I find myself eclipsed in my own shadow

When I started this blog last year (you know, before I started posting cute pictures of animals instead of content), I was on point. I was so witty. I don't know if it was because I was working with better material or what... but hats off to me. I was pretty amazing at this. After today (and this post), I am raising the bar as high as my Christmas Raccoon or my very first post about Billy-Bear's 4 Kids.

But right now, I am settling for mediocre funny. Don't look for gems here. I'm still mining them. You're looking at those cheap crystals they put in the watches that come from the claw machines. They sparkle a little, but we all know you only spent 25 cents on it.

So. Here's the topic I am tackling today with a little luster: Holiday Themed Soda. Now, we all know (or at least us soda historians do) that Pepsi Holiday Spice was the first soda to throw down the jolly gauntlet years ago. After Pepsi decided to discontinue that wonderful product, there was a real void left in the season.

That void was filled with Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash. It was a conservative drink at first - showing up mysteriously in November. Its packaging didn't look particularly Christmasy. But then it followed with hip advertising, letting us know what it was doing here. I can't find the words to say how much I really love this drink. It's something special and it was something unique on the market. It's done really well for itself - managing to make a return every Christmas season. This success has opened up the market for the holiday soda. On your local grocer's shelves this year you will find 7-up Pomegranate and Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale.

Pomegranate tells me three times on its "NATURAL" derived from "NATURALLY" derived "NATURAL" ingredients. It must be pretty natural. Tastes that way too. It's pretty subtle, I think. You can definitely taste the 7-up under there. Very unlike our hero, C-Splash, which is dominated by its fruit namesake. I don't know if I find anything Christmasy about it, however. I mean... Oceanspray has already unofficially officially proclaimed cranberries to be the fruit of the holidays. Who does Pomegranate think it is?

Speaking of Cranberries... let's not forget Canada Dry. It, too, is a vary subtle drink. It's just barely not normal ginger ale. I really expected more from it. But then again.. they did just keep their normal bottle. I wouldn't be shocked if it is a normal bottle of Ginger Ale with dye added and the label changed. I think in a blind taste test I wouldn't be able to pick it out from the normal. Maybe I am not a ginger ale connoisseur. I'm not a connoisseur of much of anything other than coffee and Christmas. Now a Christmas coffee review.. that's a subject I can get behind.

So ladies and gentlemen.. there you have it. Cranberry Splash is still the number one soda of the holidays, but not the number one drink. I think that title has to go to Eggnog, which is unfair... because it is also the number one reason for heart failure in the Holidays and number one drinkable pudding of the the Holidays. I wanted to buy eggnog, but it is shockingly expensive. A quart from Mayfield? $3.98. I won't even drink half of the damn thing. If I did, I wouldn't make it to Christmas...

SPEAKING OF

32
days
until
CHRISTMAS