Put Your Butt on Santa's Face

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

 

What's Christmas without a party? Family and friends and neighbors and festivities and food and Christmas decorations and twinkling lights and presents and laughter and booze and tension and calls from drunken ex-husbands and overtired children and vomit found Christmas morning in the backyard and the occasional fisticuffs, ah, the memories...

 

The prepared host or hostess must take great care to accommodate every guest's needs, and play the role of addiction enabler at every opportunity. From offering your dieting Auntie another slice of pie to preparing your drunk Uncle another Manhattan, the prepared host or hostess should also make sure that any guests who prefer to char their own lungs with poisonous gases are able to do so with an appropriate amount of cheer.

 

I offer to you the Santa Ash Tray. Fill your holidays with mirth, and Santa's mouth with nicotine residue. Tap your ashes directly into his big blue eyes and rest your Pall Mall on his cute button nose. This thing's made of plastic, so it's sure to melt and leave charred black craters all over old Kris Kringle's face.

  



Merry Christmas, everyone, and to all, a good night.

The Hulk Dares You to Make Fun of His Capris

HULK KNOW IT CHRISTMAS AND HULK HEART OPEN WIDE.
 
HULK GIVE YOU PRESENT. YOU KNOW WHAT ON HULK MIND.

GIFT REAL SPECIAL, TAKE OFF TOP. TAKE LOOK INSIDE.
 
FA LA LA LA ARRGH ARGH ARGH RAAAGH RAAAA

WHY YOU LOOK AT HULK LIKE THAT? HULK SING CAROL FOR YOU.

2012 Christmas? Awesome! Fan Submission Contest!

Mrs. Elfenstein and I thought it would be nice this Christmas to give something back to the community. So we're having a contest!

Head on yonder to your thrift stores, or your craft fairs, or your grandma's house (Joanna G. I am looking at you), cameras in hand, and snap your favorite Awesome ornament. The three most awesome pictures will see their pics posted on the site. The single most awesomest picture, however, will get posted and will win a fabulous prize.

A fabulous prize, you say? What could it be?

Why, it's a genuine Smurf ornament!

 

Featuring Smurfette and a (coal-eyed) snowman on one side, Papa Smurf and a cheery "Happy Holidays" on the other, this future family heirloom is a Smurf-hair more than a decade old, and it shows (note the fraying silk at the bottom).

You didn't think I bought this new, did you? Did we just meet?

The ornament comes in it's original box, so if you're an antique dealer, you can sell it for $25.00!

The rules are simple:

1. You may make your own ornament, as long as it's awesome. No personal stuff, like your name or a picture of your kid or anything, though, please.
2. You may submit as many pictures as you want
3. Your submission must be received by Christmas Eve, Dec 24th, 2012
4. Please do not submit pictures of people's yards, not even your own. Close-ups of a particular yard display may be featured, but please, for your safety, do not trespass on anyone's property.
5. Please do not stand behind the ornament. If your face is in the picture, make sure it can be cropped.

How to enter is also pretty simple:

• Email your picture to christmas.awesome.submissions@gmail.com
• Please include your first name and last initial (or an alias, if you wish) and an email address that I can contact you at should you win.
• The winner will be selected/contacted no later than December 31st, 2012

The legalese is simple, and therefore, probably not even legal:

• I will not sell or otherwise take credit for your picture. If, in some future alternate reality, I happen to make one red cent off of this hobby, I'll either contact you or choose something else. I won't steal your shit.
• I will not collect, sell, or otherwise distribute your email address. I just need it to contact you if you win. I am not a spammer.

Good luck, boys and girls!

Sometimes I am Rigid About Details

Anatomy lesson! The white part of the eye is called the sclera.

It's the fibrous protective layer that keeps all of your eye goo safe and free of dirt and lint and stuff. It's typically white, unless you have jaundice. What it typically isn't, is blue. Now, this is the second character we've seen this year with an azure gaze: Admonitory Santa had Blue Sclera Disease, too.
By the way, it's called Osteogenesis imperfecta, it's a horrible disease and I'm not making fun of people who have it. 

Sure, ok, these things are mass-produced, generally in factories in countries where Christmas isn't even celebrated. I get that. But I've also got to imagine that regardless of whether you know who Frosty is or not, you've seen human eyes before.

And yes, Frosty isn't a human being, granted, but he isn't from Arrakis, either. He's meant to be human-like. Human-ish. Human-esque.

He is also supposed to have two eyes made of coal, and any other interpretation is clearly diverging from the originating song. I blame the 1969 animated version for this blatant use of artistic license.  Frosty originally had two coal eyes, but when he came to life, they got all googly. More expressive! the animators cried. Heresy, says I. Two eyes made of coal.

Is that a mandolin he's holding? What is that?

+1 for the ceramic Joseph photobomb, too.

Valium Angel

I wanted to buy Valium Angel so bad. So, so bad. She's the best tree topper I've seen so far. She's got puffy, floppy arms! She can't keep her head up! She's so big, you could put her on your head!

And I very likely would have put her on my head, but Mrs. Elfenstein uttered the four most terrifying words anyone can say in a Thrift Store:

it might have bedbugs

sigh. Back on the shelf.

Maybe next time, Valium Angel. At least I have my pictures to remind me of what could have been...

The Elusive Douglas Fir-maid

Very modestly covering herself with pine needles just as we get to the nether-regions, this sturdy lass isn't so much atop the tree as growing out of it. Or maybe it's growing out from her. Like her arms do from the sides of her head.

But modesty be damned once we get above the waist! This mama is letting it all hang out. And judging by her grin, not feeling sheepish about it one bit. Any why not? Why not, indeed.

Something's Not Quite Right . . .

. . . but I just can't put my finger on it.