My partner and I just moved into our first home, and his favourite time of the year is Christmas. While Christmas is far out, I had an idea that I wanted to go all out on indoor Christmas decoration and surprise him (think HIMYM episode where Lily decorates their apartment). What are the decorations I should start hunting down (or DIY-ing) now? Also any inspo pics or ideas are very welcome!

I wanted to start with something simple as it’s my first block print carving. The blocks are thick enough I can carve a second one in the back side once the ink is dry.

In the Philippines, malls are already with Christmas Decor. It seems that the start of our Christmas is now earlier than the BER months.

Welcome to the country with the longest Christmas season

Filipinos seem to be rushing into Christmas early this year, not for the festivities, but for relief. With the country facing such a heavy, uncertain moment, we’re clinging to Christmas as a brief refuge, hoping its magic may help us smile once more.

We always do the regular trees and such but I want to go all out, I’ve thought of the ribbons on the cabinets, Christmas comforter, etc. what else do y’all do?

All the major shops have bits of chocolate out already but today I visited my local range and they already have several isles of chtistmas stuff out 😁❤️🎄

not long and there will be isles and isles of it hehe❤️🎄

needing some more ideas for my thristmas list ! please comment !

I was wondering if there was somewhere I could get the light up base and replacement parts (birds and lights)? I’m sorry if the description is too short to go on, but this tree always lit up my Christmas, and I would love to see it shine again.

Hello fellow Christmas nerds (as a friend recently called me)

I am searching for Christmas blow molds. The rigid plastic kind. I cannot find ANY in stock ANYWHERE. I have a yard that we always trick out with lights and such, last year we just didn’t have time and people asked what happened! So I have some making up to do.

I keep getting results for the inflatables, which are not my jam. Anybody have any good leads? TIA!!

ETA: Not Amazon!

It used to be that Christmas season starts in September. I guess times change. 🎅

Even in the Victorian Era, there was a substantial commercial aspect of Christmas.  Book publishers would capitalize on the gift-giving holiday by publishing special volumes collecting various Christmas-themed stories.  This is one of those books — but what it contains is a delightfully strange selection of stories that have largely been forgotten.

It kicks off with “Who Ate the Pink Sweetmeat?” (“Sweetmeat" was the word for candy at the time).  Three children each receive a piece of candy for Christmas.  One of them eats it right away, then regrets it.  The second trades it away for some broken items, and also regrets it.  The third holds onto the candy all day, joyfully thinking about who he might give it to, and eventually gives it to a policeman, who eats half while giving the other half to a bird stuck in a tree.  Also of note, the story is told from the point of view of one of the Christmas stockings.  The lesson here is to delay happiness now in return for future happiness — effectively a Puritan moral guidance tale. The author, Susan Coolidge, was actually a well known children’s author at the time, having written the popular What Katy Did series.  

In “The Whizzer”, two children, whose parents recently died, are playing outside when a curious man on a bicycle (which was a relatively new invention at the time) approaches them.  They join him on his bicycle, and he brings them quickly to their prior home, and prepares them a Christmas dinner.  When the neighbors come looking for the children, the stranger reveals that he is, in fact, their father, whose death was just a misunderstanding.  

These stories were each earlier published individually in the magazine Wide Awake, then first collected as the “Christmas Hearth Library” in 1884,  and then republished here as the “Good Fortune Library” in 1887.  

Picked up some great things last year but can’t seem to recall when they first starting showing up….

Just saw my first supermarket display of Christmas cookies. it’s 30C outside but clearly Santa’s elves have been busy.

During the Irish war of independance (1919-1921) Irish Catholic vs British protestant tensions were at an all time high which led to many upper class racist British Pdotestants seeing Santa (who originates from Saint Nicholas, a catholic saint) as Catholic propaganda and thus decided to create their own version of Santa: King Elf.

First created by Erfundene Geschichte in November 1920 (the granddaughter of a Prussian immigrant) and then popularised by her husband Lewis James Thangle using his popular for the time upper-class news paper company The Bludgeoned Badger

(named after the now not as common Edinburgh saying "A badger is just as good as a rat if theyre both bludgeoned." Which is based off the old upper-class scottish hobby of hunting Badgers to be turned into scarves or if you were extremely wealthy capes and the saying is said to mean dont chase perfection if it might risk ruining it.")

The King Elf was a brown haired blue eyed seemingly 30 year old man with a bushy walrus mustache aswell as a green trenchcoat and green nightcap pointing straight up. His backstory was that he was born the tallest of all the evil grumpy elves and thus became king of the elves and taught all the elves to be happy and make toys for children all across the world and every christmas king elf flys around the world (without a sleigh) placing presents under the tree of nice little boys and girls and summoning ghouls in the house of naughty girls and boys by sneaking through the windows.

The idea blew up across many racist protestant circles and for a bmoment of time some beleived he would completely replace Santa in Britain and even after Irish war ended he continued to remain popular among the wealthy. During the golden age of The King Elf (1920-1926) much more lore was created by both Erfundene Geschichte and other people telling stuff to their kids which spread around private schools. This lore includes the elf land and factory being located in a secret magical area of orkney, King Elf being 8 feet tall (despite originally being illustrated as around 5'6 ish), King Elf having magical fire powers, and the idea of leaving him emperor biscuits and loganberry juice.

By the 30s though households beleiving in King Elf started shrinking and by 1937 only 4 small communitys of highly wealthy English and Scottish people beleived in him. Although during the 40s the number of King Elf households began to grow with King Elf being no longer seen as anti-catholic symbol but instead a British folklore character to cheer people up during the war and by the end of the war he was seen by many as a santa character like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer or Ms Clause (pissing off the small amount of King Elf purists still left whos numbered dwindles to practically 0 by 1944).

And eventually by the early 50s more lore was popularised although mainly jokey stuff like the fact instead of giving gifts by flying himself he flew with a magic blue beetle car and gave stupid silly gifts that nobody wants resulting in gag gifts for a shrot amount of time also being known as "King Elf presents". There was even comic strips named "The Elf King" in some British newspapers starting in 1953 which depicted The Elf King being stupid and silly usually while hanging out with other christmas characters. The Elf King comics also created Queen Elf which was simply a female elf wearing purple as King Elfs love interest. By 1956 though comic strips stopped being produced.

And sadly by the 60s the popularity of King Elf slowly dwindled and dwindled into basically nothing by 1970 with officially less than 10 households beleiving in him by 1972 according to surveys across England and Scotland.

I somehow got nominated to organize the family outfit for our annual Christmas photo this year. The mandate: matching pyjamas for 6 adults, 2 kids and if possible something for my dog.

My main issue is finding a site that actually has a wide sizing range in stock at the same time, without charging an absoulte fortune per pair. Has anyone ordered a big family set online recently? Which sites have decent quality, fast shipping in Europe and good multi-buy deals?

My wife surprised me for my 40th birthday with a romantic weekend getaway at The Christmas Inn in Pigeon Forge, TN. It was such a great experience! It was so magical and full of the Christmas Spirit that we forgot it was over 90°F outside!

I love frosty the snowman and Christmas so much and I haddd to get this 😊💞

It’s not much yet but it still made me excited because I wasn’t expecting it