A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 12

We're back in the hard candy section of the pool.  Today I'm looking at Peanut Butter Pillows. Little pockets of smooth peanut butter encapsulated around a satiny hard sugar shell. 

Some manufacturers of Peanut Butter Pillows proclaim they come from a Pennsylvania Dutch recipe. That makes complete sense to me. My Aunt Patsy and her brood lived up in the Keystone State. Every year, her family would gift my mom and her parents with these sinful creations made by the most pious people on earth, the Amish!

This isn't a candy you just crunch and munch. The real fun is sucking on the lightly peanut-flavored hard candy until you're surprised by hitting that vein of the creamy peanut butter. The whole experience was like prospecting for oil, if the oil was polyunsaturated fat.

There's a similar candy to the Peanut Butter Pillows. Old Fashion Peanut Candies are shaped like shelled peanuts with a bright yellow hue. They're thrice as big which means three times as much peanut butter. I wouldn't consider these a variant of the Pillows as I'm not sure if either candy is made from the same company. But if you get a chance to try either variety, especially if you love peanut butter, don't let a chance to pop a couple into your mouth go by!

The 18 Days of a Star Wars Christmas Miracle +7: Day 8

It's time to spread a little Christmas cheer with everybody's favorite walking carpet: Chewbacca!

  So tall, so furry, so gosh darn loyal and lovable. It's one reason we named our second son, Chewbacca! (This is no joke, we actually have a HUMAN child named Chewbacca, or Chewie for short.)

  Anyways, the picture of the album you so on the left is a real recording. It's not officially licensed, but somebody took all of the noises Chewbacca made in the original trilogy, put them on a synthesizer and put them to music. Much like those Christmas albums that use puppy barks and cat mews to single Jingle Bells- someone had the idea to make Silent Night using Wookiee calls.

 So my gift to you today is a sample of the  fabled recording along with a link to another song that answers the eternal question: What Do You Get a Wookiee For Christmas When He Already Owns a Comb?

Enjoy...

The 18 Days of a Star Wars Christmas Miracle +7: Day 2

 

 It just wasn't Christmas without this LP. I don't know how many year's in a row would be put up the Christmas tree watching 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' and listening to this album. 

   Produced in 1980 by Meco, the techno whiz behind the disco version of the Star Wars theme and the Cantina Song. Featuring Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, R2-D2, and Chewbacca, the majority of the album took place in a droid factory making toys for an 'S. Claus.' 

   The album is hard to come by, with the cassette version being especially rare. But another reason that makes this album so collectible is that it features the first profession recording of Jon Bon Jovi. Recording under his birth name 'John Bongiovi' the future rocker landed the lead vocals on the song 'R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas' as his cousin, who was a producer on the project, ran the studio that John worked at as a custodian. 

    So as my advent present to you, here is a recording of that first Bon Jovi, er Bongiovi masterpiece...