Having a blog means better Christmas gifts

Not long into starting this blog I discovered that people have it together far more than I do. While I'm stumbling through life trying to figure out where I put my snowbrush, how I'm going to pay for any Christmas presents and why I forgot to get a haircut again, others already have the who, what, when, where, why and how marked, targeted and checked off.

But I did do one thing right. I started a blog about baseball cards. Because of that, those very together people take time out at this time of year to send me Christmas card packages.

I'm in awe of their planning.

Christmas card packages mean I will get exactly what I want every Christmas. It balances out the socks and gloves. It adds fun to what can be a humdrum part of the holiday for an adult. It basically means better Christmas gifts than before I had a blog.

How do I determine whether it's a Christmas package? Well, they wish me a Merry Christmas, duh. Some are especially together and send a holiday card.

I recently received a slew of Christmas card packages and it will take me until the 25th to get to them all. The first one is from Spiff at Texas Rangers Cards.

Spiff is one of the first bloggers to send me cards and he's still doing it to this day, complete with a business card and Christmas greetings. A couple of cards jumped out at me:

This is a companion card to last night's post.

I mentioned yesterday that 1970s cards sometimes didn't do a complete job of showing what was great about the '70s.

Fortunately there was Upper Deck in the 1990s. UD's All-Time Heroes sets from 1993 and 1994 captured what the '70s was all about. This '93 All-Time Heroes BAT triple folder card of Rick Monday shows the dramatic moment in 1976 when Monday, playing for the Cubs at the time, snatched the American flag from two protesters who were intent on burning it in the outfield at Dodger Stadium.

It's probably Monday's most famous moment, more so than even the home run he hit in Montreal to win the NLCS for the Dodgers in 1981. It's sad that it took until 1993 for it to show up on a card.

This is a terrific item and I'm very happy I have the pages to showcase these folders.

I am making it a mission next year to finish off all the Dodgers from the Fleer boxed sets from the late '80s/early '90s, they've been roaming around freely, taunting me for way too long.

The problem is, I don't know what I'm looking at half the time. This is a card from the '89 Fleer SuperStars boxed set, which my want list told me I have already. I don't have it already. Yeah, this mission is going to be fun.

By the way, exciting photo.

More 2015 goals (this from a guy who doesn't make New Year's resolutions or goals): GET A BLEEPING CLUE OF WHAT I NEED FOR 2014.

I blew off this year in card collecting worse than any year since 2005. I have no idea what Dodgers I still need from 2014 Update because I'm still working on Dodgers from 2014 Series 2. Fortunately, Scott Van Slyke's magnificent beard told me I needed this card.

My first 2014 sticker. And the bestest 2014 sticker.

I wonder if Kershaw will make A.J. Ellis his exclusive catcher?

Spiff sent a mess more Dodgers, including team sets of things like '92 Score and '90 Fleer, which could come in very handy if I plan to collect the full set of either, which if you're thinking that's what I'm going to do you can just leave right now.

So, we'll call this Christmas card package #1.

From one of the Together People.