tensions after another shitty thing happened, but it’s just as true that 2016 really was a bumpy road, full of awful ne

It’s Friday night. Only half the presents are wrapped, and only half the mushrooms are stuffed. As usual, I have a million things left to do before my family’s Christmas Eve party. Between now and then, I’ll be lucky if I get four hours sleep. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The

I wanted to get one more catalog review done before Christmas, and I think we’re ending with a doozy. (And also a DaZoo, but that joke won’t become funny until you’re a thousand words in.) Behold, the 1986 Sears Wish Book! This was a big one, guys. Action figures as a concept were a

Time to break out the super old cookbooks again! As longtime readers know, I never let a holiday season slip by without trying out some old and iffy recipes. These are typically plucked from the pages of ‘60s and ‘70s cookbooks, back when chicken drumsticks looked like Flintstones food

He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special premiered in December of ‘85, and I was one of the presumed millions who watched it with their jaws to the floor. He-Man, in prime time?! That was huge! The special featured just about every character from both He-Man and She-Ra’s cartoons, eve

Christmas is a little over a week away. I’m horrified. Counting Halloween’s early burn, I’ve spent nearly five months using holiday nonsense to spackle every crack in my heart — “spackle every crack in my heart” of course being an unused lyric from the back pages of Whites

At the start of the holiday season, I always have grand plans dancing in my head. I imagine a December filled with yuletide adventures, where half of my waking moments will be spent among blinking lights, brisk winds and spiked punches. Eventually, the reality sets in: December may look pr

You’ve probably spent December buying junk for other people, but what about YOU? Don’t you deserve YOUR OWN JUNK? I think you do! And I can help. (LIMITED TIME! AVAILABLE IN THE UNITED STATES ONLY!) FINALLY, Dino Drac’s December 2016 has arrived! I’m getting a late start this month

Welcome to a special holiday edition of Five Random Action Figures. For maximum effect, you gotta drink eggnog and wear footie pajamas while reading this. This time, I’m limiting myself only to figures that I personally got for Christmas back in the ‘80s. Two were already in my collec

Let’s dig up more highlights from the 1989 Sears Wish Book. I’ve already plucked a dozen of the catalog’s best items for an older Dino Drac article, but it seemed silly to waste the rest of it. After all, Sears Wish Books have more pages than most novels, and beyond the 8-12 items th

Christmas Eve, 1986. That was the big one. My family’s biggest Christmas party ever, with a houseful of rarely seen aunts and uncles, kids under every table, well-wishing passersby, one dog and two ferrets. It was insane. One of my cousins filmed the highlights on our clunky Panasonic vi

Scary truth: Christmas is less than a month away, and if you so much as blink, the season will be over. Gobble it up while you still can! Look at pretty lights and listen to cheesy music. Watch Scrooged, and nod along with Frank’s meaning-of-Christmas speech. Suck the end of a candy cane

Let’s talk about artichokes. Many of you do not fully comprehend artichokes, and that’s understandable. They’re vegetables with fifteen asterisks, and they look like tiny sleeping Audrey IIs. Hell, even I don’t fully comprehend them. Nevertheless, in my family, no Thanksgiving or C

The holiday gods have chosen me for their annual sacrifice! I have a fever that’s getting worse by the hour, and a light congestion that’s actively baiting me to cough so it can reveal itself as much, much worse congestion. Fun! If this stays the course — and knowing my body, it

Well, here’s my recipe for Thanksgiving stuffing — a perfect fit for this ‘80s/’90s nostalgia blog. Stuffing is my only must-have Thanksgiving dish. The turkey is okay and I love a good artichoke, but all I really need is the stuffing. Piles of it. Enough to build a decoy Matt

Sit. Make a cup of coffee. Wrap yourself one of those $10 throw blankets, because I know they’re your vice. This one’s gonna take a while. Below are nine finds from the 1993 JCPenney Christmas catalog, a 600+ page behemoth filled with toys and video games and lime green lingerie. I wou

The Christmas/holiday season never beats Halloween on the candy front, but you still get plenty of reasons to jump for junk food joy and gain forty pounds. Judging by what I’ve seen so far, the 2016 season brings an unusually robust assortment, with all manner of chips and chocolates com

In December of 1990, I borrowed my brother-in-law’s camcorder to film Animation Wars and Animation Wars: Part II. Now there’s an opener you didn’t expect. Watch ‘em both, down below: I was already dabbling with stop-motion shorts before then, but after learning that my brother-in-l

Since we’re in the thick of Dino Drac’s 2016 holiday celebration, I’m adding a special theme to this edition of Five Random Action Figures. In this batch, every figure has something to do with ice or snow. This despite the fact that it still won’t be winter even a month from now. R

Ahhh, can you feel it? That crisp morning chill! Those extra thick retail catalogs! This divisive election that threatens to split the world in half like a coconut! Yes indeed, CHRISTMAS is in the air! Okay, maybe it’s a little early, but I’ll tell you this: As a kid, it was always at