On the eleventh day of Christmas...

The thing I'm looking most forward to this Christmas is seeing my son's face when he opens his presents. He's five now, and he does this thing when he's happy.

The corners of his mouth turn up and he does his best not to smile, but you can tell that he's excited about what he's seeing.

I never get tired of seeing it.

Even better; in a few years, I'll be able to see my daughter's reactions, too. I feel kinda sappy looking so forward to it, but I'm a sentimental fool. Sue me.

On the ninth day of Christmas...

While the Super Powers Collection action figures were always on our Christmas wish lists, a solid backup was anything from the Marvel Secret Wars Collection.

They weren't as cool as the Super Powers figures; they weren't as articulated, for one, and, well, they were Marvel characters, and my brother and I were DC kids.

Still, we ended up with almost the whole first wave of figures, and we staged our own Marvel vs. DC slugfests, with DC always coming out on top. We had one vehicle; a motorcycley thing, and I eventually got a Doom Roller and the Tower of Doom on eBay when I was much older.

This is also from the 1985 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog.

On the eighth day of Christmas...

I was asked to compile a wish list for work, so you know, if anyone out there still needs gift ideas for me, get your notepad ready and click this link.

On the seventh day of Christmas...

Another of my favorite Christmas songs:

On the sixth day of Christmas...

1978. My last Christmas as an only child. You can almost see that look of impending doom on my face here, can't you?

Thirty years later, and I'm still not all that excited to get a picture taken with Santa Claus. No, there's not a picture for that. I'm old enough that I can say no.

On the fifth day of Christmas...

I offer some ideas for you last-minute shoppers. If you go to my Cafe Press store, you can find an array of awesome garments. Here are just two items.

 

Come on; this stuff ain't gonna buy itself...

On the fourth day of Christmas...

I got an early present. Some kind soul uploaded an episode of The Magnificent Marble Machine to YouTube. This show was on my list of must-see short-lived shows.

It's a game show that features a gigantic pinball machine. How can you not love that? In the spirit of sharing, here it is, just for you.

On the third day of Christmas...

I still sing this version of "The 12 Days of Christmas."

On the second day of Christmas...

I can't very well talk about Christmas without mentioning the classic holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. It still throws me off that it is shown on ABC these days, because it doesn't feel special unless I see this before the cartoon:



Anyhow, here's an ad for the special from a December 1978 TV Guide.

I always wondered how much Dolly Madison got out of associating with the Peanuts specials. The two are still linked in my mind, even 30 years later.

On the first day of Christmas...

 

This comes from the 1985 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog. The ad itself reflects the second wave of figures in the Super Powers Collection, one of my all-time favorite toy sets.

What struck me as odd looking at it now is that not only is the Darkseid Destroyer (the spaceship in the top right) missing pieces, such as the flight pods that went on each wing, and the guns that are supposed to be on the front, but since Darkseid is standing on the rock below the ship's wing, who is it in the cockpit?

It's Hobgoblin, a villain from the Marvel Secret Wars Collection, not even part of the same toy line.

I picked up my own Darkseid Destroyer a few years back and finally broke down and assembled it in the early days of the blog here.

While the toy line was still going, anything my brother and I didn't have would surely be at the top of our Christmas wish lists. One particular figure from the line eluded us, and it remains on my own wish list out of principle: Cyborg.

Hope springs eternal, though.

What's on TV?

Here is a cool way to waste some time and be festive all at the same time: BetaMaxmas. Relive the fun of staying home for winter break.

Just out of morbid curiosity...

What is your least favorite Christmas song? This, surprisingly, isn't mine.

Important cookie-baking tip

If you decide to make Christmas cookies this season, don't listen to the guy who dares you to eat a whole teaspoon of cinnamon.

No business like snow business

Having lived in suburban California, I have yet to experience a white Christmas. There were a few times it looked like it might get close, but even then, it would have been more of a wet Christmas, as the snow would melt as it hit the ground.

We've gone to the snow on the day after Christmas, which was a lot of fun, especially for someone who rarely sees it. I think I was about 12, and we went to the snow with our extended family. I was eager to try out the sled my cousins had.

After finding a patch of snow that wasn't mobbed, we settled in for some frosty fun. My dad was convinced that he could sled on a broken-down cardboard box we had in the trunk, but I was holding out for the real sled.

My brother and I got our turn, and we schlepped the sled up to the top of the hill. The gentle slope evened out in the middle before continuing its downhill run, so we knew we had to get enough momentum to go all the way down the hill.

Since I was older and heavier, I got the back of the two-man sled, while my brother manned the front. With a hefty shove, we were off.

This is where everything goes in slow motion.

We were sailing along nicely, when my brother thought we were going too fast, so he pulled the handbrakes that were on the sides.

Alas, those weren't brakes; they were what you steered with. As soon as he pulled them, we went sideways, losing very little momentum. As we flipped and tumbled out of the sled, I rolled over my brother's head, practically planting him in the snow--accidentally, mind you.

The empty sled skittered to the bottom of the hill. My brother and I dusted ourselves off and looked at each other.

"Awesome."

And we headed back up the hill.

In retrospect, not as cool as I thought

Back in the dim, dark recesses of time (the 80s), my brother and I had secured our very own Castle Grayskull from the Masters of the Universe Collection.

We used it with the few He-Man figures we had, as well as our Super Powers figures. It was one of the coolest toys we had, bragging-wise.

And then Mattel released the evil equivalent of Castle Grayskull: Snake Mountain. Not only was this Skeletor's bad-ass hideout, but it had a microphone that supposedly made you sound evil as well.

Okay, so that picture doesn't really scream "badass," but still...the catalog clearly states that the microphone will change your natural voice into "a frightening voice of evil!"

The folks taking pics for Montgomery Wards' '84 Christmas catalog further belittled Snake Mountain by including Fisto (still loving that name) tooling around in a Dragon Walker.

I mean, seriously--how evil can your lair be if Fisto is hanging out front?

Ho, ho, ho, pimp...

Christmas time is (almost) here

You know that tingling sensation you get when you lick a fresh 9-volt Duracell? Imagine that feeling in your stomach. That's how waiting for Christmas felt like when I was a kid.

I don't know if I ever got any sleep on Christmas Eve. Back in the days before insomnia, I could count on two sleepless nights a year: the night before the first day of school and Christmas Eve. The difference: Christmas Eve usually didn't involve a lot of thinking, "Oh God, what are they going to do to me this year?"

Instead, it was all about potential; the unknown. When you're a kid, you don't think about budgets or supply and demand; it's all about the magical list you penned faster than any homework assignment could ever be done, even at gunpoint. It's the time that you simply ask for what you want without thinking about how much things cost or how unlikely it is that you'd get it.

It was almost like magic.

Well, magic fueled by a week of Christmas specials on CBS, with the bongo-fueled special presentation intro.



My brother and I -- when we shared a room -- would talk about what we thought we were going to get until we finally fell asleep despite all the kid-adrenaline. And after a few hours of sleep, we were wide awake again, eager to head out into the living room to see what Santa brought us.

In what we assumed was a cost-saving move to offset the expenses of toy production, Santa always wrapped our presents in layers of tissue paper. You could just see through it just enough to have an idea of what the present was.

Our stockings would be bulging with candy, socks and for some reason I never quite understood, a tiny bottle of after-shave. Maybe Santa was trying to tell us that we stunk. I don't know.

My brother was always trying to get out there before anyone else.

"I'm gonna go see what we got!" he'd whisper.

Then I'd remind him that our parents wouldn't be up for another 2 or 3 hours and he'd scowl at me.

I still remember the year we got the Hall of Justice from the Super Powers Collection. It was the one toy we wanted the most. We had most of the Super Powers figures already, and now we'd have a cool playset for them to hang out in.

When opened, the Hall of Justice had a jail cell (with a trap door) for any villains who meandered by, a meeting table for four (you know Superman always got first dibs on a chair) and an elevator that led to a landing pad for the Supermobile (or if you had a good imagination, Wonder Woman's invisible jet).

And if that wasn't cool enough, when we opened the box, out came the last three figures we needed.

A Christmas miracle.

So now I'm gearing up to celebrate Christmas with my own family, which means one non-TNT viewing of "A Christmas Story," complaining that they showed all the Christmas specials too early again and some serious eating.

But the thing I'm looking most forward to is watching my son open his presents. I can't wait to see his face when he sees what he got.

In fact, I probably won't be able to sleep on Christmas Eve because of it.