For a kid, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas has to be the most excruciatingly slow time of year. It’s a never-ending wait to see what toys will be you under the tree come Christmas morning. When I was little, I would spend this time making wish lists and browsing through the toy pages of the store catalogs. I’d revise my list again and again in hopes of getting the perfect mix of loot.

Now as an adult, I remember those in-between days fondly. Like many things in life, I know that anticipation is equal to, if not greater than, the event itself. As a parent I also now realize how impractical my vast Christmas wish lists were. I wanted so many different things that a certain degree of disappointment was inevitable on Dec. 25. There were always things on those lists that were left unfulfilled.

Christopher Tupa remembers those days as well. The artist and toy collector has created a book of toys and collectibles he wanted as a child but was never able to receive. His free ebook can be downloaded from his website.
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Hi there! Sorry for the lack of posts over the holidays, but things got a little Cray-Cray in my neck of the woods. I got the Flu From Hell™ right before Christmas, and then Indianapolis was slammed with a blizzard [obligatory cute dog pic] on the 26th, which really doesn’t effect my ability to post here but I like using the word blizzard as an excuse for things.

This was a one-big-gift-instead-of-lots-of-little-ones kind of year, because I scored an iPad Mini. I’ll be writing more about it later, but I finally feel like I can get into reading comics again now thanks to this little device. I’ve tried reading comics on my wife’s iPad, but wasn’t too crazy about the weight and size, so the Mini is perfect for me.

I’ve caught up on the entire IDW TMNT series and I love it. Besides Comixology, I downloaded Comic Zeal Reader to handle all the digitally acquired CBR/CBZ files I had on my computer. Now I have a few GBs of comics that should last me quite a while.

The iPad Mini is an awesome gaming device too. I have a ton of games on my iPhone but now I think I’ll do most of my gaming on the Mini and reserve my phone for more phone-type things.

Besides that I got a cool little LEGO set from the new Galaxy Squad line that I’ll post in the next few days. I still have a stack of books to review for the site too.

I have high hopes for 2013 here on the ‘squatch, so I think it will be a fun year!

So, how was your Christmas?

Last year I wrote about my favorite Christmas special, A Muppet Family Christmas, and it’s hard to not write an article about it every year. I love it so much I watch it about ten times each holiday, and it never gets old. It is full of charm, classic Muppet humor, plus Fraggles and Sesame Street characters. What’s not to like?

After watching it last night I realized that I would love to have all the songs from the hour-long special as a soundtrack in my iTunes library. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I decided to remedy that.

I ripped the audio from the video file I have (which has some parts you may not remember), separated all the songs, tweaked the levels a bit, then made sure it had all the proper MP3 meta tags and threw it in an Amazon S3 folder.

It’s ten tracks of pure Muppety Christmas Joy™, and you can download it at the snazzy link below. This is probably not very legal, but seeing as how Disney will probably never be able to release this amazing special again due to the rights of certain songs and the inclusion of the Fraggles and Sesame Street characters, I think I’m doing a public service.

Download Album

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I’m the guy that always gets people movies for Christmas. I don’t really do it on purpose, it just happens. This year there are a ton of cool DVDs and Blu-rays for the movie buffs on your list, whether they like silly cartoons or classic cinema. Here are a few choices me and the rest of the team put together.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Classic Series Collection

If you haven’t pulled the trigger on any classic TMNT DVDs over the past decade or so they’ve been released, or you’re just a Turtle completist, this complete series set would be the perfect gift. 23 discs housed in a replica Party Wagon? I’ll take ten.
[Amazon]

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Sure, the placement of the ornament-hook-thingy totally ruins any chance of slapping on a little top hat, but this is still a pretty cool Sasquatch ornament. These are made of glass and are being sold by the International Cryptozoology Museum, so you could say the money goes to a good cause…I guess. [BoingBoing]

Update: I posted too soon, I guess these are sold out. Bummer!

This post is also an excuse to let you all know about the awesome Christmas-variant Sasquatch logo that’s back in the header. I had almost forgot Alex Deligiannis whipped that up for me last year.