Christmas at Dollar Tree.
Today’s video covers my Christmas shopping spree at Dollar Tree:
Dollar Tree’s assortment of Xmas decorations and novelties is… interesting.
During Halloween, they can get away with anything, since spooky stuff only seems to improve with cheapness and cheese. Christmas junk, on the other hand… not so much. It’s like someone paged through an Oriental Trading catalog and vowed to do everything it did with 1/10th the money and effort.
That isn’t exactly a complaint, though. There’s a weird sincerity to this garbage, and also a strange phenomenon where you look at the garbage, feel bad for the garbage and then buy the garbage.
I’ll stand there staring at a 4” fake wreath for ten minutes, and by the time I’m done, leaving it behind feels like I’m ignoring a blind, three-legged stray cat.
Anyway, the point of this video is to show that you needn’t spend a lot of money to have stupid Christmas fun. For five bucks, I got everything from a new mug to a snowman-themed paddleball. Retail therapy on the cheap. Happy holidays.
Pepsi Christmas Cola from Japan!
It wouldn’t be the holiday season without piles of ridiculous junk food to obsess over:
Take this, for example. PEPSI CHRISTMAS COLA. It’s pretty much a direct sequel to Pepsi Halloween Cola, right down to the sad fact that you’ll need to import it from Japan and spend way more on shipping than any bottle of soda is reasonably worth. (I don’t care!)
Learn all about this festive new beverage in today’s video:
If you’d like to try Pepsi Christmas Cola, you can find a number of sellers online, but I used the always-reliable NapaJapan.
(If paying for overseas shipping is a bridge too far, there’s always Mountain Dew Holiday Brew and Salted Caramel Pepsi… but we’ll save the story about those for another day.)
Hope you enjoy the vid!
How To Make Stuffed Mushrooms.
Here’s my recipe for stuffed mushrooms, which has gotten a surprising number of requests. Like at least three.
I make these for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, because my habits are my comforts and if you fuck with them you die. (And also because it’s one of the few dishes my family completely trusts me with.)
You can take my directions as general guidelines. The beauty of stuffed mushrooms is that they’re incredibly hard to get wrong, no matter what you do to them. Do not fear the stuffed mushroom. Read More…
Classic Christmas Commercials, Volume 9!
I’ve curated another batch of ancient Christmas commercials. Keep reading if you enjoy Chicken McNuggets, Chex Mix and copper top battery testers. Don’t if you don’t.
McDonald’s: Scrooge’s Christmas! (1984)
Ebenezer Scrooge is so giddy over Chicken McNuggets that he drops his usual humbuggery to become the host with the most, pushing McNuggets on everyone from Santa Claus to semi-transparent ghosts.
Okay, THAT IS THE GREATEST.
This was just one of several McDonald’s commercials that presented Chicken McNuggets as the go-to appetizers for holiday parties. I’ve not once seen that happen in real life, but as a kid, the idea fascinated me.
Whenever I imagined adults celebrating Christmas, it was basically the office party from Scrooged, but with 20-packs of Chicken McNuggets all over the place. It still sounds like bliss. Read More…