This sore throat is giving me earache, why must all the tubes in my head be connected

Right, we’ve got panettone and non-alcoholic mulled punch and mince pies and sherry and The Fellowship of the Rings is going on

Watching THE GREEN KNIGHT again

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! When Harry Met Sally (1989) is now available on @BBCiPlayer for 29 days.

Sir Terry Pratchett is best understood as one of the most interesting, deeply ethical practical (I would say Pragmatist but I cede to actual experts) philosophers of the late 20th Century who just happened to work in deconstructed fantasy literature as his medium.

We Wish You Baby, A Merry It's Cold Christmas Outside 🤝 not going until you get some

Stuffing/pigs in blankets somewhat incinerated, but the turkey was perfect

Discworld QOTD, from Hogfather

Had a spoonful go the turkey juices and they were heavenly, still waiting on the roasties, parsnips, stuffing balls and pigs in blankets

The turkey is IN

Happy Christmas, my loves! I hope you are all having an exceptional morning. We’ve still got the lurgy but I’m drinking ginger tea and watching a festive Poirot, so it’s not all bad.

My best Christmas dinner tip is: take a photo of your turkey cooking instructions before you it the packaging in the bin, you will need it later!

Ten years since I knitted two snow-covered TARDIS ornaments for a WI acquaintance, posted them across the country to her and she did not say thank you 👍

“But one of these days, this bright young man’s going to be asking George Bailey for a job!” My dear, you must be forty.

Celebrating my fifteenth (!!!) Christmas with partner in the same way: Pret Christmas sandwiches, honey mustard cocktail sausages, clementines and chocolate coins. I love this funny little tradition that started as our last meal together before we went back to our respective parents’ houses.

The most stressed out I've ever been about Christmas was when I was 16 and I got my first ever job, working at M&S in Dundrum. As soon as I started I kept hearing these myths about the Christmas Eve Waste Sale, where all the food that wasn't sold on the 24th was marked down 90%.

I have made a #DuvetKnowItsChristmas bingo card! And done alt text on it (as everyone else should, if they're able).

Second anniversary of our Apple TV’s spectacular attempt to understand me asking for “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas”

I currently have both a rattle and a wheeze so I have been passing the time flitting between the NHS pages for bronchitis and pneumonia wondering if I have either

That time the baby made off with a Ferrero Rocher because it was round and shiny

My best Christmas dinner tip is: take a photo of your turkey cooking instructions before you it the packaging in the bin, you will need it later!

This and videos about Old Hollywood

“it’s a wonderful life” (1946) remains the best christmas film about the importance of mutual aid during the decline of capitalism.

The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees 🧵

Christmas University Challenge is genuinely one of my favourite things about the season. All the things I love about regular University Challenge, but dumbed down a bit so you get more points!

Coughed so hard I pulled all the muscles around my ribs, this cold is absolutely going to kill me before I make it to Christmas

Once I asked a nurse why they say “just a little scratch” for an injection, bc it doesn’t feel like a scratch. A beat, and then she said quietly “we’re trained not to say just a little prick.”

Done with work for the year, all that remains is to get up at 6:30 tomorrow to make it to the supermarket for 7:00 to secure the turkey and the spuds, because if you go any later the shop is full of lunatics

My “London is falling” moment: some company called Until has hung giant shiny letters spelling out their name in a curved window on Charing Cross Road so the UNT really stands out as you walk down and nobody, not one of you, has added a C. For shame, London. For shame ☹️

Favourites 2025 featuring wonky watercolour paintings of my favourite albums (both new releases and new to me), books and films. The Holdovers might have made the list but I only watched it last night. I’ll post some of the previous years below.

The films of the year: 26 discoveries, 10 old favourites, 7 bad movies, 6 re-appraisals and 5 obsessions. Feat. all your faves: Linda Fiorentino, Joan Micklin Silver, Sinners, Wallis Island, Argentinean child noir, and really quite a lot of John Ford. advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/revi...

I have had a nourishing bacon sandwich and a hot apple juice and may yet make it to 4pm

I have had three hours of sleep due to this incessant fucking cough and I have had to go to fucking work

Have finally learned how to read the stitch pattern of this lace scarf, so I can fix errors on the fly rather than trying to frog multiple rows of mohair lace #knitting Also, bonus background John McClane!

I am currently ill and pathetic on the sofa with the lurgy and have just started this, there is no better medicine

Merry Christmas to the two high vis clad lads sitting in their work van, blasting Wonderful Christmas time & passing a whole huge panettone back & forth, taking bites out of it as if it was a big burger

important

Having a cat is so cool. There is a little creature in my bed who loves me and vibrates like a tiny motorcycle and is so fuzzy and wants to snuggle. How could I want anything else

See also my other favourite Sam Vimes meme:

Just got to this bit in Die Hard and it reminded me of this meme I rediscovered this morning

Scraped all the fat from last week’s Christmas gravy and have used it to fry off the onions for an excellent chicken soup 😎

He's been! Here's everything I read this year (and a few things I wrote): Henry James! Joseph Heller! Penelope Fitzgerald! A biography of the unsuccessful 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, Al Smith! advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...

I love my partner dearly but the man is completely unaware of song lyrics so when I sent this to him I just got a message back saying “I don’t understand!”

It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the

Once again delighted that the King William College Quiz has a question about the work of Dorothy L Sayers, taking me up to a score of about three of out one hundred and eighty www.theguardian.com/theguardian/...

The royal icing for the Christmas cake will not achieve stiff peaks, the cats have trailed wet food all over the kitchen floor, my tonsillitis is back and I am having a breakdown

Got an appointment from the hospital. At the top of the first page is my name, address, NHS number and patient number. The first two pages of the letter tell me where and when and remind me that I should bring my hearing aids/walking stick/whatever other helps I might need. The usual stuff. (1/4)