Quality Street Tins (TWAC Day 11)

_ These, in my opinion, are one of the best gifts that you can be given on Christmas day. I can’t really explain why I like these so much as a Christmas gift, but I’m going to try and use this blog entry to explain.
First, there’s the taste of Quality Street chocolates. I’m sure you may say “Hmm, well what’s so special about a Quality Street tin? It’s just a cheap gift people will get you when they don’t know what you actually like, it’s not even fancy chocolate like Thornton’s!” and while it may be true that people will buy you a Quality Street tin if they don’t really know what you want, if people know what I want, I’ll definitely be getting at least one Quality Street tin. They may not be the fanciest chocolate in the world, but somehow, the taste of fresh Quality Street sweets is something which is utterly delicious and, in my mind, inexplicably linked to Christmas.
Now imagine this little scene: Christmas is now over, it’s early afternoon Boxing Day, you don’t have people opening gifts you’ve bought them to look forward to, you already know that they loved what you bought them. You’re probably feeling a little sad that you have to wait another three hundred and sixty-four days until another Christmas rolls along, so you decide to try out the DVDs/books/CDs/video games that’ve been bought for you and end up realising that Christmas doesn’t end at midnight on the twenty-fifth of December. Depending on the length of your holidays, you’ve probably got a whole week off in which to relax and indulge in your gift. So while you’re watching/reading/listening to/playing with your new possessions, you decide also to open your Quality Street tin, taking one of them and eating it every so often… Pure Ecstasy!
I think this, perhaps, is why I like them so much, they always remind me of the total leisurely feeling of Christmas time, one that you don’t quite get at birthdays.

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Old Writings 2 (TWAC Day 10)

_ Today I’m going to post another piece of festive writing written by my eleven year old self in 2004. This is a Christmassy short story (again, totally unedited) that I wrote just a few days before the previously posted ‘The History of Xmas Trees’.  It’s called ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events at Christmas in Fox City’:

On Christmas Eve Father Christmas’s elves where on strike because they work all day of the year with no pay or food so no toys, DVDs, videos, computer games or food so Father Christmas had to get a whole town to make the presents “I know I’ll get Fox City to do it for me cus if they don’t they’ll get no presents.” He said. So he got into his sleigh and flew to Fox City.
“Oh it’s Father Christmas he’s come early.” Said Fox 2 “Attention Fox Cityans you are all on the naughty list unless you make all the presents, you see my elves are on strike so even if you don’t do it and your name isn’t on the bad list you’ll get no presents.” Said Farther Christmas, so the whole town went off with him.
You know how on TV you see Farther Christmas’s Elves as really happy little people making presents well maybe it’s true but he treated Fox City like slaves “Ow stop whipping me. I’ll get my lawyer on you.” Said Bobby. They were sent back late and because of that Farther Christmas was late so when he got to Fox City he just lobbed down the presents, Professor Nerb’s present (which was a Tiny Monster which grew giant when heated) went down a chimney and grew and started to destroy the town Dr. Z’s present was a dooms day missile also went down a chimney then went flying into the air then came down and blew up Fox City.

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A Celebration of Greed (TWAC Day 9)

There are some people out there who, believe it or not, don’t like Christmas or, at least, don’t get excited by it. But that’s fair enough, different people have different tastes and not everybody will enjoy the same things. But what annoys me is when people attack the Christmas holidays as being a ‘celebration of greed’ or for being bad due to commercialisation, which I don’t think it is.

Now, my main objection to the ‘celebration of greed’ criticism is that it only really applies to the people who raise it. Not everybody goes into Christmas thinking “Oh, I can’t wait to get all the toys!” children might, but they’re children so that’s okay, but to anyone older than fifteen Christmas will be a lot more than that. If you think people enjoy Christmas only for the fact that people give them loads of stuff, then that’s probably because you can’t see any value in the holiday beside the gifts. The best thing, for me (and I’m sure many others) is the buying of gifts for all of your family and friends. Either buying what they’ve told you they would like, or using your imagination to think up an awesome gift for people is a truly wonderful part of the holiday season.

What Christmas is, is a celebration of nostalgia and love for others. Everyone has their own little routine for Christmas, one which they’ve likely had for years, we look forward to it because it reminds us of Christmases from the past, which we really enjoyed and will continue to enjoy as we celebrate it every year… Christmas is not a celebration of greed, and anybody who claims that it is must be awfully pessimistic.

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The Homecoming by Earl Hamner Jr. (TWAC Day 8)

The HomecomingAnother suggestion for Christmastime reading today! You may remember that, about a month ago, I wrote a review of the novel Spencer’s Mountain by Earl Hamner Jr. (which happens to be my favourite book), The Homecoming is a sequel to that book… Or at least, I think it is. Some things in it seem to suggest (to me) that it takes place after the events of the first novel, while others seem to suggest that it is, in fact, a prequel. But whether it is a prequel or a sequel is not important, what is important is that this is an enjoyable Christmas read.

Clay Spenser is supposed to be home on Christmas Eve afternoon so that he can be spending Christmas day with his family, however as time passes by and the weather gets worse and worse, Clay doesn’t seem to be coming home… As such, Olivia (his wife) sends their son Clay-Boy out to find him while she stays at home and tends to his many brothers and sisters. That’s the general premise of the book, a very simple one too, but still one which makes a very enjoyable read! Also, I think I should add, as Hamner says at the start of the novel, that this is very loosely based on true events.

As Clay-Boy travels around his hometown, we meets a variety of different characters all of whom are easily imaginable and loveable! As a little side note, many of these characters would later be seen in the TV series The Waltons which started with a movie length adaptation of The Homecoming.

It’s a very nice read and would be especially enjoyable if read in the lead up to Christmas! Hamner’s writing style is one which is very easy to get into, and the fact that this is also quite a short novel means that this would be a nice bit of light reading for anybody!

Basically, this book is a joy! 9/10

Buy it here.

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Cross-Eyed Crazy (TWAC Day 7)

For today’s Christmas themed entry I have a bizarre little anecdote for you, one which contains an (un)intriguing medical mystery.
    It was a Saturday during mid-December (2010) and my family and I were watching a Korean film before we went to bed. The film was pretty good actually, I mean, it did featuring pretty shocking things like people having their teeth pulled out, men eating live octopi, and probably nudity too, but it still managed to be a good film, so I guess that says something for it.
    Anyway, the film ended and everyone went off to bed. I went into the bathroom so that I could brush my teeth before going to sleep, but when I was in there something very strange happened. Seemingly for no reason, I went completely cross-eyed. My newfound cross-eyed-ness meant it was rather difficult to see properly, so I wandered over to the bathroom mirror to see just how bad my eyes were. When looking at my reflection I was able to make my eyes normal again by aligning them with what I saw in the mirror, but this far from solved the problem. I’d become very dizzy when I went cross-eyed, and while my eyes may have been straight again,  it was almost as if the two of them weren’t in sync with one another, I still couldn’t really see properly.
    I staggered into my bedroom, and planned to turn off my laptop. I realised I was still on MSN talking to somebody so I said goodbye and tried to sign out. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t just by balance and vision that had been impaired; it seemed as if my mind wasn’t working properly either. As you probably know, to use MSN you have to type in a password, but, for some reason, I was thinking I needed to do that as well to sign off. So I mistyped my password to my friend about four times (luckily they didn’t realise what I was doing) and got increasingly confused as to why it wasn’t signing out. In the end I just held down the power button on the laptop so that it turned off.
    The next morning I still hadn’t fully recovered, I still had a strange feeling of dizziness and of being light headed, so I felt a little odd while we were all putting up the Christmas decorations. Luckily, by the evening it had totally passed. But this is by far one of the strangest things ever to have happened to me, the best way for me to describe what initially happened was that it felt like being drunk (a feeling I am ashamed to admit I have experienced before), but how on Earth could this have happened? I guess we’ll never know, and I guess it’s unimportant too since I’ve been fine since then.
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Old Writings (TWAC Day 6)

For today’s Christmassy entry, I have decided to post a piece of Christmassy writing of mine from 2004. For an English lesson, I was put in a group of people and together we were given the task of making a Christmas themed magazine. One part of the magazine I had to write was an article on the history of Christmas trees… This is what I wrote. As you’ll soon see, I quickly got distracted and wrote a very weird/random/bad story using some characters of mine. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the writing of my eleven year old self! So here’s my (entirely unedited) festive story ‘The History of Xmas Trees’:


One day in the 7th century there was a monk from Devonshire who went to Germany to teach about God. He was very good; he spent a lot of time in Thuringia that became the first place to have Christmas decorations. Legend has it that he put out a fir tree and called it “God’s Tree.” Trees got decorations when Martin Luther put candles on a tree to explain how stars work.
“So that is the history of Christmas trees.” Said Mr. Suttonman then Fox 2jr threw a football at Mr. Suttonman “That’s boring teach us about the Grinch!” said Fox 2jr “No… that’s… boring.” Said Mr. Suttonman, Meanwhile in a huge robot Farther Christmas Dr. Z was thinking up an evil plan “I shall pour a powder over the town that would bring all the Christmas trees to life and turn them evil MWHAHAHAHAAAA!”
Fox 2 was at his house selling Christmas trees when a huge Robot Farther Christmas flew over in a sleigh being pulled by robot dragons and then a load of powder came down and the trees grew into giants and started destroying the town. Bobby ran off to Professor Nerb to tell him about the tragedy but he did already know because he did live in the town.
“The only way we can stop them is with Farther Christmas but if he was a giant and it’s such a coincidence that I just invented a pill that makes you a giant.” Said Professor Nerb so they went to the North Pole. “Um Father Christmas would you stop these giant Christmas trees or my whole town will be dead… and after all it is Christmas.” Said Bobby “O.K.” said Farther Christmas so he ate the pills then grew giant and threw the pills away and went to Fox City and killed the trees.
The pills he threw away went to the planet Unowat and the Unowatiens ate and had a war with Earth many were killed.
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The Twelve Entries of Christmas (TWAC Day 5)

_On the first day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Club ladies attacking me!

On the second day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the third day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the fourth day of Christmas,
I wrote an entry on,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the fifth day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the sixth day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the seventh day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Seven cows a-chasing,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the eighth day of Chritmas,
This was my entry,
Eight wasps a-stinging,
Seven cows a-chasing,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the ninth day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Nine Egans falling,
Eight wasps a-stinging,
Seven cows a-chasing,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the tenth day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Ten dolls a-creeping,
Nine Egans falling,
Eight wasps a-stinging,
Seven cows a-chasing,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
This was my entry,
Eleven bloggers blogging,
Ten dolls a-creeping,
Nine Egans falling,
Eight wasps a-stinging,
Seven cows a-chasing,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

On the twelth day of Chirstmas,
This was my entry,
Twelve Chatroulette weirdos,
Eleven bloggers blogging,
Ten dolls a-creeping,
Nine Egans falling,
Eight wasps a-stinging,
Seven cows a-chasing,
Six guys a-kissing,
Five crazy parties,
Four failing jokes,
Three water bottles,
Two kinds of cheese,
and club ladies attacking me!

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Elf Yourself (TWAC Day 4)

_ Just a quick little shout out for today’s entry. Basically, the Elf Yourself page is a fun little site where you can make festive music videos featuring your family and friends. It really can be quite amusing, so if you ever have a free few minutes on your hands I suggest you try elfing yourself and your friends, I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Link

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A True Hero (TWAC Day 3)

_ Just a couple of days ago, after finishing my day at the university and buying some food ready for Christmas dinner, I got on the bus and was ready to ride home. To my pleasant surprise, an old friend of mine was riding on the bus as well, so I was able to chat with him on there as I rode. However, an unpleasant surprise was that the bus was extremely packed with Christmas shoppers, a significant amount of people, including my friend and I, had to stand due to lack of seats. Things only got worse from then on, more and more people piled onto the bus. It seemed that every single bus stop had a Christmas shopper waiting to get the bus home.
    Before the bus had even gotten out of Bath (Bath being the city I was in) the bus seemingly had far more people in it than was the amount they were safely supposed to hold. It was a very uncomfortable situation. When we got to a stop, somebody had pushed the button so that they could get off. However, the bus was so full, that it took them a very long time to get from the back end of the bus (where he was sitting) to the door. Meanwhile, as the poor man tried to escape from the bus and get to his stop, another man was stood near the door and becoming more and more frustrated by the number of people on the bus. When several minutes had passed and that poor man had still not made it to the door, the man at the front did something very heroic. In order to make more room for everybody else on the bus, even just a small amount, he got off of the bus and waited at the bus stop for the next bus to come along, heroically sacrificing his position on the bus for the greater good of every other passenger. A real example of Christmastime good will. I wish I could have told him how much I admired his selfless action.
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Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien (TWAC Day 2)

Letters from Father ChristmasFor the second day of my Trusty Water Advent Calendar, I will be reviewing a lesser known Christmas classic novel. Letters from Father Christmas is a series of letters written by J.R.R. Tolkien (as Father Christmas) to his children. Of course, Tolkien is best known for writing the Lord of the Rings series, which is something that I have, unfortunately, never gotten around to reading (yet). I do know though that he likes to create large worlds with many intricate details to them, and this book is no exception. We learn a little more about Father Christmas’ world with each new letter, but there are never any contradictions or anything and the whole thing is internally coherent, which shows just how much care Tolkien put into these things.

One of my personal favourite things about the book the relationship between Father Christmas and The North Polar Bear, they’d always be getting each other into crazy situations that’re often very funny. Towards the end, some young relations of The North Polar Bear come to stay with them, causing even more mayhem, and at one point you even have a race of malicious goblins that live in a huge cave network underground, which is pretty cool.

But, aside from the letters featuring these lovely stories, Tolkien spent a lot of time on every single letter, they’re all written in a very archaic looking fancy font, which is all jittery when Father Christmas is shivering! If this ever proves to be too difficult for you to read, every letter is typed normally beside the letters, so that won’t be a problem. Every letter is accompanied by at least one beautifully illustrated picture. If the stories themselves don’t get you into the Christmas spirit (which is very unlikely) the colourful hand drawn pictures of the North Pole’s wintery landscape certainly will! They’re all very fantastical images, which also help you to learn about the world of Father Christmas (for example, you get a picture of his house, or pictures of things that’re found painted on cave walls).

So this is a perfect Christmas book for people of any age, and it really is a highly sentimental book. There’s no ending of the story for the characters, it just ends, and that’s when the innocence of childhood was gone from all the Tolkien children… Which is quite sad I think.

An amazing book really, 9/10

Buy it here.

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