Keepin it Christmas!

There are so many great things about this time of the year. Besides getting gifts there's the music (I'm looking at you WHAM!), movies, books and random items you find at the Dollar Tree. While unpacking our decorations to make our house a festive wonderland, I uncovered a few gems from my collection that make me happy it's Christmas.

I bought this set of Star Wars Christmas themed Galactic Heroes back in the mid 2000s when I worked at Target. I am a sucker for anything Darth Vader and to get the dark lord of the Sith in a Santa hat holding a candy cane saber, a festive Stormtrooper and lit up Bobba Fett, this was a deal that was too good to pass up. The price was right and these guys sat in their plastic tube untouched until my kids became interested in the Galaxy far, far away and I opened them. This trio of evil has been a staple in our home during the holidays ever since! (BTW: This is not a picture of my collection. We lost our Stormtrooper in my son's room somewhere and I found this group shot online.)

This 2007-2008 Glen Davis Rookie card just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. How can you not smile when you see that goofy grin on a 6-9, 250lb NBA power forward dressed in a Santa hat? Upper Deck Trading Card Company created these cards as a bonus to anyone who bought an oversized pack of cards that season. The cool thing was that you could see which bonus card you would get and you could decide on your player of choice. There was no doubt that I had to add this card to my collection.

This is one of my favorite issues of the original Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle run. First of all it features Michaelangelo as the lead, it introduces his cat..Klunk and it's set during Christmas in NY! The gist of the story is that Mikey goes gift shopping, he spots some baddies robbing a toy store and he fights to get the toys back so they can be delivered to some underprivileged orphans. The artwork is vintage Eastman/Laird Turtles and the story is solid. I always had a soft spot for this issue and then a few years ago my sister bought my family this DVD for Christmas...

and it contains a pretty faithful cartoon version of the Michaelangelo Christmas special right down to the "Little Orphan Alien" toys. We watch this every year now as part of our Christmas special viewing rotation! Christmas is coming fast and I still have quite a few things to do before it gets here. So, I wanna join Mikey in saying, Thanks for reading and...