Ho, Ho, Whoa! Christmas Cards 2017

My family always gives me cards for Christmas. Always. The last time they didn't was not in this century, let alone decade! (I don't know the exact year, it was sometime before I began keeping records on my collection in 1998) I was not expecting too much this year...but I got a ton!

I got: 3 hobby boxes, 9 blasters, 24 packs of Panini stickers (Something I stressed that I wanted) and a random assortment of other packs. It took me from around 10:30 AM to after 5 PM to open them all, although I did take a couple hours out for some other stuff....including spending some of the $100 my brother gave me for COMC!

Honestly, I was hoping I would get this year's UD Series 1 and maybe a blaster or two and a pack of Panini stickers or two, and I would have been happy if that had been all I received. Totally, truly. But, it wasn't! Now, since I know I won't finish listing these in my paper listing and Excel listings (OCD, remember), and I won't scan any until they are listed, I took some pictures of some of the highlights. There are a couple other highlights I missed, but you shall see them in a future post.

Here are some of the "hits" I got...and a MAJOR personal milestone!

 Jaylen Brown rookie year auto....nice! I'm watching him on TV as I type this.

 Perhaps my biggest name "hit" of the day. Draisaitl is the #2 player on the Oilers, after Connor McDavid.

 First time I've seen one of these clear parallels. They are really great. And rare! One in every 90 packs, so one per 4 boxes. I'm glad I pulled one. Wish they were not as rare because I'd love to get some more of them. Perhaps that COMC gift from my brother will be used for that...

 Another view

 Only my second card of his

 Not my first auto of Peters, but my best. Really stinks that Red Horse closed up in mid-season and left him without a ride, even worse was that he was contending for the title at the time.

 My first card of Corey LaJoie, and it's numbered! The Hemric Purple parallel is two per box, I also got Martin Truex Jr. who I didn't think to photograph. Dale Jr. is the base card. Only my second card of Hemric, and something like 700th of Dale Jr, my all-time favorite.

 The base and Ruby Murray came out of the same pack, back to back.

 My Ruby from the second box was a retired player.

 I believe, off the top of my head, that this is the first Brooklyn era relic I've pulled. I can't remember anymore. It's only my second card of him, too.

 This was actually the first hit of the day, but I didn't think to take a photo when I first opened it so I did it while the post composition page for this post you are reading was already open on my computer.

I hit an auto and a jersey in the same box! That's pretty cool. I also got my first card of Brady Skjei, (Pronounced Shay) who has become one of my favorite Rangers. I had been wanting a card of him for a while, and I  ended up getting two today. And...he gets to take part in my MAJOR personal milestone! This photo, well, it's the 10,000th I've taken in 2017. I started numbering the photos in order of being taken several years ago, as it helps me keep them from being jumbled, and in theory I can sort my website to show them in proper order if they don't upload in the right order, which has already happened a few times. It also plays to my OCD tendencies. My previous record was somewhere in the 5000s, I think. I crossed that in September and knew every photo I would take after that would increase the new personal record, but I didn't think that I would hit 10,000 this year. I was wrong! I don't know my previous exact record, but I know I've never hit 10,000. (I really need to make a list, but it would require paging though my entire website, and I have almost 400,000 images on it) I figured I would hit it next year- my brother and I are going to add in a weekly car show (and I have a tendency of photographing every car at a show if I can, even if I've already photographed it dozens of times) but it turns out I hit it this year. I was able to do this because I took almost 5000 photos in a week in September...at a 3 car show week. I may never do it again, but I am thrilled I was able to do it at all.

I'm actually pretty happy today, even though my health is acting up and physically I feel pretty awful.
And we had a White Christmas!

I hope everyone had as good a day as I did today.