A Cracked Christmas

I like the holiday season. Most of the time, at least. Yes, I get as tired as anyone of the endless shopping advertisements that start appearing sometime in September, and sometimes Christmas Cards are a bit annoying...or hilarious...even if the title of this post has nothing to do with this Cracked:

For the most part, though, I like this time of year. That is in part because of Christmas, in part because of college football's bowl season, in part because work slows down to a crawl, and in part because my birthday is two days after Christmas.

This year, good cheer from around the blogosphere started rolling in the form of cards and Christmas cards. The title of this post, of course, refers to the blog A Cracked Bat.  Julie sent out a number of Christmas cards -- I've seen a couple around the blogs already -- and I was the lucky recipient of one of those cards.

In her card, she expressed thanks to me for being so welcoming and getting her started on the path of trading cards through the mail. I'm happy that I had that effect, because her real "thanks" was incredible:

This card was a manupatch/relic from Topps Series 2 created specifically for that set, and it honors my favorite 1980s catcher, Gary Carter.  This patch pushes the Carter Collection up to 188 cards, magazines, autographs, and/or oddball items

Julie, I hope that you have a fantastic holiday season and a prosperous New Year. Thank you again for being a great trading partner, and here's to many more trades!