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    Holiday Hangups

    Baby animals, family photos and nude beauties: Wall calendars are the gift thatkeeps on giving

    John Bumgardner
    Dec 20, 2011 | 9:15 am

    With only two weeks left in the year, it's time to find the next great wall calendar to adorn your office cubicle for the next twelve months. After all, if this is the year the Mayans predicted it's all going to end, shouldn't you have some great baby animal photos to comfort you as you count down the days?

    After an exhaustive search for all the best wall and desk calendars for 2012, we came up with 12 of our favorites for your organizing pleasure.

    It's no surprise why the top-selling wall calendars every year are of baby animals. And we would never dream of denying you the heartwarming, eyeball-melting overload of cuteness that comes from this year's best animal calendars.

    First off, the Sloths of Costa Rica calendar is impossible to resist. The waves of cute emanating from August's baby sloth hugging a stuffed animal actually crippled my internal processing center for a solid three minutes.

    We all know cats are endlessly awesome in action, but they're also adorable when they're sleeping. Especially when they're tiny. And in teacups. Cat Naps is actually going to destroy you if you don't gird yourself against the onslaught of these tiny cats sleeping in teacups for 12 solid months.

    Or just cut to the chase and get one of the 1,500 calendars put out each year called Baby Animals. My favorite one (which is also called "Baby Animals") features a baby giraffe on the cover being nuzzled by the snout of what one can only assume is its mother.

    Also featured in this lush collection of can't-stop-the-cute are a baby penguin, elephant, zebra, orangutan and black bear. Just don't put these babies in the corner (of your office).

    After all, if this is the year the Mayans predicted it's all going to end, shouldn't you have some great baby animal photos to comfort you as you count down the days?

    My personal favorite of this year's offerings comes from Austin Pug Rescue. Whether you have one of these sweet scrunchy-faced angels of your own or you just appreciate their beautifully googly-eyed expressions, you'll love the 2012 calendar, entitled "Pugdorable."

    Every month, you'll be greeted by a new professionally shot picture of one of the Rescue's alumni, who can smile now that they have found their forever families.

    With the release of their brilliant new movie to theaters, The Muppets are back in full effect in the lives of a whole new generation. To welcome your old friends into your everyday life again, there's a new Muppets Movie Poster Parody calendar that parodies famous movie posters the way the Muppets do best. Piggy Woman and The Dogfather are spot-on representations of the movies and the characters you never stopped loving.

    For the artsy, rebellious calendar-needing folks on your list, we recommend the Banksy Unofficial Wall Calendar. The subversive pseudonymed artist is all the rage in the art scene, because his work is thoughtful and really quite beautiful.

    While you might not have the original wheat-pasted image on your blank wall, you can at least have the images hanging there, livening up your cubicle.

    If you're stuck in a cubicle against your wishes, you might be ready for the 2012 Demotivators Calendar put out by Despair, Inc. Perfectly satirizing those inspirational Successories posters that fill doctors' offices across the nation, the sarcastically worded messages of hysterical nihilism will please any eye-rolling cynic that hates everything.

    Also featured in this Baby Animal calendar's lush collection of can't-stop-the-cute are a baby penguin, elephant, zebra, orangutan and black bear. Just don't put these babies in the corner (of your office).

    Texts From Last Night is one of the funniest blogs on the web, collecting for posterity the best submitted text messages from inebriated and uninhibited followers across the country. The 2012 Texts from Last Night Daily Calendar lets you wake up to others' mistakes each morning so you can hopefully forget your own.

    If a website is funny enough encourage me to check in daily, I would say it definitely qualifies as worthy of a calendar, as well. The Awkward Family Photos calendar collects and comments upon the best blackmail evidence in existence, featuring kitschy, nostalgic fashions and tragically unfortunate posing ideas.

    Speaking of awkward, England has a couple of awesome calendars for those who love organic farming in the... ahem, raw. Naked Male Farmers and Lady Farmers show off the fresh goods of these fine folks and their strategically placed vegetation. These calendars are a big hit in the U.K., where they apparently haven't heard about swimsuits or fire engines...

    And now that we've opened that floodgate, the 2012 Pirelli's Calendar is the quintessential calendar of tastefully shot nudes that generates a lot of buzz round this time of year. This year Milla Jovovich and Kate Moss join the parade of au natural ladies, and Mario Sorrenti is the big-name photographer behind the shots.

    The Pirelli company is primarily a tire manufacturer, but they started making calendars back in the '60s for the VIP customers, and the tradition never went out of style. (People really seem to like looking at pictures of pretty ladies, I guess?) So for the collector, this calendar is the holy grail of wall calendars.

    So there you have it: Amazing calendars for all types of calendar users. Give 'em as gifts, or keep 'em for yourself if the receiver doesn't seem as in to it as you are. After all, you put a lot of effort into picking these out, wrapping them up and delivering them. Maybe, with a new calendar, you'll be able to plan more in advance.

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    This Week's Hot Headlines

    Beloved Houston Italian restaurant bids farewell and more top stories

    CultureMap Staff
    Nov 1, 2025 | 11:00 am
    Paulie's exterior
    Paulie's Restaurant Facebook
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    Editor's note: It's time to catch up on the top Houston news of the week, include a longtime Italian favorite's impending closure and the return of the Texas Michelin Guide. Get the details on our most popular stories below, then visit this guide to Halloween weekend fun.

    1. Beloved Houston Italian restaurant will close after 27 years in Montrose. One of Montrose’s most beloved restaurants will soon serve its last meal. Italian-American restaurant Paulie’s and its companion wine bar Camerata will close on December 31.

    2. Top Houston steakhouse toasts 10 years with a mayoral proclamation. B&B Butchers celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a bash that blended fine dining, live music, and a dash of Houston pride — complete with a mayoral proclamation.

    3. Prestigious Michelin Guide selects 44 Houston restaurants for 2025 edition. The Texas restaurant scene is once again basking in the international spotlight following the Michelin Guide's 2025 ceremony in Houston. Overall, 44 Houston restaurants are included in this year's edition of the guide.

    4. Houston hotel will celebrate the season with holiday pop-up bar. Omni Hotels is ringing in the holidays with an over-the-top cocktail experience that will debut at 27 hotels across the U.S., including one in Houston.

    Blitzen's Bar cocktails Is your order naughty or nice? Photo courtesy of Omni Hotels & Resorts

    5. U.S. News ranks Houston middle school No. 2 in Texas for 2026. A dozen Houston-area elementary and middle schools have excelled on U.S. News and World Report's list of the best K-8 schools in Texas for 2026, with one that's a top achiever.

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