Ha, get it? Red & green. Christmas? Ever heard of it?

What’s wrong?

You don’t like it? It’s from your Aunt and I.

Aw, gee, well I’m sorry. I might not be with the times when it comes to Tik Tok (heh, get it, time?), but I figured since ya love those Mario & Louis characters so much you’d dig this cool new team of…err…Cuties! Teens love ’em.

…

Damn. This happens every time I try to gift away a Kellogg’s licensed cereal.

Yes, Kellogg’s latest shameless partnership is with Shopkins, tiny little squishy kawaii kitchen fixtures that are cute and apparently apple strawberry flavored. If the real toys are anywhere near as charmingly chewy as Polly Pocket accessories, I might invest higher hopes into the cereal version. Sure, Apple Strawberry is a largely unexplored avenue for cereal, and though I dream of one day pouring some of my favorite Capri-Sun flavor into a bowl of strawberry–kiwi-flavored cereal (suck it, Pacific Cooler), choosing apples in kiwis’ stead is nonetheless tasty.

That is, if Cutie O’s can pull it off. Most of Kellogg’s lazily looped licensed cereals have been disappointingly bland, so while I see promise in every cereal, Cutie O’s has its work cut out for it if it wants to break the curse of its thoughtlessly franchised forefathers.

Oh, and merry Christmas to everyone who follows, reads, or even just passively remembers that this blog exists. It’s been a year of great growth for the site and a time of constant change in my own life. I’ll be able to find more poignant words for the past year of cereal in an upcoming recap of the year’s best releases. But until then, consider this the start of a 24-hour purge of cereal crimes. Feel free to eat it with or without orange juice, in or from the bathtub—if that’s what floats your Cutie O’s.