Christmas, Round I

 

After being confined to staying home for 3/4 of 2020, I made the decision for my girl and I that we were making Christmas BIG! With how crappy the majority of the year has been, I was not closing the year out on any form of subpar level. It just wasn't going to happen on my watch.

We both started our day with listening to / watching our respective selected Christmas day services. First and foremost, we wanted to recognize the day for what it means to us - The birth of our Lord and savior.

The dog started his day by informing us that his patience was over. He showed this by snatching a rawhide bone from underneath the tree. He then spent the next thirty minutes chomping on that, but apparently wasn't done. From there, he returned to the tree and promptly grabbed a toy from underneath it, proceeding to obliterate it.

As for us humans, I made a small breakfast for my girl consisting of crispy scrapple and coffee. I, on the other hand, opted for a bowl of Mandalorian cereal with almond milk. In terms of cereals, it's not the best I've ever had. It tastes like Kix, which if you've ever had them, you know they're relatively tasteless. This was somewhat saved by the mildly fruity flavored Grogu shaped marshmallows. For what it was worth, it did the trick.

From there, the phone calls and texts began to each of our respective family and friends. We also did a FaceTime video with her youngest son and his wife, where we watched them open up all of their presents. I gave my girl her stocking, which she opened on screen with her kids. I then took the opportunity to sit back and just relax with a cup of coffee. I also got a surprise ebay gift card from her kids.

The plan for lunch was to have some turkey breast and bacon sandwiches, so around 10:00 I went back to the kitchen to start putting this all together. They turned out pretty good, with all the fixings being nice and fresh. No, that's not mustard on the bread. It's cheese I baked into the top, while toasting it in the oven.

 

As I baked the turkey in the oven, I was happy to see that it had lightly started snowing. It didn't last long, and it didn't accumulate, but it was just nice to see the snow on Christmas day.

After we ate a relatively early lunch, we tried watching Pixar's Soul on Disney+. As the movie played, I opted to open up my stocking items, receiving a new pair of ear buds and an array of candies. If you can't tell from the photo, I'm a big fan of coconut and marshmallow based treats. My girl also gave me a very unexpected $100.00 ebay gift card, and perhaps a hint with the two-pack deodorant. Hmm...

I'll spare you the details of what happened next, but when we came back downstairs, we got a call from my brother, and took turns opening the presents he sent us, and him opening what we sent him. 

No, not all these packages are for me. They're for my girl, the dog and me. Despite what my brother says, he loves that dog. And, yes. The dog opens them himself.

As for me, I got the uber rare misprinting blue Lizard error of McFarlane's Spider-Man number one, a massive arcade stick pre-loaded with 4,000 arcade games, and the Game & Watch Super Mario Bros.

The dog was getting a little greedy at this point, thinking that every package being opened was supposed to be for him. He stuck his face in everything as we unwrapped the items.

After wishing my brother a Merry Christmas, we decided to pop Wonder Woman 84 on HBOMAX. The movie was actually pretty good. During it, I stepped out a few times to start dinner. I made us a prime rib roast, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach, all from scratch (much like lunch). For those of you who don't know, while I love to collect toys, my biggest passion is actually cooking. I love making food for people.

After a hearty meal, and finishing the movie, my girl asked if I wanted to open the presents under the tree. After thinking for a moment, I had to take a knee and admit that between cooking and the day itself, I was actually really tired. She said she was too, and we decided that we would leave the wrapped presents under the tree for tomorrow. There was no reason to pile on for the day, when it was already such a full day filled with good food and the items we already received in our stockings, as well as, from my brother and her youngest son.

While we didn't open the wrapped gifts, we decided to open the brown boxes which were under the tree. These weren't necessarily Christmas gifts. Rather, they were ebay items I had picked up over the past couple months, which rather than open when they arrived, I just threw them under the tree. These contained runs of three 90's Spider-Man series, The Sensational, Unlimited and Chapter One. I spent the next hour rebagging these on the couch while listening to random episodes of Bob's Burgers on Hulu, finishing up by fighting to stay awake to write this post.

But now, it's definitely bed time.

I honestly don't mind postponing opening the Christmas tree gifts until tomorrow. I wait all year for this holiday to come, and don't really see the need to wrap it up as quickly as possible. I'm totally fine with spreading it out a few days. With how exhausted I am, I know that I'll enjoy it more tomorrow than cramming it all into one massive day. Sometimes it's nice to just take your time and treasure the moments.

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Merry Christmas!

 

Ah, my favorite holiday of the year is here! Merry Christmas Toy Box readers! I hope your day is full of holiday cheer, good food, and of course, surrounded by friends and family.

Though it's not my usual day to post about anything, I would like to share with you some of my all time holiday favorite albums, inspired by the many popular properties of the 80's. For the most part, these albums are readily available on sites such as Youtube for listening to, and I highly recommend you do. Especially if you have children around for the holiday.

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Christmas Traditions

One of the things I remember growing up was that we got to open one gift on Christmas Eve. This was never a package that we got to pick ourselves. Rather, mom would pull a specified item from under the tree and hand them to my brother, sister and I. This was typically a small toy to give our overexcited minds some form of relief of the anticipation of the big day.

When Christmas day arrived, we were sidelined from storming the tree by way of waking up to our stockings on the end of our beds. This was mom and dad's way of buying another half hour of well needed sleep before the chaos that would ensue. The stockings typically contained little toys and / or treats, and while fun to open, were often just teases to ramp us up for the big event.

Finally let loose on the tree, gifts were distributed into individual piles and frantic tearing and clawing ensued. My sister was the only one of us that carefully opened any package, instituting a lifelong tradition of writing down every item she opened so that she could thank the appropriate person for it. My brother and I didn't have such forethought or class. We wanted in those packages as quickly as possible.

Despite my overall happiness that day, I recall many a disappointing moments for the holiday when after an hour of opening packages, it was done. Sure, we had plenty of new toys, but for what it was worth, the excitement for the day was technically over. This was something as I grew older I made sure to rectify. These days, I take my time opening gifts, staggering them out throughout the entire day. Opening a couple items and taking the time to enjoy them for a couple hours before moving on to opening something else. I've found this not only helps the entire day to feel like Christmas, but that I actually get more enjoyment from the gifts because I'm taking time to appreciate them, versus tossing them aside for the next mystery package.

Through all this, my personal traditions have stayed the same as when I was a kid. Christmas Eve we get to have one present, in the morning of Christmas day we start with our stockings, and from there, we move on to the gifts. We open the ones from friends and family in the late morning, and in the evening open the ones from each other. Though my girl and I don't have any children, we do have what appears to be an impatient little one who can't wait to dive into his presents.

He's no dummy. He knows there are a ton of toys and treats under there for him.

Keeping with that Christmas Eve tradition, I got a fun preemptive strike item. It was actually something I picked out for myself when visiting The Toy Exchange with George of G.I.Jigsaw on December 12th.

A fantastic, complete in the box vintage Nintendo Game Boy and loose Ninja Gaiden for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Okay, fine, it's two items, but I'm not complaining.

Well, time to go play!

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Retro Spins: Scrooged

Let's kick the holiday season into high gear with a fond Christmas film, Scrooged! I haven't seen this movie in years, but I remember it vividly, having seen it in the theaters with mom, as well as on VHS in the mid 90's. Yet ironically, it didn't dawn on me until just now listening to the soundtrack that Karen Allen (Marion from Indiana Jones) was Murray's love interest, and Buster Poindexter was the cab driver. Maybe I need to make it a point to see this again soon so I can see what else I missed.

High-spirited high jinks of Christmas Eve put Frank Cross (Bill Murray) in a ghostly time warp in this hilarious take-off of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Cross who has made the meteoric rise from the depths of the mailroom to TV network president, is mean, nasty, uncaring, unforgiving and has a sadistic sense of humor - perfect qualities for a modern-day Scrooge.

Before the night is over, he'll be visited by a maniacal New York cab driver from the past, a present-day fairy who's into pratfalls and, finally, a ghoulish, seven-foot headless messenger from the future.

This loosely-adapted contemporary version of Dicken's classic is "a side splitting comedy smash..." (Peter Travers, People Magazine). - Back of the original VHS

Two things about that back cover. 1) mailroom is not a word. It's mail room. 2) The got Dickens' correct in the first paragraph, but then proceeded to use Dicken's in the last paragraph, which is not correct.

Grammar police aside...

Annie Lennox and Al Green found huge success in 1988 with their hit, Put A Little Love In Your Heart, a song which has become a traditional holiday anthem to this day. Personally though, it's never been one of my favorites. I find it to be sappy for the sake of pulling on the heartstrings of simple minded people.

Wow, that was an incredibly mean statement. Maybe I'm the new Scrooge.

The rest of the soundtrack offers a mix of holiday and "regular" music, and while I didn't find much which interested me, I was surprised to find the song I did enjoy the most was Kool Moe Dee's Get Up 'N' Dance. I've said may times that I'm not a big fan of rap, but yet I'm beginning to second guess this mindset as these are often the tracks I'm enjoying on the various soundtracks I've listened to over the year.

Buster Poindexter's rendition of Brown Eye Girl wasn't bad. However, if I had to take my pick, I'd just as soon listen to the Rolling Stones version. Why mess with perfect, right?

Instrumental track, We Three Kings Of Orient Are by Miles Davis, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn and Paul Schaffer grated on my nerves. I couldn't stand it. It had a smooth jazz, slow tempo style, which just isn't for me.

Despite my personal opinion of the album, it is worth noting that seven of the nine tracks were released as singles. Additionally, Put A Little Love In Your Heart spent seventeen weeks on the charts, peeking at number nine on January 14, 1989. It's only fair to say the album had something going for it.

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G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero File Cards - 1993 (Hasbro)

 

The end of the Joe file cards is on the horizon as we take a look at 1992.

What makes this year of particular interest to me is the crossover between one of Hasbro's other lines, Cops 'N Crooks. Characters such as Bullet-Proof, Mace, Longarm and Mirage, just to name a few, make appearances in the 1992 roster of Joe code names. Coincidence? Not a chance.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Checkpoint, one of the officers from the Cops series, makes reference to his father, who just so happens to be Wayne "Beach Head" Sneeden. While the "real" names of the Joe team characters don't match with those of the ones from Cops, there's no mistaking that the code names are a massive nod to the line. Can you point them all out?

Hasbro also returned to the original "L" shaped cards for their mail away figures. For these, they not only released individual figures, but also "team" sets. The team ones are particularly unique because they don't include a blurb on the individual character, but rather the whole set. In some cases, these included both Joe and Cobra members. Additionally, they released a Create A Cobra figure, which utilized the same style of folded paper file card, as first introduced with 1987's Steel Brigade figure.

With all that said, have a look for yourself.

For you eagle eye Joe fans, you may have noticed an omission in the file cards. Those would be the ones related to the Street Fighter II characters. I may do a post on these particular ones in the future. However, for now, they are considered to be neither affiliated with the toy line, nor official cannon to G.I. Joe in general.

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