Ho Ho Holiday Contest Winners

It has been decided that since there were so many entries, and all of them were so absolutely awesome, that EVERYONE who participated will be receiving some sort of a prize. It has also been decided that there will be an Honorable Honorable Mention prize as well, giving us 5 winners, and 7 losers who will still be getting cards.

The winners will be announced momentarily, but first I want to take a moment and thank everyone who submitted an entry into this contest, as well as everyone who voted for their favorite in the poll. 88 votes is a pretty impressive turnout. As I said earlier, the poll results are not gospel, and it is I who has the ultimate decision. Much like Dubya, I am the decider. I will say that the poll results are very accurate, and there won't be too many surprises. We had two cards that tied for first with 22 votes apiece, as well as two more cards that tied for second with 10 each.

We'll start with our newest category, Honorable Honorable Mention. While this card was tied for 2nd in the voting, putting up an impressive 10 votes, there were simply better entries, and people who put more time into their submissions. That not to say that this card isn't absolutely brilliant. My favorite thing about it is actually it's simplicity, and that is the main reason why it was selected for a prize at all. Congratulations to Thorzul, of Thorzul Will Rule, for winning the Honorable Honorable Mention prize! I am not 100% sure what the prize will be yet, but chances are it'll be your choice of the leftovers from the prize pool that the top 4 winners will be selecting from, or couple of random Brewers cards of note.


Next up we have the winner of our Honorable Mention category, which goes to Jeremy of No One's Going To Read This Blog. His Festivus card is excellent, and even though it only garnered 7 votes in the poll, the fact that he designed both a front and back to his card definitely helped his cause. I almost awarded this card third place, but didn't want to stray too far from the poll results.
The back of this card is as hilarious as it is well-done.


Now, on to the big winners. These 3 folks not only got the most votes in the poll, they obviously submitted some high-quality custom cards. It is my honor to award 3rd place in the First Annual Ho Ho Holiday Contest to Jim of GCRL. His entry combines a sound concept, with first class execution. The signatures look fantastic, and I can tell that a lot of work went into this card design. The fact that GCRL didn't design a back is the main reason I was considering flipping his entry with Jeremy's, but this card got 3 more votes in the poll, so the people seemed to enjoy it. If you rigged the poll GCRL, it worked. Congratulations on winning third place!


This is where things get difficult. There were 2 entries that between them garnered 50% of all poll votes. Each of them finished with 22, and they are both truly worthy of the title. I agonized over this decision for days. Both of them are exceptionally sound of concept, and well executed. Both of them took the time to actually assemble and physically mail their entries to me, and they will be unique pieces of my collection for all time. In the end, I decided to award second place in the First Annual Ho Ho Holiday Contest to Slangon of Condition:Poor.
The story behind his Krampus/Sinterclaas T202 relic is fascinating, and cultural folklore happens to be something of which I am a huge fan.


And then there was one. This is the moment we've all been waiting for (or not). It's time to announce the first place winner of the First Annual Ho Ho Holiday Contest. His entry arrived late, but the photos were sent in before the deadline expired, so I decided not to ding him for it. This card has been selected as the winner mainly because I didn't see it coming. Condition:Poor has a reputation that precedes him, especially after winning Thorzul's Nightmares on Cardboard Contest earlier this year. I knew what to expect from Slangon, and I knew it was going to be good. I did not however expect something as awesome as what this year's champion Dayf of Cardboard Junkie submitted. That's not to say that I have a low opinion of Dayf, because I can assure you I do not. The man is an inspiration to me, and one of the main reason this blog even exists. He's also a fellow beardy, but that ultimately did not factor into my decision. What did factor into my decision was the strong showing Dayf's card had in the poll. He and Slangon were tied when the polls closed yesterday at 4pm. Once again, congratulations to Dayf! You are the First Annual Ho Ho Holiday Contest Grand Prize Winner!!!
This card almost made me shoot egg nog from my nose at first glance. There is nothing nastier than a nose full of nog. What is "nog" anyway? I'd like to know what specifications a beverage has to meet in order to be officially classified as a "nog".


This contest was more fun that I had ever imagined it would be. It looked for a while like I would be lucky if there enough entries to even have a legitimate contest, but my blogosphere brethren got down to business, and absolutely made this the best contest I have held all year. Take that Gint-A-Cuffs! Once more, I want to say a big "thank you" to everyone who entered, and to everyone who voted in the poll. You made this contest what it is, and it is awesome.

Just to recap, here are the winners in list format:

1st Place: Dayf (Cardboard Junkie)
2nd Place: Slangon (Condition:Poor)
3rd Place: Jim (GCRL)
Honorable Mention: Jeremy (No One's Going To Read This Blog)
Honorable Honorable Mention: Thorzul (Thorzul Shall Rule)


To ALL contestants: Please email me your addresses, and a list of teams/players of your choice so I can put together a little prize package for you. For best results, stick to baseball & football, since that's pretty much all I got.

To the WINNERS: There will be a list of prizes posted on my page in the coming days. Dayf will get first crack at it, and gets to select 3 autographed and 5 relic/refractor cards, Slangon will be up second, and will select his one autograph, and 7 relics, followed by GCRL who gets first crack at the leftovers, to select his 5 relic and 3 refractor cards. Finally, Jeremy and Thorzul will each be receiving 6 random refractors and one relic of my choice. I will try accommodate both of your collecting preferences when selecting your prizes.