Why I Oughta...

Every time we've gone to the Parks, I've always worn the same thing on my head:  A Late Show hat.  Earlier this year, I upgraded to this old-school-cool original Disney World logo hat.  I've put it through it's paces a few times already, but it is now time to put it into short-term storage until we check out the place 'Walt built' when it is all dressed up for it's 60th next year.

Well, well, well.  Look what arrived in the mail this week:  the 2015 Christmas catalog from the fine folks up at Duluth Trading.  With the King Arthur catalog already in our house, with this, I can *now* build out my full Christmas "want" list. I mean...who isn't all over henleys and fire house pants from Santa Claus this year, amirite?!?

For the second year in a row, we packed up the kids and took them out to see what is called the "Canyon Trail Cemetery" in a neighborhood in Carol Stream a few days before Halloween. Here's the post from our visit last year . With The Babe and The Bird getting a bit older and more *aware* of things, they started to get a little freaked out by some of the things that jump out!   We picked up a couple of 'kids temp' hot chocolates and watched Hocus Pocus in the van on our way there.  It was a great way to lead up to the big day on Halloween. If you don't know about the Canyon Trail Cemetery, you can check them out here on their Facebook page .  It is a really impressive display put together by a family.  All they ask is for canned food donations for the local food pantry!

Gasp!  Disney artwork has official breached the front door of our house*.  Yep...that right there is a print featuring a couple of DisNerds enjoying the show at the Enchanted Tiki Room while slurping in a Dole Whip.  Seemed too perfect of a fit for us to pass up, right?  This feels a little bit like a move that can't be 'undone'.  Where will the Disney-creep stop in the house? From the little card on the back of the print we find out we're not alone in loving the Tiki Room along with a couple of Dole Whips.   You can find more stuff from Joey at his site here . *I say 'our house' here, but we all know that I mean Equation Boy/Man's house where we're staying until we figure out way out!

The folks over at the Home Depot continue their annual tradition of releasing a dated Home Depot building for your Christmas Village. Here's a post from 2011 that shows that year's version .  The date was in a different spot and they had Santa ringing a bell out front. This year's edition comes with a couple of people lining the sidewalk (one with the - of course - orange apron).  They're pricing it really well at $9.98 (same price as 4 years ago!), but it isn't the best quality made building.  Nevertheless, I'm thinking that getting a building for less than 10 bucks is going to make this thing find plenty of homes in villages around the country.  Mantleburg is more of a Menard's kind of town, though.  So, we'll be without Home Depot for a while.

Here's another of the 2015 Lemax Christmas Village buildings at Menards:  Jackson & Son Grocery store.   Like the Snowflake Theater that I posted last week , this one leaves a little bit in terms of finish and design.  It just kinda seems sloppy and the details aren't very fine in terms of how they're presented.  Too bad, but it seems that either Menards OR Lemax has let down their standards a bit.  This Jackson & Son Grocery store won't be finding a home in Mantleburg.  What will the residents do?  Hold out for a Whole Foods?  Who knows!?!?

Here's another building from Lemax that Menard's is carrying as part of their 2015 Christmas Village set.   Unlike the Snowflake Theatre , this building wasn't displayed on the top shelf so I couldn't tell if it suffered from the same quality issues, but based on the photo on the front of the box, it appears that this is a click up - in terms of product - from some of the others this year.  It has a clear window in the front left that shows the cobbler working in it and it has a nice hanging sign that sticks out from the front above on the left side.  That's a nice touch.  This one was on sale for $31.99, so that also explains the quality improvement.   Alas, the kids shoes in Mantleburg are going to have to continue to deteriorate because the Village Board has decided to not approve the application from the Cobbler to open up shop in Mantleburg.  Maybe another year, Mr. Cobbler.  Maybe another year.