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!

A Geek-Load of Books

All right... consider this your warning: This post is going to be LOADED with mostly books. Absolutely no toys. So if that's not your thing... turn back now. But I hope you don'! There's some pretty fun and funny book finds this time around! Stick around and check it out! 

This is everything, all piled together. Last chance to turn back!

First up a couple of cassette tapes. "The Carpenters: And Old Fashioned Christmas" and the self-titled "New Kids on the Block" cassette! Not a whole lot to say about either of these, honestly... I'll probably have more to say about the Carpenters when December rolls back around. I was never a huge New Kids fan, but I do have a certain amount of nostalgia for them since I had friends (or friends with older sisters) who LOVED these guys. Look at those clothes. And mullets!

Roger Zelazny is hands down one of my top 5 authors, so the rare occasion where I find a book of his that I don't already own is pretty great. Isle of the Dead looks to be a great read in typical Zelazny fashion. I never read SeinLanguage when it was really popular, so I'll be interested to see what I think of it when I finally crack the spine on this one. Seinfeld was one of my favorite sitcoms (as it was for most folks I guess) at a certain point in my life.

Choose YOur Own Adventures very rarely DON'T make it home with me, so Grave Robbers should come as no surprise... and although I am a self-avowed X-Men fanatic from waaay back, it is rare that I pick up comic book novels. This one, Prisoner X, is written by Anne Nocenti and involves the Mojoverse however... so it's just a no-brainer this time.

I realized I don't already own the Little Golden Book version of Mickey's Christmas Carol. So... fixed that finally. Phew. I also found this HILARIOUSLY racist copy of Bugs Bunny and the Indians which is also a Little Golden Book which has been stripped of its Golden spine. How racist is it?

It's THIS racist.

A couple of Muppet-family books to be excited about: a Muppet Babies paper dolls book, and Imagine... Big Bird Meets Santa Claus which I feel is a bit wishy-washy honestly. I get that they're trying to be "honest" here by going with the whole "IMAGINE" concept... but if you want to avoid having to acknowledge the existence of beloved mythical holiday characters (by having them interact with your "real" giant bird puppet character. Ahem.) maybe just try not cashing in on them at all?

Sorry for how blurry this one came out... probably the very best finds out of this lot and I got a crummy picture of them which I didn't realize until much later. Ah well. There's a Real Ghostbusters Pop-Up book The Birthday Ghost, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles junior novel, Sky High. I'll go way more in-depth into the pop-up book in the future sometime. It's in good shape, but the pop-ups are really low-effort and kind of lack-luster honestly. But still a fun find! And anything TMNT is always welcome!

Well that's it kids! That's all he wrote! See, that wasn't too bad was it? Some pretty neat books in the pile, right? I thought so. I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Creepmas Day 10: Creepmas Kids' Books!

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

So you thought Creepmas was only for adults... huh? Well, as yesterday's post proves, there's a definite market for chocolate-in-your-peanut-butter marketing for the frightful and the festive for kiddies this time of year! With that in mind, today's post is all for the youngest fans of Creepmas! I'm highlighting 7 books that fall under the category (IMO) of "Creepmas books for kids".

Norman Bridwell is most famous for his Clifford, the Big Red Dog series. He created many other books during his career as a childrens' book author/illustrator. Including a series of about 5 books about a witch. The Witch Next Door, The Witch Grows Up, The Witch on Vacation, the Witch Goes to School, and this one: The Witch's Christmas. The witch is a friendly practitioner of the dark arts, and lives next door to some children who appreciate her talents. She also seems to simultaneously serve the Dark Lord while celebrating the birth of the Savior.

We get a look at the black snow that falls on the witch's property. And the animate snowman who attacks all who threaten his mistress. 

Her Christmas traditions are similar but appropriately Creepmas-y. The tree is decked out in skulls and bats and spiders and the like. Her caroling group is a horror show that terrorizes the neighborhood.  All-in-all this is a cute book that my kids do enjoy. The witch has an adventure where she saves both Santa Claus and a pair of astronauts from a frosty death in the vacuum of space. Check it out! 

Next up, from the author of Bunnicula, we have The Fright Before Christmas which also stars Harold, Chester, and Howie, from the Bunnicula books (Bunnicula himself makes a cameo but is, disappointingly, NOT the focus of the tale). 

The animals are worried about such horrors as fat men with sacks sliding down chimneys and ghosts of Christmas (like the ones in a Christmas Carol) showing up to do who-knows-what to their family. So Harold and Chester set out to stop this holiday horror-show from happening.

Hijinks ensue and absolutely no one is  slaughtered by a vampiric leporid. So there's a nice build-up but not much payoff. And a totally wasted of a blood-drinking bunny.

Next up we have A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas. Now, you may or may not know from this blog, but we at the Goodwill Geek's house have made pirates a pretty standard part of our Halloween celebrations. So mixing them up in our Christmas celebration SCREAMS Creepmas!

Most of the 12 gifts are pretty tame, including a Parrot in a Palm tree, a pair of cutlasses, 9 Mermaids singin', and some monkeys. But the 3 black cats and the 6 Jolly Rogers? Pure Halloween gold dear readers. And when you get Halloween gifts for Christmas you get CREEPMAS!!!

Finish it all off with a shot of a sleepy Pirate being watched over by a winking Jolly Roger and a Piratical Santa... and you've got a Creepmas classic on your hands.

So I've already discussed the Ghosts of Christmas as a different part of my 13 Days of Creepmas, I am aware. But now I'm going to focus for a moment on the book version they put out of the tale.

Marley shows up, as do the other 3 spirits, and for the most part, the only disappointment of the whole thing is the fact that we lose the door-knocker scene that kicks things off.

We still get all of the classic scenes starring the spirits and Scrooge before redemption finally sinks in. This is a great adaptation of the classic TV special and it makes for a nice shivery Creepmas kids' tale for the Christmas season!

Next up we have this pair of books by horror novelist Dean Koontz. He wrote two books detailing the harrowing Hallowdays adventures of Charlotte and Emily. The girls have to contend with not one but two strange, sinister doppelgangers of Old Saint Nick.

 In the first book, Santa's Twin we meet Bob, the off-kilter, mischief-and-mayhem making evil twin of Santa Claus. Deep down Bob is mainly misunderstood and out to get attention, but for the first 75% of the book we get no sense of this whatsoever as Bob wreck's people's homes, swaps out good gifts for horrific ones like the one pictured above, and threatens to eat the families of the reindeer to gain their complicity in assisting him in his crimes.

In the sequel, Robot Santa Bob has begun assisting Santa in his yearly duties, and builds a robotic Santa to help deliver gifts. Things go awry and the (more than a little creepy) robot starts creating Christmas Chaos of its own. Instead of eating cookies, he eats the plate (and some of the furniture) they sit on. Instead of leaving gifts from his sack, he fills the sack with gifts from the houses he visits. And he's got a trained gorilla helping him out that kidnaps the girls' dog. But as with last year, the girls persevere and prevail and set things to right.

Saving the best for last, we have quite possibly the book that DEFINES the concept of Creepmas in its own Merrilyy-Terrifying way. The Nightmare Before Christmas written and illustrated by Tim Burton! This is the book that the stop-motion animated Disney movie directed by Henry Selick was based on.

The entire book is a fun blend of both Halloween and Christmas imagery. If you're at all familiar with the film, then the themes of the book will be no surprise to you. Although there are no romantic story threads or villainous Boogie-Men trying to eat Santa. Those subplots are missed but traded out for a sense of focus that a book for children needs.

The imagery is festive and spooky and beautiful for it.

All the elements are there: the red and green and black and white and orange. The snow and the pumpkins. The Creepy and the Christmas. The Creepmas!!!

That's it for tonight! So tuck your kiddies into bed and crack the spine on one of these delightful, frightful feasts for the imagination!

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!