Electric eel used to power Christmas lights

While we're still in the twelve days of Christmas, here's one last Christmas post (or perhaps it is simply the first of 2008), a story with admirable green credentials: from Japan comes details of an electric eel being used to power lights on a Christmas tree.

Grateful for a goat

The BBC website discusses How to receive a goat (if you receive an alternative Christmas present) and other 21st Century etiquette dilemmas.

Boxing Day recipes

Cook more turkey than you needed? The British Turkey website has a range of recipes for leftover turkey. The website also provides some Turkey trivia.

Match your coffees with festive foods

Cafédirect offer advice on the appropriate festive food to partner your Fairtrade coffee.

Wrap Art

Still got presents to wrap? You could take the scientific approach and work out how much wrapping paper you need. Or you could be more artistic and try Wrap Art: wrapping presents creatively, using fragments of paper and miscellaneous items from around your house.

Messiah: still going strong after 265 years

The Guardian discusses why Handel's Messiah has lasted so well:

"Messiah represents Handel's direct, personal response to the Bible, but the pacing remains essentially operatic. He was always an opera man, anxious to tell his story dramatically. The overture brilliantly sets the mood for the rest of the parts, filling us with a sense of hope and lightness. Then Handel launches into the sublime Comfort Ye, which calms everyone down. It's Handel saying: "I'm going to make you listen, because this is a long story." He takes you into another world and has this ability to uplift people, then calm them, before taking them up again. As a result, Messiah never fails."

Last Posting Dates for Christmas 2007

The Last Posting Dates website tells it like it is! There is now 1 day left to use your Christmas stamps before the final Royal Mail posting date for Christmas 2007.

Free rooms for Mary and Joseph at Travelodge

Here's a fantastic PR stunt from Travelodge: it is offering couples called Mary and Joseph a free "room at the inn" at any one of its 322 hotels in the UK. The 'gift' of a free night's stay is to make up for the hotel industry not having any rooms left on Christmas Eve over 2,000 years ago when the original 'Mary and Joseph' had to settle for the night in a stable.

Today's Mary and Joseph are offered a "spacious Travelodge family room which can also cater for a baby and a manger". A free car-parking space will be provided for the donkey and there are plenty of rooms available for the Shepherds and Wise Men to book. The couple can stay anytime from Christmas Eve to the Twelfth Night.

God rest you merry atheist

I was intrigued to read that Richard Dawkins enjoys singing Christmas carols as, despite his strong anti-faith polemic, he has described himself as a "cultural Christian" in a recent BBC interview. Yet the words of many carols are soaked in the gospel, so perhaps one year he may come to find his view that science has all the answers is transcended by a greater Truth as he sings:

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth

Carbon cost of Christmas dinner

After the good news about researchers working on solving our Christmas wrapping problems comes the negative news of research into the carbon footprint of our Christmas dinner! Academics calculated the production, processing and transportation costs of the festive ingredients and announced that a combined carbon footprint equivalent to 6,000 car journeys around the world will be produced by the UK population eating their Christmas dinner. The worst offender is cranberry sauce, as the importing the cranberries from the US contributes up to half the carbon footprint related to transport. So, maybe the best gift to request this Christmas is the carbon offset option.

Christmas shopping

Did you observe Buy Nothing Day? If not, maybe the cartoon says it all!

[Cartoon by Dave Walker. Reproduced and posted in accordance with conditions of use at We Blog Cartoons]

Science of wrapping presents

I was delighted to read in the Metro newspaper that a researcher at Leicester University has devised an eco-friendly scientific formula on how to wrap a Christmas present. Apparently most of us overestimate the amount of paper we need to wrap up Christmas presents. However, mathematician Warwick Dumas has been working with Bluewater to devise the perfect method of gift-wrapping to help customers save time and money and reduce the amount of paper that will be wasted. The length of the wrapping paper should be as long as the perimeter of the side of the gift, with no more than 2cm allowed for an overlap and the width should be just a little over the sum of the width and the depth of the gift. Mathematically, this can be expressed as A1 = 2(ab+ac+bc+c2).

Kitschmas

The satirical Christian website Ship of Fools hunts down kitsch religious-themed items it has seen for sale. The BBC website has produced a photo gallery of some of the tackiest. Meanwhile Ship of Fools itself has a Christ vs. kitsch feature about kitsch and true religion.

Want a second go at life?

It is the first Sunday of Advent today. You may have already seen this year's Christmas campaign from the Churches Advertising Network which is: "Want a second go at life?" It has radio and poster ads which invite people to visit a special space on Second Life, the virtual world, where they can find out more about the Christian faith and second chances of life.

Charity hits out at ethical gifts

Are you sending some alternative ("ethical") gifts this year? I was disturbed to discover that an education charity is claiming that 'give-a-goat'-type gifts "are degrading for developing countries". The Director of Worldwrite suggests that "we should ditch the ethical items in our shopping trolleys. If we want to help our peers, we need to think big and hand over the money", and this month the charity is releasing two films that claim many NGO campaigns are simply about making people feel good and not about helping people. However, the manager of Oxfam Unwrapped says that "What might feel like a fun thing to do at Christmas has an impact the whole year round.... We work with communities who, at the beginning of each year, tell us what they need and want".

What do you think? I remembered an article Getting your goat, from a couple of years ago that follows up one such give-a-goat project and reports the positive impact on the community concerned.

Lincoln Christmas Market

If you are planning to go on the Infusion trip to Lincoln on Saturday 8 December, you may be interested in reading the Christmas Market website with dates and times, facts, and photos. You an also view a web film about the Market.

Should you have the time, inclination and money, here are some more exotic Christmas shopping trips....

Countdown to Christmas (8)

Here's an example of what Libby Purves was talking about concerning Advent calendars: while several Infusion members are diehard Doctor Who fans, I do think a Dalek advent calendar is going too far!

Countdown to Christmas (7)

After discussing Advent reading, I was going to discuss Advent calendars but I'm not sure that I can improve on Libby Purves's posting on Advent Rage - do check it out!She also references a website offering the history of the Advent Calendar.

Advent resources

Having looked at various aspects of preparing for Christmas, surely the most important is preparing ourselves to encounter Immanuel - God with us - afresh this year. Many Christian publishers have ranges of Advent books - daily meditations or readings to use in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day (and often beyond to Epiphany). These include: BRF, CWR, and the Good Book Company. Last year the Church Times ran a review of Advent books.

There are also free web resources:

• Lifewords have a Christmas site which is loaded with useful resources for church and community (powerpoints and screensavers, audio downloads, invites, service and assembly outlines) all free to download and adapt for your own context
  
• Lifewords are also publishing Advent devotionals (1-12 December) which you can receive by email or read on the Advent blog
  
• Scripture Union publish a free to download Advent Bible Reading Guide
• The Evangelical Alliance offer an Advent Prayer Guide for 2007
• rejesus offers three short meditations on the Nativity and a range of other Christmas resources (including Christmas carol karaoke!)
• The ReSource website has some Poems for Advent
• The Cyber Hymnal can provide you with the words (and music) of many Advent hymns and Christian Aid have a Carol Sheet to download
  

Countdown to Christmas (5)

Here’s another alternative gift scheme – this time to support developments in Kiteto, Tanzania - part of the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania which is linked with the Diocese of Leicester. Donations will be put towards purchasing special Kangas (the skirt worn by women) to celebrate the creation of a new diocese and then towards the school building project. In return you will receive a special Christmas Gift Card to give to your friend or relative. The card is a Christmas picture by Liz Minichiello, a community artist who has spent time in Tanzania, and inside is a photograph one of the Kangas and a picture of the school.

The project is being co-ordinated by members of Whitwick and Ratby parish churches on behalf of the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro Association with the support of the Leicester Diocese DMK Group.