it's like christmas in november

i see that this year, the topps holiday release is being referred to (at least in some locations such as sportlots) as "topps holiday christmas". this probably has more to do with the "holiday" inserts in series 1, 2, and update (i assume they will be in update again this year), but it's fairly obvious that the holiday this standalone set recognize is christmas.

i haven't purchased retail product for a month or two (chrome sort of bummed me out - future post foreshadowing), but i did grab a holiday mega box at target last week. turns out, i must be on the nice list because the box was pretty much the most i could hope for without a major "hit".

not the pete alonso oversized ornament

but the box yielded several cards that will go straight into my collection.

first card of the first pack i opened was this shohei ohtani card

so things began nicely. the insert in that first pack was this kristian campbell silver glitter parallel

beckett's website tells me to expect six of these, plus a blue metallic glitter parallel and a blue and white gltter parallel in the box, along with four other parallel or insert things (in addition to the ornament). the box itself also mentioned three holiday variation short prints per box. we will see.

when i opened the second pack, these three cards greeted me as the first three of the pack

going back-to-back-to-back with blake snell, ohtani (he has two base cards - one as a pitcher and one as a dh), and mookie betts was very nice to see for this dodger collector. however, the pack lacked an insert.

the next pack delivered, with a nick kurtz rookie card

and the blue & white glitter parallel

which just happened to be dodger teoscar hernandez. i like how the image of hernandez seems to have him checking to see if the candy cane is real.

the fourth pack was a bit weird at first. it included another dodger - roki sasaki

and the last card in the pack was a masyn winn silver glitter parallel

but the two cards immediately preceding winn's had me stumped for a few minutes. here's how they appeared in the pack

the second card was flipped over, so i knew it was not a base card. plus, the code on that one ends with a 7, while all of the base cards end with a 6. here's the front of the card

and here they are side to side

it seems obvious now, but i spent a lot of time looking for a hidden elf. the variation is brighter, but the real difference is the amount of snow/frosting and primarily the fact that there is a snow cap on the positional field in the lower right corner. so, this is just the short print variation, i guess? the typical variations with christmas themed elements added are the super short prints this year? 

moving on to pack five, there were some big names but no dodgers. the insert was this agustin ramirez silver glitter parallel

same with pack six - some good base cards plus a silver glitter parallel 

this time it was marcelo mayer. this pack also afforded me my first look at rafael devers in a giants' uniform on cardboard

and it's their updated city connect one at that (note that this is bonus giants content to please mr. haverkamp).

pack seven saw a return to dodger goodness with freddie freeman's card showing up

and it also contained my "big" hit. i was guaranteed a relic, auto, or chrome parallel and i received the latter.

it's a purple refractor of salvador perez numbered to 299. adding chrome to the holiday release was a good move in my opinion. the cards look nice in chrome format but it certainly didn't need to be its own release.

there was also a silver glitter parallel in the pack featuring hunter greene

in pack eight, i found my guaranteed blue metallic glitter card - francisco lindor

is that a #colormatch?

the second to last card in pack nine was backwards

it was another roki sasaki card

but with a different code so i knew it wasn't poor collation by topps. but, with no obvious changes to the front image i was initially stumped. ultimately, this is how i discovered that there were back design variations. i have seen this referred to as a "christmas cookie back" but not sure that is the correct term. here is the regular back

so the change is the team logo swap and the color theme.

the final card of the final pack was a more obvious variation

the standard christmas light necklace, with a nice gift added as well. here's the base (from pack nine) with the variation.

it makes one wonder if the photo was selected for use in flagship (and hence holiday) because it would fit a holiday variation theme, or if these are determined after the fact. i assume the latter, but you never know.

after opening all the packs, i totaled things up and figured i was missing one of the six silver glitter parallels but hit on the others, including the three short print variations - chapman, sasaki, and rodriguez. however, when i went to scan the cards, i took a closer look at blake snell's card

and discovered that it was also a back variation short print

to hit three dodger variations/parallels is pretty good luck for this dodger collector and probably bought topps some goodwill from me heading into archives and update season.

a bird in the air (and more) from a birds on the bat collector that blends with other recent pickups

so i have run out of different ways to title a post featuring (mostly) cards that were sent by madding of cards on cards. "cards from cards on cards" is stale and not all of the cards are "dodgers on cards from cards on cards", so why not mix it up.

as the title of the post implies (very strongly), here is a card of a bird (a blue jay, to be exact) in the air that was sent to me by kerry.

it's a 2000 fleer ultra tony batista gold medallion edition card, and fits oh so nicely into my double play collection.

seeing it arrive reminded me that i had picked up some other new-to-me double play cards, such as this 1993 fleer casey candaele card

and these two 1992 leaf black gold parallels featuring carlos baerga and tim naehring

one more double play card i finally added to my collection is pat kelly'2 1994 fleer flair card. it features at least two double play images - one on the front

and one on the back

and the larger image on the front could be a dp pivot as well. only the inset photo on the front officially counts for my collection, however.

back to cards from cards on cards (had to work that in somewhere), here are a couple of 2025 panini donruss cards i received

kellon lindsey was the dodgers' first round pick in 2024, and he spent most of this season in a-ball. mike piazza was famously a 63rd round pick of the dodgers. up until now, the only 2025 donruss card i had was pee wee reese's. however, a couple of months ago i added a 2025 panini donruss optic card to my collection

that's piazza's green scope prizm parallel. it is numbered to 65 on the back

and was a cheap add to an ebay purchase i made. i don't think it was more than a buck.

kerry also sent some 2025 panini crusade cards to me - here are kendall george and bobby miller

george was the dodgers' first round pick in 2023 and spent this past year playing pretty well at the high-a level. miller, on the other hand, hasn't been able to replicate his 2023 success and spent most of last year at triple-a.  here's lindsey again

with a blue cracked ice parallel.

these aren't the first crusade cards i've seen from 2025, as steve garvey is on the checklist and i quickly snapped up a couple of his base cards

one for the pc and one for the dodger collection. here's the back

some pretty complimentary text there. garvey hit .417 (10 for 24) in the 1981 world series (and even walked twice!) but he had no extra base hits or rbi so i am not sure he was "especially" clutch in that series. he was, for a brief moment, announced as one of the three mvp winners (his name was mixed up with steve yeager's) but i don't think that series was his best in terms of "clutch".

of course, you know there are parallels, and i have picked up four of them

those are silver, red, and blue. this one is purple

and it is refreshing to not see them named "velocity" or whatever. the last three are numbered, by the way.

back to licensed cards now, with a 2025 topps shohei ohtani 1990 insert

and a freddie freeman holofoil parallel

courtesy of kerry. their swings, or follow-throughs, are pretty similar.

those two cards match up with a couple of 2025 bowman cards i added to a sportlots order recently

freeman's card is interesting because of the clock. this is one of the few cards i've seen with the clock so pronounced, and i am not sure why it is at over a minute. it's not a time clock (it's not 1:05 in the afternoon) it's the pitch clock, and i don't think freddie is in the on deck circle. not sure why he'd be in the box ready to go so early on. any thoughts?

here are a few more from kerry - a 1996 pacific ismael valdes prisms card

and a 2021 panini mosaic duke snider vintage insert

i didn't have anything in my scanned folder to match up with the valdes card, but i did have some vintage in there. i am saving that for a different post, however.

similarly, here's a 2024 topps heritage chrome silver border refractor of kyle hurt

that kerry sent. i have a post partially drafted to revisit my heritage chrome pursuits, so stay tuned for more of these sorts of cards. 

and then there is this 2025 topps hunter feduccia team color border card

kerry is the second person to send me one of these semi-rare parallels and i will show the other one in a separate post.

finally, kerry included this 2021 topps finest walker buehler card

which pairs up super nicely with buehler's autograph card from the same set

that i added a week or so before kerry's envelope arrived. i guess when you get released and are on your third team in two years, some folks start to shed your cards and so i got a really great deal (at least as far as i am concerned) on this card - $4.99! i will spend that for buehler autos all day long.

thanks kerry! as you can see, the cards you sent fit nicely in my collection alongside some other newly acquired cards. i would say "good luck ducks" but they are playing the gophers this weekend so i will say "ski u mah" instead.