The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

It’s the first day of December, the day to crack open the first door of Advent Calendars and marvel at the joys within. The day when you can actually start humming Christmas songs without too many strange looks. The day that you can see if it’s ‘festive novelty’ to insert tinsel and baubels into demonstrative skeletons as Christmas Tree Organ-ments. Ok, maybe the latter is just me.

I’ve always loved Advent Calendars, from the first ones I remember, lacking any form of reward besides very serious looking, artistic renditions of bible things – stars, donkeys (which confused me as a child somewhat, because donkeys are summer beach rides here) and people wearing dressing gowns on sand dunes.

I was later introduced to the joyful experience of chocolate advent calendars, I can’t remember that many from my early ones, but I remember one of my friends having Mario and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. I’m pretty sure I had a turtles one, but that may be wishful thinking.

Not to sound curmudgeonly, but Advent Calendars back then were special. The pictures in the box and on the chocolates often tended to depict the Calendars subjects doing Christmassy things, instead of just all generic images. There were generic images, but they were offset by the pure awesome of seeing Donatello making a snowman or Birdo with a wrapped gift.

The last few years I’ve definately noticed a trend towards the ‘print a standard sheet’ approach for the Calendars. Will that stop me buying them? Heck no.

I love the idea behind the Playmobil and LEGO Advent Calendars, and wish more companies did that sort of thing. A gift a day of a well-liked franchise could bring in a lot more than generic images and chocolate. Imagine getting a He-Man calendar back in the day, sold with an armourless, weaponless He-Man and Skeletor figure and getting equipment all through, until Skeletor is dressed in the Santa outfit meant for He-Man and He-Man is sporting leathers. Ok, that wouldn’t be too much of a change to his fashions. There is even a perfect opportunity to do a Nintendo calendar with Brawl-style trophies in each day.

In short, I love Advent Calendars. I love them because they give a reason every morning to think of Christmas, to build up expectations and to raise excitement, even if just for a monochrone doodle and a piece of cheap chocolate. Advent Calendars are love.

Now, I could stop here and you are quite welcome to treat this as a break, and if you want to I’ll see you off on a song. If you want to stay, I’ll see you in a few.

Ladies and gentleman, from 1996 a clip of James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers performing “Last Christmas”.

Still here? Hey, you are so cool.

Dugal Dugal: No…no…noooooo
boy: onee-san?
Dugal: No! No! You cheating who…um…
boy: **sniff**
Dugal: Oh no, don’t do that thing with the puppy eyes and quivering lip…
boy: I’m sowwy, onee-san…
Dugal: It’s ok, it had to happen eventually…you had to beat me once…
boy: …I never menna beat you the other two hunnerd and thirty-six though, ‘onest.
Dugal: …yeah, thanks kid. I was using my best attacks too.
boy: No-one spams PK Fire like onee-san!
Dugal: Damn straight! Besides, you’ve had practice, I don’t know why Piss-can…
boy: Wii-kun?
Dugal: Him…why he never lets me play.
boy: Didja ask him to letcha?
Dugal: Why the hell would I do that? Honestly, it’s my right to play this shiny magic box thing of colours, noise and flickering movement anytime I see fit…
boy: I really dunno why he doesn’t wanna share then…
Dugal: Shota…have you been hanging around talking to Guise, cos you sound…
[Door swings open, letting in Wii-Kun and a strong, chilling breeze]
Wii-kun: There were dogs…dogs frozen to trees, mid-stream. An old lady beat me with an umbrella because I ‘looked at something she was thinking about considering to maybe come back to buy at a future time’. A homeless guy chased me with a rolled up newspaper from the 90s. Middle aged mothers mispronounced video games within earshot. It’s hell out there!
Dugal: You’re late, it’s December already.
Wii-kun: But…but it’s not December 2nd, so I still completed the mission, right?
Dugal: We shall see, you got the three Advent Calendars, right?
Wii-kun: Yeah..well, kinda…
Dugal: ‘Kinda’ is not a ‘Mission Achieved’ or ‘Stage Clear’ pronouncement, ‘Kinda’ is more ‘I’m sorry Mario but the Princess is in another castle’ thing…and so help me if I won’t wasteyou with a roll of quarters ’til you run out of continues if you’ve failed.
Wii-kun: Well…I got the three calendars…
Dugal: But?
Wii-kun: Not Playmobil or Lego…
Dugal: Damn it, I am so going to…
Wii-kun: No, no…see it’s fine…I got us Advent Calendars that can help anyway. I got one that should gives us the tech advantage, one that should give us the required humour that we sorely lack amongst ourselves and one that is, I believe, intrinsinctly linked with last years Playmobil Advent Calendar..perhaps even reincarnation…
Dugal: Reincarnation, huh? Ok, I take that one. Shota gets the tech and you get the humour.
Wii-kun: Wait, why does the kid get the tech?
Dugal: 1…because I like him, 2…because I hate you, 3…because you are so little a bit character, this serves as ‘development’.
Wii-kun: Seniority is such a bitch…
Dugal: …and so are you. Get to handing out, Wii-mote Boy.
Wii-kun: Fine…still unnamed boy, here’s your responsibility. It’s themed around alien technology and strange creatures from other worlds, all sciency with DNA and stuff, so hopefully we get some Dragoon parts, a beam sword and some ray guns.

boy: Issa Ben10!
Dugal: Wii-kun…I’m not sure that’s going to hold much for us to celebrate, unless an ex-employee of the calendar-makers got furious on his last day and decided to add hentai images of Gwen in there….and if that has happened, that calendar becomes MINE!
Wii-kun: Well, they are meant to be magical, so maybe the parts kinda…grow…when they come out. Sort of how Transformers get larger in robot mode.
Dugal: Show me your calendar…before I get angry that you are making me not picture Gwen…
Wii-kun: Well, mine is all about family, friends and humour.

Dugal: You have so failed…redeem yourself. My calendar, show me the glory of my valiant knights!
Wii-kun: Well, about that…see, there were two Playmobil Advent Calendars…and this one, well, it’s more tied to…
Dugal: no..oh no…
Wii-kun: …the other one…
Dugal: Oh god, no…

boy: Issa princess!
Dugal: Why’d you get Barbie?!
Wii-kun: It was either that or High School Musical?
Dugal: I hate you…I hate you so much…

So, in the words of the Dionaea House, the door is open as we venture to the three Advent Calendars. What did we find inside?

Behind Door One, Ben10 had a picture of a Snowman on a Sled and the chocolate was a Christmas Tree. The Simpsons had the message “Tis The Season” and the chocolate was a Christmas Tree. Barbie had a picture of a Snowman on a Sled and the chocolate was a Robin on a Log.

Of interesting note, Box One was inside Ben’s Omnitrix and Barbie’s bra. Mm, I nibbled on the contents of Barbies bra, it was sweet.

Considering the mapping of the doors was the same for Ben and Barbie, I think it’s likely that we’re going to find all the images are going to be the same. This does lead to a rather scary thought, is Barbie one of Ben’s lesser seen alien heroes? Is Ken a distant relative of the Tennison’s who has been shacking up with Barbie? Is the Rustbucket formerly Barbie’s RV where all the make-up counters have been replaced with super-computers? Did Gwen and Charmcaster really become ‘special friends’ and get all sweaty and grindy? Whatever happend to all Barbies pets and babies?

So, lets try a link up. The log the bird was sitting on had snow on it, so I think we’ve got a bit of a story going in the background here.

You see, ’tis the season for hacking away vegetation to bring it indoors where after being strung up with tinsel and electrics it will most likely wither and die. In the process of chopping down the Christmas Tree it fell on a passing snowman swooshing down the hill on a sled. The snowman exploded, spraying snow everywhere, including straight up. As gravity took its toll, the snow fell and covered the fallen wood. A passing robin fluttered down to rest. Yes indeed. Tis the season.

Now, I know what you are wondering – how did a snowman get a sled? Calvin and Hobbes, obviously. Calvin makes suicidal and incident prone snowmen and frequently goes for reckless trips down hills, why not listen to Hobbes and use a test subject?