Merry Christmas (and a happy new year) from all of us here at Crush Digital! We hope you have been good and that you get what you want from Santa Claus. In the meantime, for your diversion, here are our 12 Links of Christmas!
12. Secret Santa List Generator
If you are organising the office Secret Santa and you’re tired of trying to avoid people drawing themselves and/or knowing who everyone has got? Use Draw Names instead. Supply names and emails and the website will do the rest, except for buy the present. Socks? Something rude and inappropriate?
11. We apologise for the delay to this service
If Franz Kafka were alive today he would probably have written a novel that regularly used the phrase “rail replacement service”. Yet at Christmas, at time when many make long journeys to visit family and friends, the rail companies seem to take delight in engineering works. Throw in a dollop of unpleasant weather and you need National Rail Enquiries’ Disruption News and some patience.
10. A little music
The Christmas #1 may be Simon Cowell’s pension these days, but it wasn’t always this way. The first ever UK Christmas number 1 was Italian-American crooner Al Martino’s Here in my heart in 1952. Pub quiz fans take note – the song was also the first ever UK number 1 single. There’s more on the NME’s page about every Christmas #1 ever.
9. Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree
Your Christmas tree may be more modest than the Trafalgar Square, who receive a 60ft tall Norwegian spruce every year. However, there’s less need to hold back on the decoration. Play this Christmas tree decoration game for inspiration, or just because you didn’t get to express your artistic vision this time.
8. A little food
If there’s one constituency that we know won’t vote for Christmas, it’s turkeys. However, if you’re cooking for a large gathering it’s better if you cook the meat such that it doesn’t give everyone food poisoning. So, read the Cooking Turkey Guide on the NHS website to avoid the stench of vomit – or worse.
7. A little drink
The festive season and booze go together like Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan. Bucks Fizz for breakfast, white wine with the turkey, red wine in the evening, champagne all day. The Fine Wine Company‘s last Blog Post before Christmas was entitled “Finest Festive Booze”. Should you order too much champagne (!) you can always use it for your New Year’s celebrations.
6. TV
Christmas TV is a usually a riot of festive specials, soap cliffhangers and classic films. There are often a lot of repeats, but that’s something to talk about in its own right. Keeping track of all this entertainment is much easier with the advent of multi-channel, on-screen TV Guides, but only the Radio Times can supply the classic Christmas TV guide experience.
5. Christmas Adverts
Christmas ads are a delicate blend of jingling bells, nostalgia and shimmering sentimentality. Christmas is a key time for most retailers where slick Christmas ads target the heart strings and then the purse strings. For a healthy antidote, the Irn Bru Snowman Ad is still a treat.
4. Snow Business
So, will it snow on Christmas Day? It probably depends on where you are, but if you’ve got any money riding on the outcome, the only people to trust are at the Met Office. See their Christmas day forecast page.
3. Reindeer Tipping
Rudolf with his nose so bright, will be pulling Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve night. Everyone knows this. As a festive variant on the already peculiar practice of cow tipping, why not try reindeer tipping in this bizarre game. Watch out for those bazooka wielding penguins.
2. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a Soviet first strike?
Assuming you haven’t tipped all the reindeer over too many times then Santa will be in the skies on Christmas Eve. But where? NORAD was set up to provide warning for the USA in the event of a nuclear attack from the former USSR. Since 1955, it has had a less grim secondary purpose – tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, see the NORAD Santa website.
1. Is it Christmas?
Finally, the iconic Is it Christmas website. So… is it Christmas?
Happy holidays and see you in 2015.
