Tag Archives: Christmas

Shopping Oddities

Perfectly Cromulent GiftsCatching up here on some stuff I saw in stores last December during (and after) Christmas shopping.

The “perfectly cromulent gifts” is my favorite of the bunch. The Simpsons display was found at a Borders bookstore, probably the one at The Block at Orange.

Black Santa Hat labeled Bah Humbug

I love the fact that the “Bah Humbug” hat is actually labeled as a “Santa Hat.” I think someone’s got their wires crossed. Found in the clearance aisle at the grocery store.

Tomato Soap

These bars of tomato soap (not a typo!) were at the World Market at The Village (the one that used to be Orange Mall, not the apartments across from the Spectrum — though I think they use the same font for their logos, which is kind of strange. Better than the apartments that use nearly the same font as the logo for The Prisoner, though!)

Preschool Laptop toy

I think the reason I get such a kick out of this toy is that laptop computers didn’t exist when I was in preschool (or if they did, they certainly weren’t affordable to anyone who didn’t absolutely need one for business). A laptop meant the top of someone’s lap. And now, in the grand tradition of transforming the everyday objects of the adult world into toys for infants (cars, telephones, bubble pipes), we now have something that vaguely looks like a folding keyboard and screen.

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Santa’s other job

Spotted last summer. In case you were wondering…

Catering truck: Santa’s Catering.

…now you know what he does for the rest of the year!

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Christmas Creep On-Air

Went to lunch today, and the restaurant was playing Christmas music, two days before Thanksgiving. It wasn’t entirely their fault; they were just playing KOST, and the radio station had gone into full Christmas mode.

Now, I normally like hearing Christmas music on the radio. It’s one of the few times of year that you hear a variety of music styles (many of them otherwise vanished from the radio) without playing them yourself. Though after a while it does start to grate, especially when they overplay the same few songs. But come on, at least wait until Friday!

I guess it’s official: Thanksgiving no longer exists as its own entity. We’re now going straight from Halloween to Christmas. “Turkey Day” is just the pre-Christmas get-together.

Does anyone remember the story of the kid who wished for it to be Christmas every day, and it happened, and then suddenly Christmas wasn’t special anymore?

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Snow More!

Oh the crowds outside are frightful,
But the music’s so delightful…
’Cept for ev’ry darn place we go,
It’s “Let it Snow!” “Let it Snow!” “Let it Snow!”

Seriously. It seems like this song has somehow become the most popular Christmas song this year. I normally don’t mind it, but come on!

It doesn’t help that it’s about as likely to snow here as it is for a meteor to strike Times Square at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve. But that’s worth its own post.

(Incidentally, the parody’s original. We made it up together in the grocery store on Sunday. Katie has more, but I can’t remember it.)

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Star of Damocles

For various reasons, braved the crowds at South Coast Plaza yesterday. Oddly, it’s the easiest mall I’ve parked at all weekend. Getting to the Marketplace was a disaster, but that’s just because the streets are wholly inadequate to get cars in and out of the parking lot, and the Village (formerly the Mall of Orange) was just plain full.

At South Coast, as part of their Christmas decorations, they had these giant, shiny, 14-pointed stars hanging from the ceiling in several places.

Stars of Doom

Classic Christmas, but when you go down to the first floor and look up, there are all these giant, gleaming spikes hanging over your head.

Death (star) from above!

It’s a little disconcerting. “Death from above!” is not something I want my holiday decorations to invoke.

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DC’s Missed Opportunity

As of two weeks ago, DC was still talking about its upcoming Infinite Christmas special. Yesterday, the book came out, complete with a logo based on the Infinite Crisis logo.

Only it had been renamed the Infinite Holiday special, ruining the joke.

No word on why they changed it, but someone suggested “Christmas on Infinite Earths” would have been even funnier.

Note to those who are likely to cite this as more evidence for the non-existent “War on Christmas:” Most of the stories in the book are Christmas stories. Many of them with the word in the title. And in a country where atheists are the most distrusted minority, the idea that Christians are being persecuted is laughable. (Why do I think this footnote is going to get more comments than the actual post?)

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Nightmare Before Christmas: 3-D Edition

This weekend we went out to see The Prestige, which was quite good. The next theater over was running The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D, and we figured, what the heck? After the first movie, we got tickets for another.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite movies, but for some reason the 3D release didn’t really interest me when I first heard about it. It felt too gimmicky, like when they project a regular movie on an IMAX screen even though the movie itself isn’t really made for that format.

I got a little more interested when I read an article about how they did it. ILM essentially re-did the entire movie as a computer-animated film, matching each frame exactly, then shifted the virtual camera over a bit. One eye gets the original film, and the other eye gets the CGI copy.

I was astonished at how seamlessly they matched. I couldn’t remember which eye got the original, and I honestly couldn’t tell. Most CGI-animated films have a cartoony, sort of vinyl look to them, which would not blend at all, but ILM is used to matching their CGI to photographed actors and sets, which I suppose makes them the ideal animation studio for this sort of thing. It had to be the most effective reformatting of a film that I’ve ever seen—compare it to colorizing movies, or the Star Wars special editions (which were done by the same effects house, but with older technology)—because it didn’t detract (or distract) from what was there in the first place.

Of course, it wasn’t long before I stopped looking at the technical merits and just settled into watching the movie.

Having re-watched it, I’m now very interested to see what director Henry Selick does with the movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book, Coraline

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Swimming in Christmas Trees

The Macy’s in the Laguna Hills Mall has a small storefront for seasonal products. In the lead-up to Christmas it’s full of decorations, ornaments, wrapping paper, and such. During the summer, it was swimwear. (I’m not sure what they use it for in winter.)

I walked by today, and they seem to be in transition:

Macy's Swim... with Christmas Trees!

The mismatch was so odd that it didn’t even hit me until several minutes later that this was the earliest example of holiday creep I’ve ever seen.

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Strange Shopping Sights

While Christmas shopping, I kept seeing things that made me wish I had brought my camera. The ridiculously giant Christmas tree at Fashion Island was not one of them; all I needed was a picture demonstrating its height.

Giant Xmas Tree

A toy store yielded a number of amusements (appropriately enough), in the form of a series of unconventional action figures—Jane Austen, Leonardo DaVinci, Mozart, Charles Dickens… and of course talking Jesus and Moses figures. And then there’s the Avenging Unicorn!

Historical Action Figures

Continue reading

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Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas Tree

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