Christmas – Page 8 – An Unorthodox Halloween

Black Friday Redux

Ah…the shopping season.

Oh, I’m not a shopper by any stretch. But, there’s something special about watching a mob lose all rationality and trample the weak and infirm to reach their silly destination. Especially in this season of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

I’ve had a long and wonderful experience with Black Friday shopping. Laughing as someone tries to push me is always fun. As is watching someone try to take something out of my arms…breifly.

It’s not hard to do the math when you’re in walmart standing around a pallet of super big deal thingamajigs your wife wants, knowing there are 12, and 30 people standing there.

Normally, I can just grab ours, make sure the newbie guys (because I always seem to be next to first timers) get theirs, then be on my way. However, some lady that leap-frogged me when I bent over to grab mine…(yes, real funny lady) took my hat off in the process, and I had to wait for it to re-appear from the carnage.

3 women had their arms around the last one, on the ground kicking and screaming when my hat popped back out.

Lady 1 arrived shortly after I did at Wal-Mart. Her mistake? She left the Cricut pallet at 3:30 to go get some video games into her cart first. (Wal-Mart let’s you shop for anything not in their ad, but then they price-match whoever’s ad it was on sale at during checkout) She did not make it back to the pallet till 4:30. Moments before the madness began.

Lady 2 arrived at the cricut pallet at 3:40…and mocked all of us because “they just have some of those expressions over on the shelf there, I’ve already got mine.”
She re-emerged at the pallet at 4:20, having discovered hers was not the special package that was on sale.

Lady 3 is the one that chose to leap-frog me. Don’t know what time they arrived.

It would have been amusing to see which one ended up with the thing, but we had places to go.

See, I’ve never “missed out” on the primary thing we are after on Black Friday by following one simple tenat:

Be kind and sociable.

At the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of stuff. Talk to the people waiting in line before hand. Chances are pretty high you’ll be waiting in line with them at the checkout as well. Ask what they’re going after, and help them get it if it’s near yours/on the way to yours. Very unlikely you’re after the same stuff. Even when you are, there’s nothing wrong with making sure they get what they’re after. A year ago, I struck a deal with several folks. I went after gameboys, while one group went for DVD players and another grabbed a cart for me. So, instead of the 1 gameboy I needed, I grabbed 8, then traded gameboys for the things I really needed.

Be kind to the employees. It’s a terrible day for them. Smile, be nice, say thank you.

Try to protect the littler ones. Kids, babies, women. Do your best to protect them from the jerks shoving things around.

Karma pays off here, at the end. Upset Karma, and you might end up on the floor with 2 others wrestling over the last of something. And then, were the injuries truly worth it, even if you were the one to “win”?

Fixing Jack.

Jack’s reconstruction is officially underway.

First and foremost was addressing the issues we had from last year. Namely, the hands not being able to hold the ornament, and the glass ornament consistantly slipping free of the glue.

I was never happy with the duct tape and pipe cleaner hands to begin with…

From Christmas

The hands have therefore been completely re-imagined. I’ll be going into detail on the process to make said hands when I have them actually completed. And, along with that, I dug out an old light up grapevine ball my mom gave us years ago. The new hands are not only steady, but looking much better, even if they still need a paint job.

From Christmas

Jack himself is in serious disrepair as well. The eyes suffered major cracks and chipping, and had to be removed. And, he’s in need of a major touch-up job on the paint.

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His legs are simply not salvageable, and thus had to be amputated. I’ll be making some replacements soon enough. The arms were removed to allow me to make the joints stronger, and make the hand re-attachement easier.

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Meanwhile, Zero presently has a head, but I’m still not entirely sure how exactly to go about the rest of it.

So, Jack will likely be ready Thanksgiving weekend, Zero…who knows.

Nuts and Bolts

There are several memories of making treats for Christmas from my childhood.

Namely, dipping pretzles and/or Oreos in chocolate, and making Nuts and Bolts.

Both were mildly annoying as a child. Seemed to take FOREVER. Eventually, we stopped with the dipping things. But, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without Nuts and Bolts.

And, given the state of the recipe at the time, it really DID take hours. Cutting up butter into little cubes and placing it around the mixture while baking it on a low setting, stirring and adding seasoning till all that butter was melted.

It’s no wonder I’ve never seen anything even resembling this mix in this day and age of toss in a bag and shake chex mixes. And, when mom stopped making it some years back, and I decided to start…I had to do SOME updating to the recipe, for my own sanity.

For purists out there, I have mangled the thing. For me, I’ve re-created the taste in about 1/6th the time. Able to whip up a batch in 30 minutes.

First thing you are going to need is a LARGE roasting pan. Mine is 18 qt, and is really too small for a full batch. Oh, I can make it work, but it makes a mess. Now, there are those aluminum disposables if you’re desperate, but you can buy a roaster oven around thanksgiving for $20 or less. And they offer a way to free up your oven whilst cooking that christmas ham or turkey anyway.

Now then, the original recipe is all but unintelligable with non-existant ingredients, so I’ll spare you that, and just post it as it exists today:

1 LARGE bag of Cheetos PUFFS (the crunchy wont work!)
2 bags of Bugles (If unable to find, Fritos work as an adequate substitute)
1 LARGE box of ORIGINAL Chex
2 pkg of Pretzles, I prefer the asthetics of sticks myself…
1 can of peanuts
1 can of cashew halves
1 can of mixed nuts **as long as we’re adding the peanuts and cashews, spend a bit more and get the mixed nuts that are not full of peanuts and cashews, eh?

3/4 lbs Butter

1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp Savory
1 TBL Beau Monde (THIS is only made by Spice Islands brand. If unable to find this, search “beautiful world spice” into google for alternatives. )
1 TBL Hickory Smoked Salt (This can be difficult to find outside of the BBQ season)

*An UnOrthOdOx special* I don’t find this is enough seasoning for my taste, so I have taken to using the highly scientific method of using heaping measuring spoons of the above instead of level when measuring my spices.

Mix all the seasoning together into a bowl.

Add the following, IN THIS ORDER to the pan.

1 bag pretzles, 1/2 the chex, 1 bag bugles, 1/2 the cheetos, repeat, place nuts on TOP.

In a seperate dish, toss that butter in the microwave and melt it.

Now drizzle a little butter over the top, be sure to get the nuts, then sprinkle the seasoning, stir and repeat until all butter and seasoning is gone. Toss in the oven at 200 degrees for 25-30 mins or until everything is nice and warm/hot but before burning the cheetos (they will burn first)

Presto! Best party mix out there.

And, as making it the other day, it struck me just how much it fits with the fall holidays, what with the wonderfull fall colors.

From Christmas

Going Christmas.

Do not fear, this is a temporary change…

New banner atop there, and a new counter added to the side.

I couldn’t get my javascript counter editted to display Christmas unless I removed the Halloween one. It would only display one or the other, not both. (if anyone knowledgable in the language is reading and knows the problem, let me know) Unwilling to do that, I’ve had to grab a freebie off the dark recesses of the internet. In all it’s ghastly jollyness.

A few things in my adult life have come to give me a hate/love relation with Christmas. And, in the darker years, I thuroughly despised the season. I do, however, enjoy watching the kids get their enjoyment.

We had to come to some kind of compromise, for I don’t wish to ruin the ‘magic’ for the kids. So, last year, I made Jack.

From Christmas

In a whole host of “it was a good idea at the time” moments…his face was made by making a rough form out of Crayola Model Magic.

From Christmas

Then covering that with some air dry procelain and getting him a paint job. I wanted to see if the porcelain would work for future Halloween projects, see…

And, it worked rather well…that year. Over the summer, Jack’s face has cracked and chipped, proving my fears of the porcelain. So, his face is getting a new touchup, in my more tried and true Powergrab…more to see if my problems with it in October were just the result of a bad case, or a change in formula, than it is a proven method at this point.

He also needs some new legs and hands. The hands were not strong enough last year, they’ll be stronger and look better this year. And, I messed up his legs last year, naughty me…making them too short then trying to graft more length onto them.

See, while the Zombietronix bipedal calculator is good at making human porportioned frames…Jack is supposed to have abnormally long arms and legs.

And…if Jack’s reconstruction goes simply, we might even build him a little Zero to go with him.

Looking back, to look forward.

As everything has reached it’s resting place for the ’08 season, it’s time to reflect on what worked…and what didn’t.

First, the struggle with the totems may be over.

ORIGINALLY, these were a TEST ONLY. Maybe be used one year, testing to see if the paper mache would hold up for the “real” project. (which was abandoned as I have no way to store it)

It was at my son’s Boy Scout Blue and Gold Banquet that the concept struck me. The kids had made these little totems out of brown paper bags and drawing faces on them for center pieces on the tables.

That got the wheels turning. Remembering how cool the old pumpkin totems were in the neighborhood growing up. And, as we sat for dinner, I sketched the idea out on a napkin.

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Then began the construction. PVC pipe frame, chickenwire skeleton, and paper towel mache with 50% wood glue 50% water mixture. (this was before my power grab mache)

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Totem 1 went well, and was tested in early spring…to the confusion of folks driving by at the time.

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Totem 2, however, was nothing but trouble from the get go. A new roll of chicken wire that, while the same guage and hole size, was softer. Then some trouble with the glue application that resulted in my sprayer actually filtering out the glue and applying more water. (it was a good idea at the time) The thing went soggy when I tried to apply a hardening coat with more traditional newspaper.

This led to the application of Monster mud over both to shore up Totem 2.

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

Finally, they arrived at a completed state.

From An UnOrthOdOx Halloween

These things have single handedly resulted in more intimidation than most anything else. Especially coupled with the music. As one little Indiana Jones put it this past year, making it through the field of skulls, past the scarecrows, and being faced by the totems. “I’m NOT going in THERE!”

The Totems have become as much an icon of the yard as the skulls out front. Yet…the rain Halloween evening may have finished off Totem 2 for good. It may be time to re-envision the Totems in a more permanent fashion. Fiberglass is in the back of my mind, yet, that powergrab mache should do the trick cheaper, and survive a fair bit of weather.

The Grave Mounds have suffered a similar problem. Though only one fell victim due to the rain (well, more a victim of a bookcase falling on it the week prior to halloween to be fair), they all collapsed in the center due to weight in the weeks prior. They will be needing some re-thinking. Not to mention plans in store for them need them LIGHTER anyway….

Another in the ‘works, but didn’t work’ category are the bead curtains.

From Halloween 2008

Yes, you could KINDA see through em, but not well, PRECISELY as I wanted. I could hide in there unseen by approaching people just fine, yet see out perfectly thanks to the optical illusion they presented. However, their loop design caught on every pixy wing, every little mask, every wheelchair and stroller….

Time for SMOOTH beads….

Finally, while really neat in the daytime, the webs went largely un-noticed at night.

From Halloween 2008

Simply not enough light to see them.

The solution WOULD be to add more light…that’s not possible with my torches. So, the answer is to add more webs. THAT would require a larger gun…

Just a few things to ponder as we close out the 2008 season.

…….or DO we?…..

From Christmas