Night Owl Cards

    Christmas greetings.   My very first -- and, so far, only -- 2025 Topps Holiday card arrived in the mail a few days ago. I've said a few times that this year's Holiday set doesn't appeal to me because the design doesn't do enough to forget that the set is basically a repeat of flagship -- which was the issue with the first few years of Holiday.   However, the parallels are rather fun and this card is special. Not only is it my first Holiday card from this year but it is Jhonkensy Noel's first appearance in Holiday -- see the rookie logo -- which means this is a First Noel card.   It's too bad that Noel is currently without a team but he's useful in my collection right now. Added together with the other Noels in my collection, I have four total, which allows me to do this:     🎶Noel     🎶Noel     🎶Noel     🎵 Noel!     🎶Born   🎶is the     🎶King of     🎵Israel     Merry...

  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, readers. May this find you well and at least somewhat in the holiday spirit. Things are looking up for me, as I was once prepared for a quiet holiday with just the two of us but now it seems the youngster will be arriving with boyfriend in tow! I try to write a post on Christmas Eve every year and this is my gift for you this time -- a Match the Song Title post about an album titled "A Christmas Gift for You". This well-known Christmas album was originally issued in November 1963 and created by the since-disgraced (and deceased) Phil Spector. The CD pictured is from the 1989 re-release, which I bought probably in 1989 as one of the first Christmas CDs I ever owned. My girlfriend (now wife) loved this CD and many of the songs. 1960s music and pop culture was retro king in the late 1980s and as difficult it is to believe now there wasn't a ton of pop Christmas music piped into every store until the '80s. The re-re-re-re-release of ...

  Merry Christmas, readers. This Christmas season has rushed by, as it often does, but it seems like it found another gear this year and suddenly the cookies aren't made, the decorations are haphazard and I haven't watched a single, obligatory Christmas special. So I think it would behoove me if I made a holiday post right now to remind me what I should be doing. Then again I write a holiday post every year, so I'll stop babbling. This year I'm ranking the Santa Claus cards in the 2007 Topps Santa Claus set. Do you all remember that set? It seemed to come out of nowhere and I have barely paid attention to it since, mostly because it showed up when I didn't know what was going on in modern cards ("it's just Topps and Upper Deck flagship, right?") The boxes, which originally sold for $9.99, contained 16 base cards and a Santa relic card and Santa autograph. Per usual, I don't care about the hits (they're not really hits, you guys -- I saw one vid...

  Merry Dr. Christmas Jones, everyone!   I am writing this post in advance, mostly because I'm not sure if there is going to be any power on Christmas Eve, which is when I traditionally write this. Also, the Bills are on tomorrow afternoon ... um, if there's power.    The storm has hit, it's a whiteout as I write this late Friday afternoon. We're supposed to get like four feet by the end of Monday. That will be the second four-plus-feet storm of the winter already and I'm ready to move out of this stupid place. It only took me 30-plus years.   But let's not diminish the Christmas spirit! I've come here to show cards from others full of Christmas cheer! They sent these cards early enough that they not only showed up in time for Christmas but they arrived before the travel ban and mailmen started being arrested for walking on the streets (this didn't really happen -- I don't think -- I can't even see out my windows).  One person was so on top of th...