The Annual Advent Calendar

Every year since 2021, my good friend Ryan (aka SumoMenkoMan) has hooked me up with a custom advent calendar for the holidays.  It's literally twenty-five individually wrapped gifts shipped in a giant box.  In an effort to give you an idea of the size... I laid out some cards across the top of the box:

Here's what I saw when I opened it up on Monday night (yeah, I was a day late):

And here's a look at the advent calendar in its entirety:

Now in a perfect world, I'd sit and hammer out a daily post... just like Nacho Grande does with his Lego City Advent Calendar over on his blog.  Huge props to him for managing his time wisely as he's a husband, father, college professor, group breaker, Lego set maker, Barry Larkin super collector, and board game (and baseball card) blogger all-in-one.

Ryan is in a similar situation... where he's a husband, father, YouTuber, author, sumo card super collector, and proud member of our armed forces.

While... I'm just this single dude who teaches and periodically blogs about cards.  Sadly... I still don't have their time management skills... so I will be taking a slightly different approach.  

Although my plan is to open up Ryan's presents on a daily basis... this year's SumoMenkoMan Advent Calendar will be presented in four parts.  The first three will be published on the first three Saturdays of this month with the fourth part coming out on Christmas morning.

Let's get the ball rolling...

Day #1: Sealed Samurai

Ryan kicked things off with a gorgeous greeting card featuring a samurai in his armor.  He wrote his note on a Post-It note, so that I could use the card for someone else.  That someone else ended up being my father:

In addition to being a greeting card, it's also marketed as a display piece with a special stand.  I chose this route and added it to my father's shelf.  I could probably write an entire post on this display, but for now I just want to point out the greeting card on the right and the PopFuji beer can on the far left... which was part of last year's advent calendar.  

Day #2:  Speeding Tickets

Some of you might be wondering why he would send a pair of Formula 1 Grand Prix of Long Beach tickets from 1980.  Well I collect things related to the Toyota Supra.  And printed on the back of each ticket is an image of the Celica Supra which was the first generation of that car.

Another thing that Ryan knows I love... are unopened packs... especially the Japanese ones.  

Get ready, because the next few days are filled with packs.

Day #3: Three Packs of Terror

2024 is the 70th Anniversary of Godzilla and here are three packs celebrating it:

2024 Ensky Godzilla

I opened one pack to review.  The contents were two acetate cards and one piece of gum:

2024 Ensky Godzilla #04

The first card features an awesome battle scene from Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966).  I haven't seen this film, but I just added it to my Max watchlist.

2024 Ensky Godzilla #31

The second card is a scene from Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003).  Another movie I haven't watched yet.

Did you know that there are thirty-eight Godzilla films?  I probably have seen only four or five of them, but Max has a bunch of them... so I'll try to start crossing them off.

The last item in the pack is this individually wrapped piece of gum:  

If you ever tried Japanese gum, there's this fruity flavor that I've never been able to figure out.  The only words to describe it are "sweet", "yummy", and "unique".  Unfortunately the flavor only lasts for a few minutes.

What happens to the other two packs?  Well... one will be reserved for A Pack To Be Named Later... and the other will go into my unopened pack collection.

Day #4:  Four Packs of Calbee

Calbee is a Japanese snack company who is well known for their trading cards.  If you've never seen how they are distributed, the packs come attached to bags of their snacks.

Ryan hooked me up with four bags/packs of 2024 Calbee Series Two.  Each pack contains two cards.  I opened up three packs and pulled these for my Japanese binder:

Toshiaki Imae, Gregory Polanco, & Shota Watanabe

Hiroya Miyagi, Natsuki Takeuchi, & Soichiro Yamazaki

Here's a closer look at the Gregory Polanco:

2024 Calbee Series Two #100

After spending over a decade with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, Polanco crossed the Pacific to play in the NPB.  He's spent the past two seasons with the Chiba Lotte Marines.  Based on the image on the back of his trading card he doesn't seem to be too excited.

But I was excited to see these four packs.  The fourth and final one is going into my unopened pack collection.

Day #5:  Five Packs of K-1 Fighters

Back in 2017, Ryan wrote a review on one of these 1997 Bandai K-1 Fighters packs over on APTBNL.  A few months later, he sent me a bunch of unopened packs... including one of these.  You can check out the contents here.

Yesterday I sat down and opened one more pack.  Here's what I pulled:

I didn't recognize any familiar names, but these will also be added to my Japanese Athlete PC binder.  As for the four remaining packs... one will go to my unopened pack collection, while the other three will go into my rainy day pack stash.

Day #6: Six Packs of Formula Nippon

The popularity of Formula 1 racing seems to have skyrocketed over the past few years.  I have a buddy who loves collecting the trading cards and I even know students who follow the sport.

I honestly don't know much.  But that's not going to prevent me from treasuring these six packs of 1997 Epoch Formula Nippon.

Each pack contains eight cards.  Here's what I pulled out of the first pack I opened:

As with the K-1 packs... I'll set one aside for my collection... and toss the rest into my rainy pack stash.

Day #7:  Seven Snack Packs

Ryan definitely knows what I like, because whenever I go to the Japanese grocery stores in my area... I look for stuff like this:

Each of these items are Japanese snacks that come with some form of trading card.  Based on my previous purchases, they're usually wafer cookies, but I've also seen chocolate or "milky" taffy.

I'm still snacking on the Calbee chips from Day #4... so I won't be tearing into these right now.  However as I eat them, I'll set the cards aside and show them off in a future post.

Until then...

Thank you Ryan for this very generous advent calendar.  Truly appreciate the thought and consideration put into each of these gifts.  I'm still waiting on your "big" present to arrive.  However if it doesn't arrive by early next week... I will just ship your Christmas presents out separately.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!