Christmas Fallout 2016

Yet another Holiday season has come and mostly gone, we still have New Years after all. It's been one astoundingly odd year so it's only fitting that my family Christmas was also a bizarre take on classic traditions. Here's the thing, I was one of several family members who had to work a security post this weekend. That meant Friday had to be something of a makeshift Christmas Eve complete with fine eats. Saturday was work and yuletide horror flicks, Sunday was more work accompanied by the antenna TV holiday marathon. And finally Monday served as our proper Christmas with gifts and eggnog.

Oh, and before we get away from the topic of traditions, I finally followed through on something I've wanted to do for a few years. We were watching the Santa Clause Conquers the Martians episode of Mystery Science Theater which is well known for the Patrick Swayze Christmas song. They mention decorating a bar stool and I remembered that I still had one set of lights and some gold pearls on hand. A few minutes work and behold my new Saturday night err (sorry bout the Road House lingo) Christmas thing. Certainly it would've been easier to wrap the chair in lights just like a tree but I decided to do some sort of draping action. Definitely going to keep this up for years to come.

Sad as it may seem, it took me two whole paragraphs to get to the point of this post. I'm actually here to show off all the goodies I received for Christmas. Maybe this is somehow in bad taste given all the need felt in the world today, but if you were looking for socially conscious articles you wouldn't be visiting cosmicsparky to begin with. Honestly, I usually donate some good toys to the various drives, but every time I shopped around this year yielded lame toys at bad prices. For someone who likes to maximize their spending to giving ratio, it didn't work out. Suppose I'll be making some New Years cash donations instead. Alright, let's get on with the gifts.

Probably the most prominent gift as far as future use is concerned came from my sister. She's gotten hooked on Society 6 this year and didn't miss the opportunity to utilize the site for her gift giving. She got me this trow blanket of space sharks with laser eyes. Admittedly this is a pretty fine representation of what's going on in my head most nights but what about the blanket itself? Being winter I'm usually crazy cold going to bed which results in too many sheets and being a sweaty mess in the morning. I was actually able to stay warm and dry using just this one piece of cover, huge win there.

A few days before Christmas I got package in my name, which is never a surprise for me, except this wasn't something I'd ordered. My brother and Sister-in-law got the full line-up of Cowboy Bebop Funko Pops for me. It was a little expected as Funko is something of a shared hobby between him and I. Still; these were the only Pops I got this Christmas so it's a good thing they're fine pieces.

Onto a few smaller goodies. My oldest sister and niece both went with arts and crafts as their gifts. That's where the Unbreakable quote picture frame and Christmas tree dice plate came from. Most of the family doesn't work on crafts for other people so it's a rare occurrence to receive presants like this. It's pretty cool to show off some items entirely unique to my Christmas, so you'll understand if I blow a large raspberry in your direction. Should note the tree plate is also painted on the other side so it can be hung as a decoration.

Got one Star Wars novel, look for that review sometime next month as I have another one to work on first. Also got a new wallet which is probably for the best as my old one was getting funky. This one has a zipper and while I appreciate the approach towards security, the added noise is gonna drive people nuts whenever I obsessively check the contents of my wallet.

More on the entertainment front we have Rise of the Tomb Raider thanks to my other brother. Really looking forward to playing this but I've gotta wrap up Final Fantasy XV first. Guess that makes for some extra incentive to get my butt in gear. Also got the first season of Agent Carter, and Death Wish on blu-ray because no celebration is complete without Bronson.

Lastly there's always one hobby that takes the taco. Last year it was a comical amount of Funko products. This year everybody doubled down on giving me board games. It's a little odd since so few of them like to play with me but who am I to complain? My sister and brother in law gave King of New York, while my mother is responsible for Kanagawa and Android: Mainframe. Those three titles would be enough new gaming goodness to hold me over for a while but there's more. I also participated in the boardgamegeek secret Santa exchange again this year where I actually had a good Santa who gave me Elysium and Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Beyond that, I also picked up a stack of clearance priced expansions from Amazon while doing my Christmas shopping. I'm practically drowning in cardboard chits by this point.

Numbers wise, I didn't receive as much stuff as last year but I'd say there's a healthy spread of practical and impractical gifts in this years haul. No duds or socks so that's a major plus. What I find odd is the utter lack of horror based items. Can't say it's a problem however since I've already got something like 25 movies to cover over the coming Saturdays.

So that was my haul, how about yours? Anything surprising, or maybe even terrible? I always enjoy hearing about the wealth of gifts out there. As for the site, you should see at least one more post before the new year, and then we'll most likely start 2017 with Sentai and Star Wars. I made some pretty good progress this year on multiple fronts despite all the circus antics and dying icons. I have big plans moving forward and I wish you all the best luck in turning 2017 into something worthwhile.