Creepmas Day 13: My Creepmas Crèche!!!

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 this is it! Day 13! The big finale! I figured this one had to be special, as I will probably NOT be celebrating Creepmas again next year unless some sort of BRILLIANCE strikes and I have an awesome idea for another Creepmas celebration on the site. So... it's time for a blow-out. Back in mid-November, I posted to let anyone know who cared that I would be taking November off from blogging. In that post, I put up a picture of a crèche/nativity scene that I had done with pop-culture characters a couple years prior. 

So THIS year I figured I would do yet another crèche... but make it a Creepy Creepmas Crèche!!! So take a gander at my finished project: 

It decidedly does NOT have the same sense of grandeur that my first nativity scene had. There is not, for instance, a giant orange T-Rex trying to eat the angel. But it matters not dear readers, for I posit that in this case, it is not the largesse that makes the crèche... but the sense of story. The internal logic. The character selection. The fact that I tried to keep all of the figures relatively horror-based or at least death-based. So as you soak in your initial view of the scene, let us prepare to take a closer look... shall we?

First, we have Anubis (the taller) as my shepherd. This was a really hard role to cast as I had absolutely NO horror toys that made sense as a "shepherd". I wracked my brain. I would have killed and devoured someone's liver for a Hannibal Lecter action figure at that moment! One of the Funko minis would have been perfect (Silence of the Lambs??? Eh? EH?) but alas, I could not think of a shepherd that fit the bill. But then I thought of the role Anubis plays in the Egyptian after-life... guarding souls on their passage to their judgement much like a... a... SHEPHERD. So I went with it (-shrugs-). In this shepherd's flock, in place of sheep, or a donkey, or a cow or any sort of normal animals, I went with: Tiny Anubis. I dunno why. I just wanted another animal in there. A Hellhound from Ghostbusters and Cerebus. Because dogs. Bast... because cat? This isn't making as much sense as I write it now. The skeletal T-Rex I felt was inspired at the time... but now I just miss my massive orange T-Rex all the more. Mothra. Is... an animal I guess? And that runaway crawling zombie just made me laugh. Shepherd! Round up that flock! Ha!

Ahem. Moving on.

Next up we have the Three Wise Guys... eh? Zombie stooges are perfect for being wiseguys... and there's three of them, and they are zombies. So PERFECT. I'm also pretending that the hammer, the wrench, and Curly's missing eyeballs are the gifts for the newborn king. And Kodos? I tried to tell him I wasn't going with a "three kings" theme, but he just wouldn't listen. And just wouldn't leave. So there he is. A third wheel in a group of four. Not so wise.

Now we're up to the angels. Attending this very important birth are not one-- not two-- but THREE angels! I couldn't NOT include the skeleton with wings. It perched there so perfectly, and just WORKED. The Weeping Angel? C'mon! And Death from the Sandman just balanced it out so I had to have three. I think it works. Can you definitively say exactly how many angels should be in attendance? Especially at THIS birth? I don't think you can. 

Finally we have the royal family themselves. We have the proud Papa Jack Skellington, the glowing mum The Bride of Frankenstein's Monster, and the bouncing baby boy himself, Sam from Trick R' Treat! I don't think there could ever be a BETTER group of ghouls to represent the taking over of Christmas by the creepiness of Halloween... There's just no way to do better than The Pumpkin King, The Bride, and the guardian of Halloween himself. Plus I think the goofy jack-o'-lanterns lend a certain kind of ambiance.

I love Sam so much I even have a spare that I turned into a Christmas ornament! I love seeing this little fella staring down at me from the tree! And if there are any doubts that Sam can't be a great part of your Christmas festivities, just check out this video from Fearnet! 

So that's it kids! Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with the start of my 12 days of Christmas countdown, which ends on Christmas day itself! I won't spoil the surprise today by sharing what it is I'll be talking about for my Christmas Countdown, but I do want to thank you all for celebrating Creepmas with me this year! I'll be back tomorrow! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Creepmas Day 7: Christmas Zombies!

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 today's Creepmas Post brings together one of the most now-classic horror tropes and our most beloved of winter celebrations: Zombies and Christmas! Like Chocolate and Peanut butter, the zombification of Christmas involves two great tastes that taste better than braaaaains together! 

First up, I'd like to take a look at some of my S.L.U.G. zombie figures from the all-Christmas wave! These little zombie toys were a great idea, and as they fit the bill for dead-ringers of the kind of monochromatic plastic mini-figures I collected as a kid, you can bet I fell in love with them! My favorites were all the celebrity zombies, such as the Three Stooges, Bruce Lee, Col. Sanders, Mr. T, Hulk Hogan, and Andre the Giant. But the Christmas characters are even more near-and-dear to my heart than all the others! Let's take a look, shall we? 

Surprise Demise is a zombie bursting up out of a Christmas present. He's not my favorite, but he's got the Christmas flair going for him, that's for sure. 

Ralph Reindead is our surrogate Rudolph, although I find it hilarious that becoming zombified has also caused him to walk bipedally. He makes me think of the killer deer from Slither. 

Santa Claws is probably my second favorite of the 4 I own. Zombie Santa Claus seems pretty much like a no-brainer right? Literally?

And finally, Frozen Fright is probably my absolute favorite character out of the assortment. I have zero interest in the logic behind a zombified snowman with an internal rib-cage. I just love the idea of a flesh-eating snowman. 

In addition to the four I have in my collection, they also produced a drummer boy, an elf, a nutcracker, and an Ebeneezer Scrooge zombie. The humans included in these packs were not Christmas-themed in any way, and were in fact just repacks from the regular series. The only four characters I am interested in owning are these four however. All the others didn't really grab me. Here is Pixel Dan's review of the Christmas wave of S.L.U.G Zombie figures:

Moving on past just my S.L.U.G. collection, I also have a couple of books that fit the theme of zombified Christmas!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Zombies is a collection of parody Christmas Carols with a zombie theme. Written by Michael P. Spradlin and illustrated by Jeff Weigel, the collection isn't the best... but there are some clever twists and turns here or there. I won't list all the songs here, but included are such classics as: "I Saw Mommy Chewing Santa Claus," "We Three Spleens," "Deck the Halls with Parts of Wally," "Let's Feast on Merry Gentlemen," "Grandma Got Turned Into a Zombie," and "Smash Their Heads With a Rock*". Some of the songs fit the tunes pretty well, while others don't really flow at all. Maybe I'm being picky, maybe I'm missing the point... but believe it or not I judge these things when it comes to a good parody song.

Finally I have this copy of The Last Christmas created and written by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn, and pencilled by Rick Remender. It is the story of a post-apocalyptic world where a zombie plague was caused by toxic rain AFTER the end of the civilized world. Mad Max-style marauders have attacked the North Pole and killed many of its residents including many of the elves, reindeer, and Mrs. Claus. Santa becomes depressed and suicidal but discovers he cannot end his own life because there is still one child who believes in him. So he decides to find the last boy on earth who has faith in Santa Claus, and murder him. But things do NOT go according to plan, and we all bear witness to the results. This is not a book for the faint of heart or the easily offended. There is MUCH to be offended by in this book, and I can't in good conscience recommend it to everyone. I find it hilarious. Your mileage may vary. 

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! 

* (That last song is sung to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock, but its almost a better title with no context at all...)

Halloween Countdown Day 29: All Through the House, All Through My Head...

The day is almost here folks... Halloween is the day after tomorrow. This fall has been a... leafy one to put it mildly:

And the colors (when it wasn't raining) have been beautiful. Crunchy leaves on the ground, covering the lawn. It will be time to collect all the toys off the lawn soon and stow them in the garage for the winter. Sigh. 

Right now, the trees still retain some of their beauty, with fiery oranges and golds overhead. 

The views around here are amazing. They make for stunning late-afternoon walks. 

Until ZOMBIES ATTACK!!!

Halloween season seems to rekindle my daughter's interest in special effects make-up every fall. It usually doesn't last very long after that... 

But... while she's hitting it... she's hitting it. 

She attempted some new stuff this year. With results she had mixed feelings about. 

I was pretty amazed by some of the results she achieved. She does most of this with toilet paper, vaseline, fake blood, and her usual cosmetics. 

This was a particular favorite. I take a lot of pride in m daughter, not because of her morbid interests... but because she's so GOOD at sharing her morbid interests. I want her to be passionate about something. She seems to really enjoy herself when she does this stuff.

We dressed up the house too. 

My wife bought rust-colored mums for the porch. The porch we had to rip apart and have rebuilt this past week, so I'm glad I got a few pictures while we could. Not having the porch to decorate properly felt like it stole some of our Halloween away.

Here's old Skully in the window of our front door. Love this guy. Soon it will be time to pull him back into the cave where he lives the other 11 months of the year. But he'll get to look out the window on the BIG NIGHT at the very least.

Here's our "Thriller" skeleton. Thriller has become my youngest son's favorite Halloween song this year. He has a speech impediment so he sings it "Cud-did-did Driller! Driller Nigh!" Which I find endlessly entertaining, even after the 20th or so time we've heard the song this season. 

More window dressings. My vintage Halloween cat cut-out is still a favorite Goodwill find. 

The bookshelves in the dining room get the most treatment inside the house (besides the shelves in my cave) with a few different little themes going on for some of the shelves: the haunted apothecary, the Halloween Cemetery/Village, the multi-colored pumpkins, etc. 

Because we moved the hutch out of the dining room area for more space, we now decorate the picture window in there instead. All kinds of fun stuff there. 

And we dressed up the chandelier in autumn leaves this season as well. These will probably stay up until the christmas decorations go up, although the skeletons, bats, eyeballs, and the like will all come down after Halloween. 

Here's a look from a different angle. 

There's more stuff like these lanterns all over the house, but I won't bore you with every last detail. That skull lantern is a favorite of mine though. 

There's even a pint-sized Dracula creeping in the trees out front by the mailbox. 

And this guy, hanging out above it all like he knows something we don't... and maybe he does?

Here's an autumn-themed cupcake-cake that my wife made for a friend's daughter. There are a bunch of cupcakes under that frosting, and the owls are cake-pops. She stresses out SO MUCH over every cake, but I love the way this one came out. 

Speaking of treats, my boys are still munching on the apples we picked from our trip out to the Treworgy Orchards and Corn Maze.

The also carved their jack-o'-lanterns. My youngest here got a lot of help from mom with the design.

My older son designed this guy all on his own, I did the cutting for him, and he helped poke out all of the pieces. 

HEre the are together, sitting next to a bowl full of pumpkin guts (which makes my older son gag to scoop out, so he does a couple of scoops and then hands the spoon over to me... slacker.)

And here they are, lit up in the night. A couple of fiery freaks!

Speaking of guts, here are the seeds, nicely toasted and ready to snack on.

We also did a lot at the library this season, with my wife volunteering to do some story-times. This was one of the crafts she had the kids do, a tissue-paper "stained-glas" pumpkin.

Here I am at the library, reading Here They Come! by David Costello, one of my absolute favorite Halloween books to read to my kids. 

Another craft they did were these leaf-collection wreaths.

And these masks for playing dress-up!

Spooky!

There was some commercialism mixed in with our homemade Halloween, oh believe me. I drank WAY more pumpkin-mocha coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and the chocolate-frosted pumpkin doughnuts were INSANELY good considering I don't usually care for their doughnuts.

My wife found this ridiculously hilarious. I found it kind of sad.

But my sadness soon burned off when I tried on this wig and glasses ensemble at Target! 

I found a rockin' wig for my wife.

Eye see you! 

NOT a look that works for my wife...

And our young son, Malachi. He says he wants me to come and Walk Behind the Rows for a moment... I'll be right back... 

Even Groot got in on the action! Here he is growing himself a Halloween costume.

And a birthday present from myself to myself consisted of these two Halloween icons. How I adore Funko. 

So, too soon the Tricking and Treating will be done with, and all of these orange and black decorations will go back to sleep in all the attics (or just get moved back into my cave for now) around the world... and the stores will dress for Christmas and we will forget the impish fun that Halloween gives us every year... until next October (who am I kidding? Next September.)

That's all I've got for tonight kiddos! We'll see what I can scrape together for tomorrow night, and then at some point I'll be back with more Gremlinesque Goodwill Goodies. Until then... Happy Haunting!