A Christmas Bounty

Let me start off by saying that I sincerely hope everyone had the merriest of Christmases! Personally speaking, I had a great day, but between getting some great gifts, and going out for a bit of a hike, there really wasn't any way it couldn't have been a great day.

This is now my third year of celebrating Christmas in Tennessee, and all three years have been different weather wise. The first year it was around 65 degrees and rained heavily all day, so much so, that it caused quite a bit of flooding in the surrounding areas. Then last year it was close to 70 degrees and absolutely beautiful out. And this year now, with the wind chill factor, it was somewhere between 20-25 degrees. Ice pellets fell on Christmas Eve -- and being as cold as it was -- they stuck around all day, so technically speaking, we did have a White Christmas.

I went for a hike in the afternoon, but since I had to wear gloves, and with not wanting to constantly be taking them off, I didn't end up taking any pictures like I did last year... but it was still fun to get out and enjoy the fresh (albeit crisp) air.

My mom's birthday is on Christmas, so for as far back as I can remember, I have always tried to go all out as far as celebrating and gift giving goes. No matter how much stuff I end up getting her though, she always manages to outdo me, and as usual, this year was no exception:

Plenty of fun stuff is coming up... I promise, but first I need to get what has become a yearly tradition, that being the getting of new slippers -- and believe it or not -- it's something that I actually look forward to. For anyone wondering why, just take a look at what kind of shape last year's are in:

Yep, those are last Christmases slipper's, and yes, that is duct tape. For some reason, slippers and t-shirts just don't last very long for me. Here's a look at why the duct tape was necessary:

It's inevitable that soles are going to start coming off a couple of months before Christmas, this year though they seemed to be much worse, hence the tape, which by the way, I was just about to replace for the third time. I could obviously go buy myself some new slippers, but since I know a new pair will be waiting for me on Christmas, I just make do with what I already have until then.

Hey, it's my first accent rug! I don't know why my mom got me this, when she knows darn well that I'm not going to be able to wipe my feet on it. In all likelihood, it's going to end up being hung the wall.

Now were getting to the kind of stuff I usually get. This McFarlane X-Files Flukeman is crazy awesome!

For anyone who doesn't know, he was featured on the episode "The Host". The sculpt on this is amazing. As a dedicated package opener, this one (along with most of the other stuff that's coming up) will be opened, I just haven't got to it yet.

I should probably mention too, that the stuff being shown isn't being done so in chronological order, which is why were going back to 1996 with this Dive Claw Robin from Kenner's Legends of the Dark Knight line.

"Arena" has always been my favorite episode of Star Trek TOS, and yet somehow I missed this Playmates figure of the Gorn back in 1997.

From 2015, this is the most contemporary of the action figures. It's pretty neat, especially considering I haven't seen a lot of Scarlet Spider toys before.

A great television series, and a great toy line.

I think this is the first time that I've seen any of Kenner's The Shadow figures that didn't have a clearance sticker from either Kay-Bee of Toy R' Us on it, as these were pretty undesirable during the 90's. I remember seeing this movie in the theatre, and I (and my mom) seem to be one of the few people who genuinely enjoys it, in fact it's the only movie I can still watch of Alec Baldwin's as I've come to dispise him in the last couple of decades. I already have the Ambush Shadow out of package, so this will be one of the rare times that I actually don't open something.

Here's another item I don't remember. How? I don't know. I love me some die-cast figures, and the sticker is pretty awesome too.

Here's the rest of the set. I will definitely be buying the rest of these, hopefully sooner than later.

I actually got some cards too. I'm very familiar with both the '71 Fleer Cocoa Puffs and '72 Fleer sets, but I never knew Comic Images put out a 'Trotters set in 1992.

I also got one 2017-18 Panini Prizm rack pack. I had no intentions of collecting this year's set, but it will still be fun to open something up.

And finally, these original MOTU figures were easily the biggest surprise of the day. From left to right there's Screeech, Man-E-Faces, Kobra Khan, Leech, Sy-Klone, and Zodac. Over the last couple of month's I have been looking at the original MOTU figures on eBay, and sort of wondering if I wanted to start reacquiring all the one's I used to have (as well as the one's that I didn't have) -- the funny thing is though -- I never mentioned it to my mom, so for her to have gotten these for me is kind of strange, to say the least. Mom's intuition? Ok fate, I've received your sign, I shall commence with the MOTU collecting.


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