Friday 12th until Tuesday 23rd December 2008 @ 15 -19 Stokes Croft, Bristol

www.12daysofxmas.co.uk

As the icy winds of winter gradually creep up on us, as does the merry sneer of Christmas. Even before the first autumn leaves have fallen, we are bombarded in every direction by cheery propaganda bred in poundshop stockrooms across the country, relentlessly poking everyone in the face; “The X word is coming! Get ready. Get your wallet out.” It’s relentless. The ultimate insult is that behind all the fluffy snowmen and ‘good will to all men’, there is a grotesque, greedy corporate underbelly to Christmas and the spending quickly usurps the spiritual, transforming the season into just a gargantuan capitalist cash-cow. What’s wrong with Christmas? It’s no longer mine.
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www.kylevonbrown.blogspot.com

The SY family reveal what they want in their stockings!

Anna L
Ok, for Christmas I either want a shisha with banana-flavoured tobacco or a 1950s telephone where you have to turn the keys around to dial a number.

Freya
A wooden chess set, an antique ring and The Lord of the Rings book - special hard back edition, with maps and cool extras.

Matt
A big, new dressing gown, with my initials on the back.

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There is nothing more Christmassy then sitting in front of a warm fire. Christmas would be rubbish without fireplaces; nowhere to hang stockings, no place for milk and cookies and it’s Santa’s only way in! Here are some of the best fireplaces in Bristol for indulging in that Christmas spirit.

The King William Pub, King Street
As you step off the cobbled street, there’s the choice of three fireplaces all roaring your welcome. This pub is spectacularly cosy with its wooden fireplace, surrounded by brass plates and gas lamps glowing with light. Wooden beams stripe the ceiling, making you feel that you have just stepped back in time to meet the ghosts of Christmas past.
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When writing a piece on making your own Christmas presents, the temptation is there to mention that dreaded, boring word - Credit Crunch. Sod that, make your own presents not because it’s cheap but because craft is the way forward and they add a personal touch we desperately lack in today’s consumer driven world. Gee, don’t I sound old and sensible?

So where do you start? All you need is a handful of paper, a little card, some scissors, a sprinkling of glitter and an ounce of creativity - all this and you get a Blue Peter badge! But if, like me, you want to indulge your creative side and feel the big BP is a little - dare I say - tacky, here are some ideas that may help:
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Have you ever noticed how most of Christmas’s best things are luminous? The dazzle of snow, the glow of a log fire, the sparkle of tinsel, and - of course - Christmas lights, and Bristol has no shortage of those: Clifton’s Winter Wonderland - the arcade glittering with fairy-lit trees; in Bristol Zoo, fairy-light monkeys clamber above the real menagerie; the lit-up homes in Southmead that would put a smile on even Ebeneezer’s Scrooge’s face; and St Nicholas Market and the Christmas Steps were made for this season – if it wasn’t for the fake snow, it would be like walking into a Dickensian grotto.
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From Monday 1st December 2008 @ www.electricdecember.org // Watershed // eShed

Electric December is Watershed’s own very special advernt caldenar to count down until Christmas: 24 presents – 24 short films streamed on the website – 24 premiers from a European smorgasbord of emerging cinema.

Every one of the 24 fabulous films was made by young people from across Europe. Share their adventures as they escape from an ancient Egyptian pyramid, find their subconscious in their scrambled eggs, become baking behemoths, float into space, overdose on grapefruit and are controlled by a sinister retro radio. The final selection of films is as diverse as the continent they come from.
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Sick to the back teeth of the same old tat on offer at Christmas time? Yearning for those days gone by where roasted chestnuts glowed in the twilight while cheeky cockney street urchins ran filthy-faced and barefoot amongst Christmas carollers knee-deep in snow? Well why not get into the spirit of Christmas at one of Bristol’s much-loved Christmas markets?!

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Have you noticed it’s already getting darker and colder? It only hit me yesterday that the tree outside my window has turned golden. This is usually a signal that my mother is about to start getting the winter blues but not me; I love it!

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