It was like the plot of the world’s most surreal holiday special.

Last month, I shared candid photos of 2016’s gorgeously redesigned Christmas Crunch box, with the promise that I’d wait until late December to review it—to build anticipation, Christmas cheer, appetite, etc. My decision not to buy a sleigh’s worth of Christmas Crunch when it was right there in the store’s discount basket proved to be the most foolish thing I’ve done since trading away all my Oreo Cakesters for Bosco breadsticks way back in elementary school lunch time.

Because on December 22nd, driving around in the cloak of darkness while “We Need A Little Christmas” played with bitter accuracy on the radio, I couldn’t find a single box of Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch in stores!

Several discontented web searches later, I made a desperate phone call to an obscure local grocer who confirmed that they did indeed have a few boxes left. The magical angel who worked customer service even promised to set a box aside for me—I’d wager that he doesn’t hear many late night pleas for red and green breakfast products, so any chance to satisfy a sweaty-sounding dude’s simple, yet stupid Christmas wish was a no-brainer.

And that’s the story of how I ended up with a box of the exact same Christmas cereal I eat every year. Speaking of which, let’s take our spoons out for Ho-Ho-Horatio Magellan Crunch’s holiday classic, shall we?

Flavor-wise, there’s little to be said about Christmas Cap’n Crunch that hasn’t been said in my many reviews of Cap’n Crunch’s Limited Edition Crunchberry variations. Each one pairs the same buttery, coconut oil-smacked treasure chests with variously shaped Crunchberries whose flavor defies definition.

Seriously: if Merriam-Webster were asked to write a “Crunchberry” definition, they’d probably describe the cereal piece’s taste as that of “an alien fruit juice mixed with a martian insect queen’s royal jelly.” This is why I write a cereal blog and not reference materials.

Because describing a Crunchberry’s flavor is about as easy as imagining a new color, I usually fall back on “candied cherry, with touches of apple cider doughnut and melted Superman ice cream.”

Of course, Christmas Crunch manages to somehow taste a little better than plain ol’ Crunchberries, obviously because the merrily shaped pieces are infused with raw Christmas Magic™ that the FDA doesn’t require Quaker to include in the cereal’s ingredient list. It’s just like how the FAA doesn’t make Santa Claus present a passport.

And when milk is added to Christmas Crunch, the red snowmen somehow taste even more puckeringly red, and the green trees turn me positively green with unadulterated green flavor. Thank goodness everyone out there is too deep in the eggnog to actually read this far.

Instead of focusing on the ambiguous flavor of Christmas Crunch, I’d rather explore its box. The glorious, freshly drawn Cap’n on the front has been compared to Clark Griswold by many, but I prefer to see him as Cap’n Kurt Russell, grinning and grappling in the snow with the holiday-themed tendrils of John Carpenter’s The Thing.

The back of the box offers three Crunchin’ activities, each of which elevates the box’s contents from “just cereal” to “tasty Legos.” I’m certainly not braving the roads, lines, or disapproving glances from store employees to buy a gingerbread house kit, nor do I have the dexterity to skewer my Crunchberries into tinsel without exploding crumbs across my carpet.

What I do have is a box of graham crackers that expired in November of 2015 and a penchant for edible architecture. So with icing in hand, it’s time to build Le Château Crunch.

There’s clearly a reason I was never voted “Most Valuable Sculptor” in middle school art class, but I still think my crispy castle turned out pretty well. When my grandma gave me her signature buttercream recipe, I’m sure she had no idea I’d be using it as caulk for graham cracker buttresses.

But because it’d be too hard to frame, my corn & oat construction had to be destructed. Instead of simply throwing it away, I decided to let a snaggletoothed chocolate graham bear monster take a bite out of the roof.

“That was delicious,” says the bear. “Takes ‘berries & cream’ to a whole new level. Though you should’ve sprung for fresh graham crackers, Ebenezer Dan, because these puppies taste like mummified Egyptian biscuits.”

Oh well: you can’t please every cocoa-dusted Grizzly. I had a bunch of Christmas Crunchin’ fun making this thing, and I want to thank you for reading about it. If you don’t come back before The Big Day, allow me to wish you the happiest of holidays.

As for me, I’m going to bring this red and green rubble to the family Christmas party and try passing it off as a postmodern hors d’oeuvres.

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The Bowl: Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch (2016)

The Breakdown: The same Crunchberries you know and love, with a little extra (though probably imagined) holiday pizzaz. Perfect for spontaneous crafts or just mindless munching under the tree.

The Bottom Line: 10 “Why The Heck Not, It’s Christmas”s out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 100 calories, less than 1 gram of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein per 3/4 cup serving)