Ten things which raised an eyebrow this Christmas - 20/12/13

Ten things which raised an eyebrow this Christmas

As we head into the Christmas break, EP brings you a round-up of some news items and curious stories from around the world ahead of this festive period

• Thanks to a small misprint on a Sears advertisement, NORAD has been tracking Santa’s movements since 1995
• Beginning with scrambled egg & bacon, topped with mince pies under a layer of turkey & potatoes with cranberry sauce then finished with Christmas pudding, the creation of Christmas dinner in a tin was designed so committed “gamers” don’t have to step away from their consoles at any point over the festive period
• With one made from beer bottles, one from post-it notes and another made entirely of broccoli flowers, if you haven’t got your Christmas tree yet perhaps you’ll find some inspiration from these home-made alternatives
• A new app has been launched affording children the chance to Skype with Santa (at a cost of just over £10 per call)
• Hundreds of the most prolific criminals and repeat offenders in Hull have been sent a (tongue in cheek) Christmas card by the local police constabulary reminding them “You don’t want to spend Christmas with us”, encouraging people not to “be a pudding” and to stay out of trouble
• Including over 185,000 litres of Scotch, 100,000+ boxes of English Breakfast tea and 3.5 tonnes of Smoked Salmon, foreign tourists departing UK shores via Heathrow will transport 918 tonnes of British produce around the world to add a touch of “traditional trimmings” to their Christmas celebrations back home
• The information garnered from a survey of over 2,500 “acts of kindness” by people around the UK was used to plan the “Coca Cola Christmas Truck Tour Route” around Great Britain
• The humble Christmas jumper has been given a digital make-over by a former NASA engineer with the introduction of smartphone technology displaying a range of images from a roaring fireplace to shaken snowglobes and even carol-singing cats
• In 1978 Christopher & Avril Rowlands paid £6 for a tree for their first Christmas in the Worcestershire village of Inkberrow. The following January they planted it in the garden and have since watched it flourish to a height of over 50ft. Now, the tree has become a village focus point with a team of volunteers getting together each festive season to cover it in over 1,000 fairy lights & decorations for charity
• Top of the list of Christmas money-spinners so far in 2013 is the Slade track “Merry Christmas Everybody”, having earned Noddy Holder and his bandmates £500,000 in royalties (and potentially half that again by Christmas day) Also on the list are “Fairytale of New York” at over £385,000 and Cliff Richard’s “Mistletoe & Wine” at almost £100,000 Merry Christmas from the team at EP Business in Hospitality - Looking forward to seeing you in 2014