what can be more christmassy than the sally army band playing their brass carols ? vid here

i spotted this christmas tree in someone's bins yesterday morning

and then i saw this father christmas in someone's window:

and here he is closer up:

"can we throw the christmas tree out yet mum, it's been dead for weeks"
"not until the beginning of March"

can you believe someone's only got round to throwing their christmas tree out this morning.

i hope that they put this tree up in their house in early November.

i salute their dedication to the christmas spirit.

i suspect they've replaced it in the corner of their room with a giant easter egg.

here's a christmas tree decorating idea which is worth remembering for next year. the bag will come in very handy on christmas morning for putting all that wrapping paper in.

click for big

this year's xmas tree disposal has been quite slow. there were still a few out and about yesterday ...

random slip of paper seen in the street. will the cat really be played by a kitten ?

click to inspect

brother kev ate too much fine food prepared by my sister-in-law over the Christmas period and promptly fell asleep on the floor in his son's play room.

great choice of book.

here is our nephew thomas on his maiden voyage on his christmas bike.

the grown ups were a lot more worried than he was. he was quite happy to throw himself on and off it at will.

my mum sells christmas decorations to garden centres to sell to people like you and I.

she said yesterday "i need to remember there's more in life than Christmas decorations". which i thought was a good quote.

these people who live outside Reading might want to take my mum's advice !

click for big version
26things

26things

brother kev wore a coordinated shirt for every type of drink he served.

26things

hehe. i won for the 4th day running. the fact that jane and kezia didn't get any sleep last night because of my hat rustling during the night was totally worth it.

kevin looks very depressed doesn't he !

esther wrote me a letter to congratulate me on my win.

there may have only been a couple of flakes, but enough for us to definately declare it was a white christmas !

here's our 2004 christmas card.

previous years are here

happy christmas to you all !

click pictures to inspect in detail (regular readers will have seen these photos before!)

kezia with a heap of presents

26things

here's a photo i've been saving since july. it's my christmas gift to you dear reader.

this couple very kindly let me take their photo in a scottish shopping centre. i suspect they might get asked this a lot as they instantly struck up this catalogue model pose.

they belong to the Clan Colquhoun (i wrote this down so i wouldn't forget) and were totally lovely people !

they made me smile and i hope they do the same to you on this jolliest of days.

click for big

26things

my brother in law and i went to do some last minute shopping on christmas eve for our wives (we've one each). we were sent to buy skewers.

if we were after a turkey, it would have been too late ...

26things

a pile of chocolateless advent calendars

we love our fairy. usually there's a big fight to be the nominated individual who that year will get to place the pivotal decoration on it's alloted place.

this year jane lifted it out the box and plonked it straight on to avoid all the hassle.

i have no clue when it comes to astheticism (i don't know how to spell it either). i thought astheticism was something which puts you to sleep in a hospital. luckily jane supervised the tree decorating and did a terrific job.

anyway, here are esther and kezia looking very pleased with themselves in the dark by the tree (take my word for it)

this never happens so was totally worth a photo. it's a chap at church using a cracker toy to mend a hallogen light !

crackers, bringing light to the world. official.

do you see what i've done here ? i've made it look like that crane in the distance is lifting the christmas tree.

i surprise myself sometimes.

26things

this massive star is hanging up in the Oracle shopping centre in Reading. i was most impressed by it.

this was like distruction art.

as i walked past it at 7 this morning, bits of merry christmas were falling off the window.

it's a load of lads dressed up as santa:

here they are singing: Download teeny weeny video clip(80KB)

i got up at 6 this morning (which is 5 UK time) to go for a walk before breakfast. it was very dark but i did see this nice tree with church behind.

kezia is a very amusing small person. today she went off during lunch and returned a few moments later wearing this christmas hat which none of us knew we had !

she was very pleased with the reaction she got and wore it for the rest of the meal.

hehe. nearly christmas. wooohoo ! 7 more days to go ...

it's the first of december today which of course means it's only about a week until christmas (though it always seems much longer).

last night we had a band practice for the christmas services at church. everyone was in good spirits, primarily because Ian had raised the floor 5 centimetres. It took him 8 hours to raise it 5 cms, so it's just as well it didn't need to go any higher.

anyroadupdown, here is alan playing my bass and linda with a flute plunged through her heart

it was also the first outing for jane's new guitar:

of course, being christmas, there's quite a few twinkly carols which don't need musical accompaniament. such as this one which sounds nices because i wasn't playing (or singing) in it !

Watch movie (896KB)

this is a Christmas picture. but why ?

my true respect for the first to get the correct answer.

i took this photo a month or so back but thought it time to post it as our thoughts turn to christmas.

christmas work is seasonal for Mr Xmas.

oh dear. xmas lights are up already. i saw the one on the left near the Ivy yesterday lunch time and the Bond Street ones flashing away in the evening time.

why don't they just leave them up all year ?

i'm really scared now. christmas isn't for another 3 months(ish). yet here is ANOTHER xmas thing already in circulation.

i've turned this photo upswaydown so you can see the christmas fella the right way up. unfortunately it means it looks like the roulade is stuck upswaydown on the plate. which it wasn't.

last weekend in hull we saw this roof top xmas display. it's either early, late or permanent:

a little later on the same day we saw this, which is lots of father christmases (christmii?) in a shop window offering a discreet service:

and last night i received my first christmas present. it's an extension cable from my father-in-law:

we're two green ones down on yesterday. but there is now an empty can of beer. what DID happen here ?

some people just don't get the hang of easter. here are a load of christmas cards i saw near harley street this morning.

can't be bothered to take your decorations off your tree ? just chuck it out in to the street like this tree:

it was obviously better decorated than this when it was first put out as there were baubles and tinsel all up the road. here are a few pictures (including one with my muddy boots)

my mum arrived after the girls were in bed last night, so there was still plenty of important present giving and cracker pulling to be done

these are the last few days to catch the christmas lights. here are some in the village where we go to church. it's just white lights which is tasteful, and all the animal shapes move which is slightly eery.

here's a present i got from Brother Edd. It's an amazing hair-growing cat soap.

you take it out of its packet, leave it on a plate and within 12 hours it starts to grow fur, increasing in thickness over a number of days.

here it was when i opened it last night and after 12 hours:

i'll keep you updated as the fur grows. are you interested in where you can buy such an item ? do a google search

here's a nice game you can play over the festive period. it works on the principle that when families get together there are a lot of underlying 'issues' which need to be dealt with.

Rules of Play:

here's our christmas:

we went to church first thing:

Mr Party plans an explosion and Kevin wears his hat well

puddings and pie (extinguished) and kezia with fairy wings

a little wooden train

our family. me with tanktop on left.

the last and final day of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a happy christmas

here are some people having a very happy christmas

after lunch with friends (the ones who were there, not the ones who weren't) we went to the Crib service at church. jane was one of the leaders and played a mean guitar.

After that Jane went off to our sister church to do a repeat of service whilst i took the girls to the chip shop ! The chip shop wasn't open so i did what any father would do and let the kids play in a deep bubbly bath for half an hour until it was open. we went back later with the girls in their pyjamas.

After a chips and chocolate supper, we brought esther's duvet down and snuggled down to watched Chicken Run on the telly.

yeah for families and christmas !

day twenty four of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's another wise man

here is the third and final wise man. it's Alan who plays the Organ at church. he also works for a university which must make him very wise. and to prove the point he's wearing a golden crown.

happy christmas everyone !

(click for big version)

well, i've opened my first christmas present and it was a good one. it's from my grandma and is a pair of my grandfather's old shoes. he never wore these shoes and one look will reveal why. they are white leather with a green and yellow trim, and a red tongue.

kezia said "look, daddy, christmas shoes" which is a nice concept. i look forward to dazzling people with them over the next few days.

day twenty three of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a pudding

here is my photo of a christmas pudding. it's a satsuma. a festive fruit eaten here as a dessert:

crackers means crazy. all we really want from a cracker is the paper hat.

the bang, joke and toy are usually a dissapointment. i think crackers might be a peculiarly british thing. perhaps people will let me know.

jane sends some to france each year so a french family somewhere can enjoy the fun UK-style. it's part of the EU's crackers-for-foreigners campaign.

there is a competitive element to crackers of course. and we can all learn from this study.

here are our christmas crackers in a box. we can only dream of what might be in them. we'll find out on thursday of course ...

day twenty two of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a penguin (or maybe a duck)

and here are the pictures of a penguin by our christmas tree. the penguin has a ball bearing under it so it can mooth (a word i invented which is a combination of smooth and move) around in a non-penguin way.

you wouldn't know to look at it which is why i mention it here.

ah - but now i discover the word mooth has already been used before

yesterday was the shortest day. which is great if you are short. but why do we call it the shortest day ? it's because the 21st December is traditionally the coldest day of the year and, as we all know - heat expands, cold shrinks. doorways everwhere will have reduced in size favouring the smaller in stature.

here is santa in a moses basket. kezia believes that if you look after santa on the run up to christmas then he'll look after you on christmas day.

kezia (aged 1 and ten 12ths) decided she wanted to decorate her own little tree. whilst we got on doing the main tree she carefully selected and installed a small set of decorations on our cheapy tinsel tree. she was really concentrating and in her own little world. it was really very very sweet !

day twenty one of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a stocking i think

here is esther and kezia wearing their christmas stockings. they are actually bags for christmas presents, but i think that's about the same thing.

they are obviously not for wearing which makes wearing them all the more obvious (if you are a kid).

day twenty of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a donkey

here is today's photo:

although the actual photo should be this one. if it hadn't been for the advent challenge we may not have found this find !

people have a lovely time at christmas. here some jolly types had, wait for it, drawn a smiley face on a transparent bag of waste paper and written 'mr snowman' at the bottom ! brilliant. i hope it made the bin men smile as much as it did me.

day nineteen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's another wise man

here is my photo. it's my company's CEO's mouth.

i was sitting next to him at our xmas lunch and he's obviously a very wise man. i say that not especially because he might be reading this. but he might be.

christmas is all about shopping, chocolate and jesus.

the office cleaners have focussed on the chocolate element. here is a big box of chocolates they have given the office as a present to say thanks for all the mess we've left them to clean up over the last 12 months.

i saw very little sign of life this morning whilst walking to work. even the street cleaners were thinner on the ground (quite literally). but i did see some evidence of night-before partying.

here is an estate agents office. through the window i could see a bottle of champagne and a half empty glass on this person's desk. i assume this is from last night, but maybe it's a very bling-blingy hair-of-the-dog ?

and here is someone's bow tie. i'm sure there's a story behind it's removal. you'll have to make that up yourselves.

day eighteen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's an angel

here is the day's photo. it's of the angel from our christmas tree which we didn't put away in the christmas decorations box in january. it's been up all year which has been nice.

hasn't she got the coolest hair and halo ?

jane has been as busy as a busy bee. i was a little busy, but only at the implimentation and printing stage. jane drove the concept, construction and dispatch phase.

"what am i on about ?" you ask. "christmas cards" i answer.

2003

i'm not going to reveal our 2003 christmas card just yet as some readers will be receiving their's by the method of her majesty's royal mail.

(others will have already seen it and are here to claim their money back guarantee).

update: you can see 2003's here

however, here are some ones of years gone by for your delight. it's interesting to see how things have progressed. my photo shop skills have improved for sure !

CLICK PHOTOS FOR BIGGER VERSIONS

2002
a paper nativity with movable characters. the first few photos are from the photo shoot. this was kezia's first appearance
.

the final card and commemorative top trump card (i went a bit photoshop mad last year):

2001
kezia hadn't been born and esther was an angel.

2000
esther as a toddler

1999
what was i thinking. it must have been the 6 months of sleepless nights with esther which made this such a poor entry. i can only apologise to anyone who received this card for the quality.

1998
this wasn't too bad - i stuck our heads on someone else's picture i think

1997
the earliest card on electronic record. we were married in 1996 and i don't think we did anything fancy card-wise that year (i don't think we even had a proper computer). but we did by 1997 and we went kerazee !

day seventeen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a candle

and here is my photo. finding a shop in london which sold forks (so i could take a picture of their handles) was quite a challenge. see this two ronnies sketch for an explanation

day sixteen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a teddy

here are the photos. it's paddington bear as seen as paddington station in london. i go through paddington station every day. paddingston station is of course named after paddington bear.

paddington station also named after a small welsh hamlet famous for producing fluffy cotton wool (a derivation of padding-town).

all of the facts above are false (and therefore a fictions).

here is paddington with his mysterious eyes. the photos were taken nearly 10 hours apart (on the way to work, and on way back again)

here are some inflatable snowmen who felt like i did yesterday.

day fifteen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a reindeer.

here are the photos:

tacky plastic reindeer in a shop window - note how they've kept the foam pieces in their plastic bags to prevent a mess

and here is my plastic reindeer barometer dressed in a crown, hair extensions and tie. on the right is a moose with a charles and diana biscuit tin balanced on its head

there is a house not too far from us which has gone way overboardon the decorations. it's appeared in a few national papers because their neighbours aren't very happy. the house in question is down a very exclusive private driveway where most of the houses are valued at around £1million.

this one houseowner likes to decorate their house rather madly. the photos don't really do it justice. it's truely mad. completely.

and most of all, it's simply not british.

kezia loves the plastic santa. so much so that it has now become one of her inner circle of favourite toys. she calls it christmas (kind of in a cute way). here she is asleep with her little baby and christmas.

day forteen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a christmas tree.

here are today's photos:

my guitar draped with coloured wires making it look like a christmas tree (thanks to esther the roadie for the wire draping)

broccoli - which everyone knows are just tiny trees (thanks to Tony Big-Eye for cooking these)

our home christmas tree which is as bad as it looks on the photo in real life. we'll put up our proper one next week, but for now this mini-monstrosity is enough to keep me and the children happy

inside the church christmas tree (i put my camera in to the foliage and hoped for the best)

day thirteen of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a cracker.

a tricky one today. if you say someone is 'crackers' in english it means you think they (or the idea they've just had) is completely mad.

we watched Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory this afternoon and that is completely crackers. Especially the Oompa Loompas.

here are the oompa loompas doing a little dance

and here are the final pictures of the day:

esther's home made cracker from her pre-school and an egg which fell on the floor (2 unrelated activities):

we finally have our own nativity

here is kezia playing with it:

she appears in this photo (in the same way as santa in this photo):

click for big version

day twelve of the advent calendar picture challenge - from the shape of the plastic thing we can just about tell it was a christmas present. again, someone had stolen it before i got there ...

and here is the photo of a present:

these are my presents to my colleagues which i shall allow them to eat when i have my grand office opening at 4pm today. (i've catered for 6, which allows for a bag of crisps, a fruit drink and two clementines each. the red bull is for an emergency)

it's a day or so late, but here is a nativity picture i took at church this evening. can you spot my little friend hiding in the picture ? click on the photo to see a big version to see if you are right !

click for big version

day eleven of the advent calendar picture challenge - from the shape of the plastic thing we can just about tell it was wise man.

unfortunately someone stole the chocolate before i opened the door, so no chocolate picture today. unfortunately it's you the reader who loses out as a result of this jape (i'm not too bothered myself as the chocolate in the calendar doesn't taste too great !)

so, here are my wise men photos from today:

firstly, wise men from the church nativity set. they do a really funny thing in our church as the wise men slowly move round the church in the weeks up to christmas so they arrive at the stable just after Christmas. it must really freak out the kids, but i like to think of what the journey must be like for those little wise men. what an adventure they have !

it's also great that the guy at the front is kneeling down, so in fact he's shuffling along to meet the new born king.

We were at church this evening for a music practice for our Carol Service on Sunday night. Playing guitar is a chap called Mark. he's a doctor which means he was the wisest man there (i checked with the other blokes and they were in agreement, so hopefully i didn't upset anyone else).

just because he's a doctor doesn't make him wise of course. to prove his wisdom, he's standing in front of the 10 commandments playing a fender guitar through a marshall amp. you can't get wiser than that (unless you prefer gibsons).

day ten of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's father christmas aka santa claus aka saint nic.

and here are some more photos from last january when i had my plastic santa in london in the snow:

the bottom right hand photo is me with the santa outside the entrance to Downing Street. the sign says 'passes must be shown'.

i interpreted the sign as 'santas must be shown' and therefore was refused entry to this particular government building

here is a santa in the window of hamley's this morning. it's made out of funny plastic bits which aren't lego (the photos are a bit duff because of the reflection in the window):

day nine of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a nativity scene

[would you allow me to put this photo for this on hold until saturday ? only, my mum is going to provide us with a lovely nativity when we visit her in her Christmas grotto (you'll see what i mean in due course)] ?

update: here is a photo of our church nativity with a mysterious visitor

day eight of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a snowman

here are the photos. i took these last january when a massive snow cloud plopped its content on london. i was meeting a friend over in westminster and got these photos. the one on the left is a snow man in traffalgar square and the one on the right is a couple of snow-men wearing massive snow ball hats (which must have been incredibly heavy!)

i REALLY tried hard to find a snow man today but failed hence the old photos above

day seven of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a festive dog

so, here are the pictures:

here is esther's toy dog, recently adopted by kezia. i've put it in our plastic green teapot for comedy effect

and here is a robot dog i bought for 50pence outside a shop in Brick Lane, London. it was very cheap as it only has three legs. we've had much more fun attaching clothes pegs and small wheels to the third leg than we ever would have had if it had its full compliment of legs. buy broken stuff is my motto. (how our friends look forward to their christmas presents from me)

i was going to take a picture of a teeny weeny small plastic dog i used to play with as a kid with brother edd, and now esther and kezia play with it, but it was sadly not in the places i expected it to be in. if it turns up i'll let you know !

day six of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a star

here are my photos (from our henley trip)

the lift button in henley rowing museum and a broken fairy want with star on the floor at henley train station:

and here is Jeremy Paxman with his kids. He's a star of BBC TV and radio.

day five of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a leafy berry thing (or it might be a fir tree or fish bone)

here are my attempts. this was trickier than i imagined as there isn't much folliage in london. instead i found these whilst walking back from a Christmas street fair in the village with esther, kezia and jane. kezia and i (well me mostly as kezia was strapped in to her buggy) went in search of the berries whilst jane and esther came back through a short cut.

so here we have holly and a mega close up of some berries (twice actual size)

not my best photos ever ! here is a much better one i spotted a few days later

last year i found a couple of christmas cards in the street and compiled my own lost christmas on a shelf in my office. i thought i was off to a terrifc start when i saw this envelope just off Harley Street. It's addressed to a Doctor and says "by hand". It wasn't actually opened and was lying in the road.

i decided i shouldn't just take it so left it on the nearest doorstep (not bread) and hoped that it would find its way to its intended recipient. i should have changed the 'by hand' to 'by hands'

day four of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a bird:

here are the entries:

dali winged person (part of a statue of a floppy clock outside the london eye)

searching for a bird picture i also went to trafalgar square which was once famous for its pigeons. however there were no pigeons there when i got there for three reasons:
1) it's now illegal to feed them
2) it was dark and pigeons go to bed early in winter
3) there was loads of activity because they were lighting the official christmas tree and they probably would have been scared away

so here is an arty shot of a don't feed the pigeon sign and the bloke on the stick. interesting the sign looks like a tomb stone, which i suppose it was in a way for the pigeons. perhaps john shuttleworth would be interested, writer of the famous song "pigeons in flight"

as we get closer to christmas, life gets busier. it was band practice last night. the electric guitar, piano and me (bass) are out of shot (but not out of hearing range)

they've got a neat idea in london this year to project pictures on to buildings. even the queen's allowed buckingham palace to be projected on.

here is the cover of Do They Know It's Christmas on Wellington Arch (i think that's what it's called). It looked very nice.

day three of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a sleigh:

and here are the photos:

here is a slay(er) of dragons ie a sword

and here is my sledge which is a sort of sleigh i suppose in the garage loft:

day two of the advent calendar picture challenge - it's a bell:

on the left is All Souls Church Spire (which may contain a bell) and some people dancing on Oxford Street (playing bells and drums)

I go to All Souls whevener i'm free on a Thursday lunchtime. if you're in town, come along too ! it's the Christmas Carol service on the 18th december.

All Souls is next to the BBC building where i think they still do radio and TV broadcasts. I went in there for a meeting this afternoon but didn't see anyone famous

i had a chocolate choir boy in my advent calendar today and was a bit stuck for a photo as per my photographic idea.

luckily i'm not alone in my challenge and the blogging community has come to my rescue. so, many thanks to Feisty Girl for sending me this:

it's an album sleeve of St Paul's Cathedral choir from 1996 (a good vintage).

it reminded me that i used to be a choir boy so i went in search of old photos in my old family photo albums. unforunately my history seems to have dissapeared as only jane's old albums are in the shelf in our dining room ! i'm sure my history hasn't been destroyed, it's just out of sight somewhere. a cold trip in to the loft proved unfruitful.

i'm sure my mother (another regular reader) will have a photo of me as a choir boy somewhere in her house. meanwhile i'll keep on searching for my past ...

i went off to get an advent calendar from the arty boutique called Paper Chase. I chose a nice one, but when i got back to the office and opened the door i found ... nothing.

(click picture for big version)

i took it back and got a refund and went looking in other shops. they only seem to sell chocolate ones now, but i wanted one with a picture in it. i even found one which was a countdown to newyear and had 32 windows !

so i went to Marks and Spencers and asked the security guard. he said "the hulk one is the one for you mate. Look at it, it's awesome". i took his advice and purchased this very festive item:

and here's what was behind door number 1:

it's a little choir boy. where on earth am i going to get a photo of one of them from (without being arrested) ?

people are starting to put their decorations up. i'm keen to get them up early (i have a santa that stays up all year and our Christmas Tree angel has been sitting on our telly for the whole year), but Jane likes to leave it until Christmas Eve. i think we'll compromise on the weekend before Christmas.

However, i did notice this amongst some bins this morning. Someone is obviously NOT doing Christmas this year.

stuck for a Christmas gift ? here's my first suggestion ...

royal family paper dolls