The Christmas Post That Almost (Not Almost... ACTUALLY) Wasn't...

So yeah... I said I wasn't going to blog during the Christmas season... and I was fine with that... I stuck to it. Then I realized I would have to share all the Christmas stuff I've been saving up for my December posts... when exactly? 

Next year? No thank you. I decided I'd drop this in early January for some unknowable reason.

So here we are. This is where my life choices have led us. 

Here are a couple of piles of Christmas junk I wanted to talk about on my blog. 

First up we have some decorative items. Some pretty neat stuff, right? Let's explore them together...

Just you and I.

First up we have this "Santa on Summer vacation" Pepsi glass. This bad boy is from around 1990, when they were also producing cans with this design on them. Chad over at the Horror Movie BBQ and I have an ongoing, almost competitive, Pepsi glass-spotting fetish that seems to be going on a lot longer than most normal people would find appropriate.

I post this here for him.

I am probably more excited about finding this Sugar Bear Christmas ornament than anything else in this post. This guy was produced back in 1993 and Just. Look. At. Him.

Of all the crap in this post, this was one of the few items that got me to burst out with a loud, "Oh!" in the vicinity of other humans with ears capable of hearing my childish exclamation.

I would not have bought this Lindt Snowman tin if the donated Christmas decorations had not been half off. But they were, so I did. He's fun... and so fancy. Now people will think I'm classy and I buy Lindt. (But between you and I, dear reader, I am in fact completely UN-fancy. I am much more prone to the vulgar world of second-rate CHEAP chocolate than any other... to my utter shame.)

Another ridiculously exciting item in this lot is this boxed Dodger ornament from Oliver and company, from back in 1988. I find myself getting ridiculously enthusiastic about these Disney collectible ornaments. I found a Sebastian the Crab from The Little Mermaid awhile back, and this guy had me almost as excited as that. On a sidenote, I could not BELIEVE that Oliver and Company is actually an older movie than The Little Mermaid. I checked and double checked that fact a few times before I let myself believe it. Why does Oliver and Company feel like it was a 90's movie?

I find myself wishing I had written about this tin Santa ornament/figure/thing earlier in the post. Get that crap out of the way earlier. I mean... I liked it enough to buy it but there's not a lot of material here to work with honestly. So here's this tin Santa ornament/figure/thing. Enjoy!

Now on to the media items. Some books, a comic, and an... 8-track!?!? I don't collect those!?!? Let' dig into this pile.

Take my hand.

First off, we have this precursor to the animated television special, "Mickey's Christmas Carol". This one is performed by the "Walt Disney Players".

The only real major changes to the cast are Merlin as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the Witch from Snow White as the Ghost of Christmas Future. I'm trying to imagine those characters in the place of the ones in the TV show... and I find them lacking. I'm just so used to Jiminy and Pete at this point that anyone else in those positions seems like sacrilege.

Apparently the televised animated special also spared us the pain of MANY musical numbers. There were quite a few on this tape. Goofy's song, "Being Tight Is Not All Right" seems like it belongs in a different kind of show.

Found this awesome book, "Snow Party" for the Christmas kids' book pile. It's not a Christmas book per se, and it was probably very carefully crafted to be a winter holiday book for folks not celebrating Christmas... but I'm not worried about "The War on Christmas," so this beautiful little book is a nice addition to our holiday season.

This is a book where snowmen get together to hold a huge celebration on the first snowy day of winter. The celebration is beautifully illustrated.

Such a fun and simple little book with a nice feel to it. My kids liked it quite a bit. This will definitely be added to the rotation every year.

I also found this beat up copy of the Beetlejuice "Horror-Day" special. In which Delia's and Beetlejuice's Christmas celebration gets sidetracked by a pickle he's gotten himself into with a ghostly engagement to be married.

Here are some of the more notable panels from the comic, the most holiday-themed ones, and a couple of VERY questionable panels from the story.

This final book is honestly something I've been trying to track down for YEARS. I LOVE Christmas mythology, and any reading materials I can find that describe traditions and myths from around the world pertaining to Christmas are must-haves. I also really enjoy the Time/Life series of books entitled "The Enchanted World." And I've been keeping an eye out for "The Book of Christmas" ever since I discovered that my high school library had a set of these books and this was included in the collection.

It wasn't all I dreamed it would be, if I'm being strictly honest. It was nice to cross this one off the list finally though. And a lot of the illustrations are really fun. They don't delve into the darker corners of the Christmas mythos as much as I would have liked. No appearances by Black Peter, the Yule Cat, or Krampus for instance. But the Kallikantzaroi make an appearance! Although, they do make the mistake of confusing/blending the name with the Callicantzaroi which were a sort of Greek Christmas Vampire if I'm not mistaken.

And last but not least, I did actually put together a 2015 Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks Toy Nativity Scene. I was not even remotely happy with how it came out, so I didn't give it ANY fanfare and I look forward to doing a better job next year.

The Three Wise Men are Han Solo, Mal Reynolds, and Peter Quill. They come bearing gifts of Gold (Nuggit), Frankenstein, and MURDER (CLUE). Murder was a last resort honestly. I wanted it to be Gold, Frankenstein, and Murray... but my minimate version of Peter Venkman is strictly the animated version which was voiced by Lorenzo Music, whose portrayal of the character Murray famously decried. So I just couldn't say he was "Murray". (On a side note, I got the Ecto-1 Ghostbusters LEGO set for Christmas so next year, look out! It's the movie version of the 'Busters and this Venkman is ALL MURRAY BABY!!!)

The shepherd is Bo Peep from Toy Story. She's played this role in years past, and I was kind of kicking myself for not finding an original character for my shepherd... but she's literally the only shepherd character I own who comes with her own mutant, three-headed sheep. I have a few pig toys I added just for the heck of it, and to round out the animal population I added the Gladys and Buster figures (or the figures I INSIST represent those two characters) to the creche.

The energizer bunny plays the role of my little drummer boy this year, and a Weeping angel watches from above.

That leaves only the starring family left to describe, including Mumm-Ra as Joseph, the Wicked Queen from Snow White as Mary and Bill Cipher of Gravity Falls infamy as the center of the tableau. I went with a slightly evil bent for some reason. I have no explanation as to why I did this.

So... welcome to January 2016 everybody! We're like a week in, and things seem to be going fairly smoothly.

In other news, my good buddy Brian Farrell of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame has been interviewed by the NEMMC (New England Media & Memory Coalition) about the concept of "Trash Culture". It's a great read, Brian makes a lot of great points, and I really urge you all to go check it out if you're a collector of literally ANY sort.

2016 should be a fun year! I'm going to try and mix things up here a little bit, and while I'll still be posting lots of "Hey, look what I found!" kinds of posts, I would also like to tackle a few specific topics as well. Things I like and love, people on the internet I find interesting, reviews of things, I dunno, whatever strikes my fancy. So look forward to all of that, I guess.

I also want to remind all y'all reading this that I co-host a podcast with three of my good friends from these very internets! The aforementioned Brian Farrell, the both wondrous and wicked Miss M of Diary of a Dorkette fame, and Jason Roberts of the Nerdy Life of Mine blog. Together we are the Eclectic Mayhem podcast! YOu can dowload us on iTunes, so please be sure to subscribe and leave us a review!

Aaaand... since I haven't mentioned it here previously, I want to take a moment and congratulate Jason Roberts on his 2015 Halloween wedding to Carly Roberts!

And with that dear readers, I bid you a good night! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies to share! Until that time, Happy Hunting!

Randomly Received: The Boo Bobby Blogger Box

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.

This post was originally published back on January 30th, 2014.

So... this package showed up. And it was from my friend Laura over at the Boo Bobby Blog. If you've never been to the Boo Bobby Blog, you really should go and check it out. It is a sort of combination between a slice-of-life confessional blog and a "hey look at this cool stuff I found for CHEAP!!!" sort of blog. And somewhere between those two is where the magic happens. I dare you not to go over there and simply fall in love with Laura and her husband Jerome, and their kids and their friends. Join them for a family game night of charades or out roller-skating, and then see how Laura has decorated the built-in bookshelf in their new house with cool vintage toys and kitschy knick-knacks that you've seen a million times at old antique stores but NEVER LIKE THIS. I have so much respect for Laura and her natural photography talents and her easy, effortless way of writing like she's talking directly to you. It ENRAGES me with pure JEALOUSY that her blog is so ridiculously good. 

And then she sent me some stuff in the mail and it just made it WORSE because she's GENEROUS TOOOO!!! Will she stop at nothing? Let's take a look at what she sent me, shall we?

First up, we have to take a look at the decorations on the box. I get the feeling that Laura literally doodled on this package while she stood in line at the post office and did I mention that she is also an incredibly talented artist who recreates giant-sized Disney-and-other-kids'-characters decorations for parties? 

Spider-Man, ladies and gentlemen. And we haven't even gotten INSIDE THE BOX YET.

Here we go! Look at this pile of goodies y'all! Let's look closer.

First up we have these adorable little Mini Bean Sesame Street Characters! Laura and I share a deep and abiding love of all things Sesame, and she knew these little guys would be a shot right through the heart! Bert and Ernie are great, that's a given... but a Twiddle Bug? Come on! That is the cat's pajamas people! What a random character to give the mini-bean treatment! I love it!

Next up are these seasonal Snoopies. These guys are just spectacular. I actually have a bunch of these Snoopies for the Christmas tree already... but amazingly NONE of these ones! And the Halloween Snoopy stirring a bubbling cauldron of green slime? Excellent. These are Russel Stover premiums that were (and may still be...) sold attached to little boxes of chocolates around their respective holidays. Obviously the Christmas ones are meant to be hung on the tree. 

Mini-figures! Little plastic guys! Gotta love these. I've seen these featured all over the internet in the last couple of years. The bigger guys, the astronauts, Turtle/snail/alien guys, and the white robot are all from a set of Tim Mee toys "Galaxy Laser Team" figures which I must now track down the rest of. The little tiny arm men? No idea. But I LOVE them. I mean, look at those beautiful bast**ds. 

Laura is a big fan of old, kitschy items and uses them in ALL of her decorating. So naturally this overflows into her Christmas decorating as well. So it was no surprise at all to me to find these fun little guys included. These are going on the tree next year! 

Muppets and rodents are both woven intricately into my life. Laura is yet another of my online friends brave enough to mail me glassware. This Rizzo the Rat juice glass is actually a Smuckers Jelly jar from back around '99, promoting "Muppets from Space". The mice are... well they're just mice. But they're PULL-BACK mice!!! 

I had a bunch of these Dick Tracy action figures as a kid. I think I liked them back then because they were made by Play-Mates in the same style as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures. I had them pretty much working for the Shredder and Big Boss from C.O.P.S. (both of whom, in my imaginary universe answered to Hordak). I wasn't a huge fan of the Dick Tracy movie, but I loved the bizarre nature of the gangsters in the Dick Tracy canon. They weren't quite supervillains... but they were close enough. And most of them ended up with powers when I played with them anyway. Flattop was one of my absolute favorites! This is a straight-up blast from my past! 

I think this is probably my #1 favorite item from the package. ZOAR!!! Laura knows of my deep and abiding love for all things MotU and this little lady-bird is proof of it! Fun-fact: Zoar started off as a boy-bird, and a completely independent character on his own in the mini-comics packaged with the action figures. Then he became a lady-bird when it was revealed on the TV show that this was an alternate form of the Sorceress. When I was just a little guy I actually pulled the wings completely off of my Zoar and cried for DAYS. I probably won't be doing the same with this one. But I am a huge man-child... so who knows?

Aaaand now we're onto the REAL reason you people come to my blog... The freaky-tiki stuff. Or in my case, the Advertising Mascot soft-goods. These oven mitts featuring the Poppin' Fresh Doughboy and Sprout are honest-to-goodness ALWAYS going to be on display in my cave. There will be no scorch marks or boil-over stains for these mint-condition mitts! These paw protectors are staying pristine! And Mr. Peanut? Well I have documented in depth my love for this chap. He's going on the shelf with the other bean-bag mascots. 

Who ya gonna fall... asleep on??? That was terrible. But this pillow case isn't terrible at all! I'm assuming this was from a Real Ghostbusters (cartoon) sheet set... but I really don't know. (I'm so lazy... hold on.. I'm Googling it...) Yes! RGB indeed! loveLoveLOVE the Real Ghostbusters cartoon and toys and memorabilia... so this one is a real coup! Not sure if I'll display it or just go ahead and USE it! I'm leaning towards using it though. I ALWAYS forget to check the bedding sections at second-hand places but I totally should because I'd love to find some old Star Wars sheets or Ghostbusters, or even California Raisins! 

Christmas Golden books! Here we have the version of the Night Before Christmas that I remember the best from when I was a kid... Disney's Santa's Toy Shop, which is loads of good fun, and Frosty the Snow Man! If I'm being honest, this version of Frosty always creeped me out. I couldn't really put my finger on why until it dawned on me: The weird coal-chips for lips. They look... sinister in some way. 

And a couple of non-seasonal Golden Books, including "I Think That It Is Wonderful" from the Sesame Street collection, and "The Neatos and the Litterbugs in the Mystery of the Missing Ticket" which sort of sounds like there would be other mysteries in the series, right? Like Nancy Drew in the Mystery of the Cackling Cankles (or whatever) is just one in a series. But nope. This is the only appearance I can find of the Neatos and the Litterbugs, mystery solving or otherwise. It looks fun though. 

And this is a book about Mountain Monsters. Because Laura just... "gets" me.

And look at this thing. This is a vintage Christmas Card in which Laura wrote an incredible message to me in AND bemoaned the fact that she was defacing a beautiful vintage Christmas card! I felt her pain believe me, but I'm so glad I was card-worthy, because this beautiful reindeer has earned itself a spot among the valuable wall-space items of the CAVE. I only have 4 Christmas cards hung up in my cave, and this is one of those 4. Because... look at it. Just LOOK. Bask in its glorious light. 

Welp... that's it for this addition of RRRG kiddos! I want to send a huge THANK YOU!!! Out to Laura at the Boo Bobby Blog for the amazing gift-package. I LOVED it. Everything you sent me was obviously thought about and considered for quite a while before selecting it to be included. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It was so thoughtful! 

I'll be back soon with a reveal of the new-and-improved Geek-Cave, which has been undergoing renovations since I revealed it last year! I'm pretty excited with the semi-new look (although a lot of it remains mainly unchanged... there's still a LOT to share!) and I can't wait to post about it here! Before that happens I may hop on here and post some stuff about books I like, or characters I've been thinking about, or heck my favorite flavors of Jelly Beans... who knows? Keep 'em peeled here folks!

FINALLY... the Last 2 days of my 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes

So I completely boned that all up... But ah well. Let's finish up my 12 days of Christmas Cassettes, and then get things back to the regularly scheduled post-holiday programming. There's a lot to get caught up on. So here goes! 

Day 11: Some Rather Questionable Choices

One of the rules that I set for myself when collecting cassettes from Goodwill was this: Don't buy tapes ironically. Don't buy them for the sake of telling a joke or a visual punchline. I was only going to buy stuff that I genuinely LOVE. This Christmas countdown has been a pretty big exception to this rule in some cases, and no cassettes better demonstrate this breakdown of my personal code better than these two:

I mean, LOOK at these things!!! "Christmas Rap Music" by Crew X and "A Romantic Christmas" by John Tesh? Er. Mah. Gerd.

This thing goes so far back around from "good" that it travels completely through "bad" and almost back into "good" territory again. I'm pretty sure some of this music is going to be played in actual rotation with our Christmas playlists in the years to come. Every single track on this tape is a rap version of a classic Christmas song, with a few originals included as well. 

Track List (Not sure where side A ends and side B begins because this thing is still in its cellophane and I don't plan to open it any time soon)

1. The First Noel

2. Up on the Housetop

3. We Three Kings

4. Jingle Bells

5. O Little Town of Bethlehem

6. Deck the Halls

7. Joy to the World

8. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

9. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

10. Twelve Days of Christmas

11. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

12. The Christmas Rap

Even more questionable than a Christmas Rap album however is a collection of "Romantic Christmas" songs by John Tesh. Of course the question here is: how romantic can you make songs like "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" or "In a Child's Eyes" without going straight down to creepy town? Some of the songs are even accompanied by a boy's choir. This does not scream romance at my house. Disappointingly, these all seem to be instrumentals, so I guess John Tesh just wants to set a Christmas-y ambiance for sexy-time. There is no John Tesh lustily belting out double-entendre-laden lyrics for  "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella," which just seems like a wasted opportunity.

-Side A-

1. O Little Town of Bethlehem

2. Gesu Bambino

3. It Came Upon a Midnight clear

4. The First Noel

5. Panis Angelicus

6. O Holy Night

7. Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella

8. O Come All Ye Faithful

-Side B- 

9. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

10. The Coventry Carol

11. We Three Kings of Orient Are

12. Silent Night, Holy Night

13. Gloria In Excelsis Deo

14. The Homecoming

15. In a Child's Eyes

16. The Christmas Song

Day 12: A Couple of my Personal Classics

For my final day of the countdown I was going to feature two of my all-time favorite Christmas albums:

First up is "Twisted Christmas" from Bob Rivers Comedy Corp. This this has been on constant rotation for Christmas since I first heard it back in '87 or '88. My favorites are hands down "The 12 Pains of Christmas,""The Chimney Song," and "The Bathroom Door Said Gentlemen" but some other greats involve guest stints by Jack Nicholson and Elvis Presley.

-Side A- 

1. The Twelve Pains of Christmas

2. The Chimney Song

3. We Wish You Weren't Living With Us

4. Wreck the Malls

5. A Visit from St. Nicholson

-Side B- 

6. O Come All Ye Grateful Dead-Heads

7. I'm Dressin' Up Like Santa (When I Get Out on Parole)

8. The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen

9. Foreigners

10. Joy to the World

11. A Message From the King

And it just isn't Christmas until I've heard "The Chipmunk Song" at least once. It is a Christmas must-have as far as our playlist goes. 

-Side A- 

1. Here Comes Santa Claus

2. Up on the Housetop

3. Silver Bells

4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

5. Jingle Bells

-Side B-

6. Santa Claus is Coming to Town

7. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

8. Frosty the Snowman

9. White Christmas

10. The Chipmunk Song

So that was it! That was the end of the countdown that was supposed to end on Christmas. Instead, I was lucky to have it up before New Year's Eve. I'm sure you all count yourselves as very lucky indeed. What's that you say? More? You want more??? All right then. ONE LAST THING:

Here is an item that I have been meaning to post about for at least 2 Christmases now, and by GUM I am finally going to do it! This 7" record stars the 6 Million Dollar Man in "Elves Revolt" Here's the plot synopsis from Bionic.wikia.com:

• "Steve discovers that Santa's elves are in a labor dispute with their boss. Complaining of low wages and bad working condiions, they go an strike. Their "picket line" is literally formed by a terrorist elf named Ramat, whose scheme to bring Santa to the bargaining table involves melting the polar ice cap. Getting a report from the National Weather Service that the ice cap is melting at a rate of 1°/hour, Steve and Oscar rush to the North Pole to see if there's anything they can do to reverse the process. If not, the majority the northern hemisphere will be covered in water by Christmas. However, they are soon captured by Ramat and can do little more than talk to their fellow captive, Santa Claus, about his union problems. In the end, the foreman of the elves comes to his senses and orders his men to stop Ramat. When they do so, they are able to diffuse all the heating elements Ramat had emplaced, and the two sides of the labor dispute reconcile."

So there are union picket lines, terrorism, and global warming involved in this very special Six Million Dollar Man adventure. The copyright on this record is 1978, which is the same year I was born! I was pretty psyched to find this at Goodwill for only .99 cents, and still in the cellophane no less! Apparently there is a full sized record that contains 4 Christmas-themed Six Million Dollar Man adventures, and this is just one of them... But it's enough for me. Here. Give it a listen (It is bats**t INSANE.)

All right! Now I'm officially done for 2014! I will be back in the new year at some point with a semi-regular posting schedule, and LOTS of stuff to talk about that are literally MONTHS behind schedule. So look forward to that! 

I'll be back soon enough with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! In the meantime, Happy Hunting! 

12 Days of Christmas Cassettes: 10 A (Not Quite) Very Special Christmas 2

Welcome to the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks 12 Days of Christmas celebration extravaganza!!! (Don't send me messages telling me that the 12 days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas and end on January 6th, with the Epiphany. I know. But I'm not celebrating that way... so let us quickly move along.)

Today is another solo tape, and so I am taking advantage of this post to share not only a Christmas cassette, but also a Christmas-y surprise I found at Goodwill just a few days ago. But first... Today's Cassette!

I desperately wanted to find the original "Very Special Christmas" on cassette tape to share with you here. This one is not as good. BUT it still has some very notable tunes included nonetheless. Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again" is an absolute favorite of mine,

and Sinead O'Connor's cover of Bob Dylan's "I Believe in You" while arguably not a Christmas song is another great listen.

But the winner for most bizarrely awesome song on this tape goes to Mr. Frank Sinatra and Ms. Cyndi Lauper for their duet to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

At the time, it was a move that would have "broken the internet" or whatever bulls**t thing it's called these days. A blue-eyed, classic, classy crooner from the gin-soaked rat-pack like Sinatra, teamed up with flighty, rainbow-muppet-come-to-life, "girls just wanna have fun" screeching Cyndi Lauper? 

Yes please. And it comes off sounding pretty damn great! Honestly! The rest of the tape is a mess really. Either artists I can't imagine anyone liking, or songs that did NOT need a remake of ANY kind (No one but Stevie Wonder is allowed to sing "What Christmas Means to ME"!!!) or artists we LOVE doing stupid songs (Aretha singing "O Christmas Tree"? Really?) 

-Side A- 

1. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Christmas All Over Again

2. Randy Travis - Jingle Bell Rock

3. Luther Vandross - The Christmas Song

4. Frank Sinatra & Cyndi Lauper - Santa Claus is Coming to Town

5. Boyz II Men - The Birth of Christ

6. Jon Bon Jovi - Please Come Home For Christmas

7. Paul Young - What Christmas Means to Me

8. Aretha Franklin - O Christmas Tree

9. Ronnie Spector/Darlene Love - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

10. Michael Bolton - White Christmas

-Side B- 

11. RUN DMC - Christmas Is

12. Extreme - Christmas Time Again

13. Bonnie Raitt and Charles Brown - Merry Christmas Baby

14. Tevin Campbell - O Holy Night

15. Debbie Gibson - Sleigh Ride

16. Vanessa Williams - What Child is This? 

17. Ann & Nancy Wilson - Blue Christmas 

18. Wilson Phillips - Silent Night

19. Sinead O'Connor - I Believe in You

And now on to something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!

So while looking around at Goodwill the other day I found a bag of colorful cookie-cutters in the toy section. I gave them a cursory glance (there were some giant Halloween cutters in there, bats and Jack o' Lanterns, and I have a weird cookie-cutter thing going on) and since they were a buck and appeared to be ones I didn't already own, I grabbed them. I saw a reindeer in the mix, and it looked like Rudolph, so I figured a buck was worth it for a licensed cookie cutter of that character alone. But what I discovered when I got this home was that they weren't just ANY cookie cutters, there was a nearly-complete set of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 3D cookie cutters in there! The only character missing is Sam the Snowman... and I have his butt. Just no body.

Each cookie cutter comes with a body and a leg cutter. You cut out two legs for each character, and then stand the cookie up on the leg pieces. the top of the cutter is a stamp for making the character look how they're supposed to. This one is Santa Claus (These are all from the Rankin and Bass stop-motion TV special btw).

I was VERY excited when I found Yukon Cornelius in the bag... it was at this moment that I realized I had a set of Rudolph-themed cutters.

This is either adult Rudolph or Blitzen, Rudolph's father. the expression on his face makes me kind of think Blitzen... but I can pretend whatever I want.

Herbie! The dentist elf! Have you ever noticed how un-elf-like Herbie is physically as well? Is this where the inspiration for the movie Elf came from?

Santa's sleigh. Meh. I'd rather have had Sam the snowman. But oh well.

Rudolph himself! Why they made Blitzen but not Clarice I will NEVER KNOW. They didn't even need to make her her own set of legs. She could have just shared Rudolph's!

Once I figured out I had a set of Rudolph cookie cutters, I only really cared about one thing: Did I have Bumble? Turns out I did. Relief washed over me like I'd just urinated after a long car ride. It was that satisfying to find this guy in the bag. Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

I'll be going right up through Christmas day itself posting more, so be sure to join me back here tomorrow for more of the 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes celebration!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting!