December 3: The 23 Items of Christmas: Merry Geekmas!

It's League of Extraordinary Bloggers Time Again!

Every week, the members of the League of Extraordinary Bloggers all join in on blogging about the same topic, and spend some time checking out and sharing each other's posts. It's all great fun, and this week, we have an appropriately festive topic:

Merry Geekmas! Write or photograph something festive and pop culture oriented.

Which.. c'mon... that's a pretty broad topic, right? I could fit just about ANYTHING in here now... but my original post for today was going to be a bit simpler, a bit more modest in scope... and I just don't feel like the League deserves that. So instead I decided to go with:

Homemade* ornaments! I'll be featuring a handful of ornaments that I put together myself for the tree that reflect my family's love of pop-culture!

* Homemade suggests a certain amount of arts and crafts on my part. Today you will see that when I say "homemade" I really mean "I glued something to it, and put a hook-eye in its head with some festive string to hang it."

So first up we have the Green Lantern! My middle son and I like watching this show together, and since this Happy Meal toy of Hal Jordan looks like he's using his power ring to create a little Christmas tree, it was a no-brainer! I hung a little green star off the side, poked a hook-eye in the top of the "tree" and voila! Christmas ornament! My son got to hang this one up this year, and he was so excited to have Green Lantern on the tree! 

See more "homemade" ornaments after the jump!

Here's Scooby-Doo, another cartoon I watch with my boys. I put a nice Chritsmas-y ribbon on him, and strung him up! We also just picked up a blown-glass Mystery Machine from Target to hang on the tree this year... but this little guy still has a warms spot in my heart. I believe this figurine was originally from a board game.

Next up we have some Marvel all-stars, all in the Super Hero Squad style:

Here's Captain America with a wreath affixed to his shield to fight off Krampus!

Here's the Hulk, who is getting angry as he tries to untangle the Christmas lights... 

And Spider-Man with a festive wreath around his neck. We also have Wolverine, The Thing, Thor, Iron Man, and of course, Loki (in festive green and gold) on the tree... but I didn't want to go crazy posting a ton of them. 

All three of my kids have love Blue's Clues when they were/are little. So here's Blue and Steve with a blue star for the top of the tree (Steve is showing Blue where it goes). Steve came from an old playset my daughter owned as a little girl, and the Blue came from a set of party-favor zipper-pulls. 

Here's a couple of ornaments for my wife. First, she loves Oliver and company, and she doesn't like having a cluttered toy shelf like I do. So this little guy HAD to go on the tree. It's one of the old McDonalds finger puppets. Look at that bow around his neck! Adorable as shit. 

A vintage Strawberry Shortcake figurine with Christmas-y ball attached. Also for my wife. You can also see Super-Grover's feet. I meant to get a picture of him, since he's one of my youngest son's favorites. We have a lot of old Sesame Street toys-turned-ornaments on our tree as well. 

Okay, now we are full on into my own obsessions. This is an already Christmas-themed Californian Raisin that I hung up. I also put up another raisin wearing a Santa Hat, and a Tiny Goodbites (the guy with the tuxedo and microphone) so I'd have a set of 3. 

Here's a Woody Toy Story Buddies figure wearing a wreath on his hat. I also have a Buzz Lightyear from the same series on the tree somewhere. 

And finally, I REALLY wanted my love of PEZ dispensers to be reflected on the tree somehow, and then when I realized I had some duplicate Christmas characters, I tossed them on the tree! I now have Santa, Mrs. Claus, and a Polar Bear wearing a Santa hat on the tree. I'll probably pick up an reindeer to hang as well. Love how these look on the tree, and all I had to do was screw a hook-eye in the head and run some string through! 

Here's a shot of our tree, which we always decorate with the kids. We don't go in for tinsel or garland... and yes, it's a fake, pre-lit tree. But it's our tree, and we love it. Careful observers may notice more "homemade" ornaments, such as Hello Kitty and iCarly ornaments for my daughter, as well as a metric ton of Sesame Street characters hiding all over. Action League Brave and the Bold Batman is kicking around in there as are Ronald McDonald and Clifford the Big Red Dog, among others. We have plenty of old-school ornaments that we treasure as well. So you can see, it's all pretty crowded. 

See what the other League Members are up to:

- Brian over at Cool and Collected did an amazing paint job on his S.L.U.G. Zombie Santa claus!

- Adamotomy posts a shameless wishlist that the internet should totally buy him. 

- It's a stop-motion kaiju Christmas classic over at Infinite Hollywood!

- Fortune and Glory's first ever League post (Welcome!) is all about something old, something new, and something... Hallmark? 

- Brother Midnight at Green Plastic Squirtgun gives us a rundown of his favorite Christmas gifts of the past. 

- Of Flying Monkeys and Ewoks gives us a rundown of their favorite Christmas specials.

- Random Nerdness has some sort of podcast he's shamelessly plugging. But it's totally cool. 

- Toyriffic shows us how festive... balls... can be (I felt dirty just writing that...)

Well that's it for me today! I'm home sick from work, so I'm headed back to bed. I'll be back soon with more Green and Gold Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Holiday Hunting!