Hooping for the Holidays

 Christmas Day is associated with cards for me. Ever since I can remember, my family has given me cards for Christmas, and I usually spend most of Christmas day opening, listing and sometimes even scanning the cards I got that day. 

Since 2018, Panini has issued a set called Hoops Winter, which is a snow themed version of the basic Hoops design. However, I have very few of them. I didn't see the 2018-19 set for sale at all, but I was able to make a huge trade for them on the Database, bringing me 75 of the 300 cards. 

I missed 2019-20 in full. I don't have a single card from that set from that season.

2020-21 is even worse. Not only did I miss Hoops Winter completely, I missed regular Hoops as well. It was a very bad time for the hobby (and the world) and is a gaping hole in my collection. 

I missed 2021-22 and 2022-23 Hoops Winter as well, but at least I got a decent amount of the regular Hoops for both seasons. 

2023-24, I was finally able to find one single blaster which meant I truly got to experience the set! 

I thought I was going to miss 2024-25, which is the final season, but a trip to my local Wal-Mart in the first week of November 2025 - a year after they were released - surprised me with 6 of them on the shelf. I could only afford one, but I am glad I got to experience the last year of the product. 

I really like the set this year. (well, last year now) They have snow built up at the top and bottom and falling throughout the photo. 

Overall I like the design of the 2024-25 set more than 2023-25. They also have Prizm parallels with big foil snowflakes which are really cool but I didn't scan yet- holding out for a Heystack someday. 

Now that Topps has the NBA license back, they released a set called Topps Holiday and lean way more into the Christmas theme than Panini did. 

Every card has the snow theme and the holly wrapping the team color border, and the colors are candy-cane bordered too! I really like these...and part of the reason I didn't have enough money for more than one blaster is that I had already ordered a box of Topps Holiday, multiple boxes of Topps flagship and other card stuff. 

One in every 10 boxes of the Holiday set includes and oversize ornament, and I was lucky enough to get one, also of VJ, making this the first time I can remember that my first two cards from a set that I got naturally-meaning not buying singles- were the same person. 

It's gigantic, it's holographic, generally awesome! I won't be hanging it on my tree - not going to risk damaging it with a hook - but I do plan to use it as the image for VJ in my Encyclopedia of People in my collection. 

For the first time in Basketball card history, Topps released an advent calendar for the Holiday set and I got one waiting for me. I will be doing this day by day in December and I am sure it will appear on Cardboard History- perhaps I'll even find the motivation to post daily.  In the meantime, I'm going to appreciate the cards I already do have. After not doing much card stuff since last winter, it's like a switch was flipped and now I'm only doing cards and not models. It's not related to the basketball and hockey seasons starting, as they were both well under way before the switch. I can't really explain it, and I'm not even sure I should even be trying to figure it out. After all, the time I spent thinking about it and writing about it could have been spent cropping scans 😁