It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to say this: it’s just not Christmas until I get new holiday Munchkin cards!
When this review goes live, it will be American Thanksgiving, or as the rest of the world calls it… Thursday. It’s no coincidence that it is also The Rat Hole’s birthday. I launched this site very specifically on American Thanksgiving for two reasons. Number one: I just like being guaranteed that I’ll be able to make that Thursday joke. Number two: even when I was writing for other sites, I’ve always tried to pull out a series of Christmas reviews. If there were more holiday games, I would happily expand the series beyond Christmas. So if you have another winter holiday game we can feature next year PLEASE let us know on our Facebook page. In the past, we’ve managed a Krampus game and I didn’t realize until it was too late that we had a Black Friday Game. At the very least this year I can make up for missing that with the help of Steve Jackson Games, because one of their holiday offerings is Black Friday. (and that’s how you do a proper segway, Christain Basel.)
Black Friday is a very small, five card, promo expansion that is intended to be a very low cost (sometimes even free) promotion for the Americentric commercial holiday of Black Friday and illustrated by the amazing Lar deSouza. I almost wrote the was a “cheeky promo expansion” but that really does go without saying for Munchkin.
There are two Treasure cards. BOGO lets you spend 1500 Gold Pieces to gain two levels (instead of the normal 1000 for one level) and the +3 SUPER EXCLUSIVE PROMO that is attached to another card that provides a combat bonus, giving that card an extra +3 bonus. The three Door cards consist of two Curse cards: NO PARKING PLACE (lose a level) and MALL MADNESS (discard an item, everyone else must discard one item worth more or lose a level), and a Level 8 BARGAIN HUNTER that forces you to discard items.
American Thanksgiving and Black Friday are often considered the start to the “Holiday Season” but are apparently not Christmasy enough to warrant Munchkin’s normal red and green holiday borders. Understandable, but it makes them stick out like a sore thumb in my ever-expanding Christmas deck. Not a huge deal, but aesthetically displeasing.
Although it’s not as displeasing as the fact that Tail of the Season, the straight-up Christmas expansion for the new Munchkin Tails game, also just has the boring basic brown borders. That hurts my Christmas spirit. But enough bah humbuggery, because the expansion is otherwise adorable, and a great addition to the game.
It is a bit unique in the Munchkin holiday line, in that it is the first retail Christmas expansion to be themed to a specific version of the game. As a result, there is slightly more duplication than many holiday sets. Except there isn’t. The only straight duplicates are the NAUGHTY and NICE Curse/Boon Door cards. The others are complementary to previous cards. The Reindeer Games pack included the +2 REINDEER HAT and this year we get +3 REINDEER PAWS (fuzzy slippers). Now We just need a Reindeer (House)Coat to wear while drinking some SPECIAL HOLIDAY BLEND coffee. (There’s a +2 UNFORTUNATE SWEATER, but it’s just not the same.) If the previous one-use WASSAIL bonus wasn’t good enough, you can now go full Christmas-Chekov with a NUCLEAR WASSAIL.
One of the fun differences that carry through all of the Christmas sets is that “Santa” monsters can stack in combat without a WANDERING MONSTER card for them to join in. As a result of there being so few of them for so many years, the “Santa” label is very loosely applied, however. Not only is the obvious Level 6 SANTA PAWS a “Santa” but also monsters like the Level 12 Drummers Drumming, and the Level 3 A MOUSE WHO IS STIRRING. The only time I take exception to this is with Level 12 KRAMPUS from the Waiting for Santa set, and now Level 6 Krampuss (which is my favourite pun-variant in the game) Even at the best of times, Krampus is FAR from a “Santa” dammit.
Krampuss being a “Santa” probably only bothers me, and maybe a few very few others. Even then it’s more of an eye-rolling “really”, and move on. It makes mechanical sense, and I’m just being overly picky. But this in my website and I get to do that here.
In all seriousness, I am seriously stoked for new Christmas cards to add to my collection. I don’t shuffle my Christmas sets into other Munchkin games. I have enough to be playable entirely on their own (thank you, Christmas Lite) and that’s exactly what I do.
Most years I don’t really do Christmas until after Remembrance Day, but this year I can make an exception. In fact, just in the day I’ve spent writing this, around 25-30cm of snow has dumped on us here, with more coming tonight. It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so stay home, stay safe, and play some games.
You can find all of Munchkin’s Christmas offering at: www.worldofmunchkin.com/xmas and Steve Jackson Games on Facebook here: facebook.com/sjgames.
Another tradition here in The Rat Hole is ending these holiday reviews with a song. I had something else picked out for this review until our Pocket Reviewer, Debra, posted this on her social media:
I think that the pre war version of Merry Little Christmas should be the official Christmas song of 2020.
“Someday soon we all will be together, should the fates allow. Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”
She’s right, so here is Judy Garland singing the original version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: