A very, very grown-up Christmas: Action figures and advice for future children

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The most important thing that you need to know about me is that I am an adult.

                And being an adult, my wish list this holiday season featured a great many items that appeal to persons of a mature standing in society.

                A subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Ties. Several bottles of finely-aged scotch. Meryl Streep’s entire filmography on tape.

                Also on my list? Many, many toys. Not the dirty, bedroom kind either. The fun kind. Action figures. But you know, for grown-ups.

                I believe collectibles is the accepted name we’ve given to these items, but let’s all be honest with ourselves for a minute. Where I’m from, we call a spade a spade and a toy a toy and those things, as fun to collect as they may in fact be, are still plain old fashioned toys. Just with way cooler accessories.

                I’ve been a big action figure fan my whole life. From my early days, during the golden age of action figures (the 90s), playing with “Terminator 2,” “Jurassic Park,” Power Ranger and GI Joe guys all the way through the modern day.

                These days, it’s mostly “Terminator” stuff that I enjoy purchasing, but I’m open to other merchandise from pop culture mediums I enjoy, as well. This includes your Batmans, your Dexters and so on from there.

                Now, the toy – or collectible if you’re still in that closet – community is splintered into two main groups: those who open and those who don’t. I’m an open guy for the most part. I don’t see any reason to leave all those bad ass accessories locked away in a box, unfondled.

24/7: Road to Christmas: Musing on Beloved Traditions Before the Sleigh Arrives

It’s that time of year once again. The time where I complain about B101’s taste in Christmas music, watch “Black Christmas” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” over and over and scream The Royal Guardsmen’s “Snoopy’s Christmas” at the top of my lungs when I’m in the car by myself.

As magical as those traditions are – very – they’re not even all that high on my list of favorite Christmas activities.

Of course, I don’t have an actual list per say. That’d take too much work. What I do have is a loose and random collection of things that I enjoy or enjoyed doing during the long, slow slog towards C-Day morning, when wrapping paper bombs go off in living rooms all across this great and god-fearing nation.

• The family party. Gatherings with the extended family used to be a pretty huge deal when I was younger, but none more than the Christmas party, which my family hosted. These parties got less and less important as I got older until it reached the point where I stopped going to any of them. Things have come full circle now and I enjoy going to them again, but still nowhere near as much as I did when I was a lad. I’ll always remember hanging out with the cousins and playing nonsense games with Nerf guns. The all-time highlight took place during the Christmas party when I was in 8^th grade. Both my younger cousin and I were completely obsessed with the WWF and we spent a huge chunk of the night reenacting matches and moves. It all culminated memorably with me locking him in the Mandible Claw complete with sweaty sock, which made both of us crack up. Well, he cracked up after I'd removed the sock from his mouth.