If you’re planning to throw a real party sometime soon, might I suggest you invest a buck or two for a few balloons?  (If you insist -yet again- on just breaking out your Trader Joe’s stash for that predictable spread of cheese n shit n crackers n wine, then you can skip the balloons.) Them gassy rubber orbs always scream festive-ness, they can brighten up anything! For example, this box that reads “No drugs or money kept in box, blood and urine specimens only” is 4 times as cheerful as it would be under normal conditions. Yay! Party!

A few more “specimen” after the jump.

Pachanga Tree!

Did you know that the Aztecs were the first mofos to use this whimsical celebratory tradition? According to this highly dubious website:

“…the Aztecs were the very first people in history to make animals out of the bowels of cats to be presented to the gods as a sacrifice. The bowels were carefully cleaned, turned inside out, and sewn with a special vegetable thread whose main property was that it stuck to itself when left to dry in the sun, and this produced an almost airtight seal.

The bowels were then twisted and air was blown into them after each twist. When a particularly contagious disease exterminated most of the cats, they used the bowels of the corpses, and when these grew in short supply, human sacrifices were offered to the gods for the sole purpose of obtaining fresh bowels.

So next time you see some balloons, be happy they ain’t cat or human bowels.

Unrelated? Starting a new vegan festive tradition? A half lemon on a pole. It’s kinda like a half balloon.

The creeping bunny with some wilting examples.

Not bad.

Wow! Proper Festive Balloons!

I’ll end this while I’m ahead.