MORE to folly
All Good
at
Yule Logs
at
Further to those controversial Santa delivery stats.
David Eaves writes:
For the night that’s in it…What it would take to deliver all of the kids presents without Santa and his Sleigh…
The Logistics Of Santa (Go Logistics)
Releated: Sacktistics
Doireann Cooney writes:
Princess Jadwiga receives her Christmas present in Tbilisi, Georgia
Ronan Lawlor writes:
Lily (top left) & Alfie in front of the fire as an elf and reindeer (top) and a family pic of [from left] me (Ronan), Lily & Alfie…
Laura O’Connor writes:
Frasier Whiskers has his present…
Bren writes:
Miley is feeling very festive
Shauna Quinn writes:
Mylo wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas! (I won’t send the attempt to put the hat on the cat, who was, frankly, less impressed)
Rose Of Kent writes:
My cat Archie finds Christmas one big yawn…
Roisin Nic Oireachtaigh writes;
Here are Coco (top) and Fudge (above) in their custom-made Santa hats!
Len writes:
Thought you might like this one of my Christmas pudding, Zola. She has shredded most of her novelty clothes over the years but the bandana seems to be tolerated.
Daniel Sheridan writes:
Fred dressed as an elf. He insisted.
Lisa Powell writes:
This is Tuna (fish), sporting a nifty hand knit scarf, with her likeness
My pet at Xmas to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked ‘My Pet At Xmas’. A gift for every pet posted.
Earlier: They Howled Out For More
A non-festive animated short.
Bob writes:
A little Christmas message from all of us at [Dublin-based improv comedy collective] Not The Eyes!
Hazel Chu (above) writes:
Hello peeps, need some help with something. My aunt’s house [in Nass, Co Kildare] got broken into last night while her and her two kids were in it. They’re all OK now, thanks. The two scumbags knocked my aunt around a bit and took a pair of pliers to one of the kids mouth and told my aunt what would happen if they didn’t cooperate.
They subsequently trashed the place while taking everything from kid’s pocket money to jewellery. All this while being racially abusive. Delightful really. I would like to say this is an unique incident but sadly it’s happened to my mum, my other aunt and me before in the same way so we know these things happen.
Back to my question, the children were really upset over the whole thing of course but the younger boy of 7 was most upset over the fact that they took all his saved pocket money which he was going to buy a PS4 game. Mum offered to buy him the game to which the poor little thing cried ‘but they took my PS4 too!!’ So today I’m on a mission to buy a cheap PS4. Where does one get one that’s cheap and cheerful? Price I found online is €399, is that the going rate?
Also any ideas for presents for the other child (13 year old girl) would be most appreciated. My brain is not functioning right now. My mission is to give these kids a wonderful Christmas if possible and make them realise that the world is not full of violent thieving racists.
Anyone?
Pic: Hazel
9.03pm Update:
Hazel Chu writes:
Just a follow up to the post in relation to me sourcing a PS4 on the cheap for my 7 year old cousin and ideas on what to get his 13 year old sister. Both of them suffered an aggravated burglary that happened last night Thankfully both children and mother are safe, traumatised but feeling a bit better today.
Cash, jewellery, the kids’ pocket money and their presents were taken, among which was a PS4. Hence I started my quest this morning to go find a PS4 for the 7 year old and some presents for the 13 year old. I posted it on my Facebook which got reposted here on Broadsheet (I was happy for it to be reposted when I later knew it was here).
What happened next was simply overwhelming. Random strangers offered help of cash and presents. It wasn’t something I was actively looking for and had to initially refuse but I was so touched when people insisted, to the point where they just went ahead and bought vouchers and one kind lady bought the console. Thank you Helen. Thank you Nat King Coleslaw. Thank you to all you kind souls out there offering presents and well wishes. And thank you Broadsheet.
The Gardai have been great and everyone has been very helpful but we’re not holding out on anyone being caught. If they were that would be amazing and would give my aunt (the mother of the kids mentioned) some piece of mind. I think being threatened yourself is scary at the best of times but when they threaten your kids in front of you it’s harder to take.
Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading this and for a your support today. It’s most appreciated. It was a crap thing to happen before Christmas but the response today has somewhat restored my faith in humanity.
Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!
Stop That
at
SPLUTTER!
What sort of pantry is this?
Stoolio Iglesias writes:
Well I never. Poor font choice resulted in a less than appetising treat. Hold the cream!
‘Sup?
A tradition as old as Christmas itself.
Brian Costello writes:
Another Michael Tea Higgins cosy getting fitted for his Christmas suit by Virginia Costello
Smaller apartment sizes?
The solution of tiny minds.
Dan Boyle writes:
One of the best known and more popular songs of the vast repertoire of the late folk singer, Pete Seeger, was the tune ‘Little Boxes’.
It was written and sung deliberately in a children’s nursery rhyme style, as if to confirm the intellect level of those involved in the planning and construction of sub-standard housing, those whose stupidity the song was challenging.
“Little Boxes on the hill side
Little Boxes made of ticky tacky
Little Boxes on the hill side
And they all look just the same….”
I imagine Alan Kelly singing along to this tune, in that irony free way of his, while in his ministerial crèche at the Customs House. ‘Let them sleep upright’ could become his new cavalier catchphrase.
The audacity of being opposed to shoe box living while re-introducing shoe box apartments back to our housing stock. Maybe Alan Kelly believes what he’s saying. If he does he’s a bigger fool than most of us already believe he is.
The Construction Industry Federation must not believe their luck – To so soon again be given the opportunity to practice their unique form of economic, social and environmental vandalism.
Their lobbying claimed that building new apartment units was not ‘profitable enough’. Note the use of the word ‘enough’ revealing more than it should. The muted acceptance that profits could be made in making human/humane accommodation, just not the right type of gain.
It’s as if the last decade had never happened. We’re now firmly back in the era of squeeze them in, build them cheaply and build them quickly. The era that served us so well.
Maybe I’m being curmudgeonly? I could be focussing on the wrong type of nostalgia. How could I be forgetting those wonderful student parties of my youth. Those daily re-enactments of the ship berth scene from the Marx Brothers ‘A Night At The Opera’; or Graham Norton’s caravan in ‘Father Ted’, or even Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ video.
Maybe I’m overburdening this piece with too many cultural references? I’m fairly sure that Alan Kelly is practically devoid of culture. Other than, of course, the nod and wink culture he seems to be willing back into prominence.
That nod and wink culture, which prior to the introduction of ‘Riverdance’, had seen some of the most deft choreography this country has produced.
There remain some soft shoe, soft sell, geniuses who deserve further public exposure in our cultural firmament. Cllr. Hughie McElvaney from Monaghan is himself one such stylist, especially after his performance on the recent RTE Investigates programme ‘Strictly Fund Dancing’.
If I’m not being curmudgeonly I’m probably being churlish. Any fair minded commentator would recognise how this well timed, well thought intervention by the Minister, clearly illustrates how effective the Labour Party has been in stemming the undue influence of wealthy interest groups on our body politic.
An experience the party, with Alan Kelly at its fore, can put to even better effect as part of the next government.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
Tommy Maloney’s Irish sausages
On every American fork,
This Christmas there’ll be Irish pork,
And jam, scones and tea,
Will fill paddies with glee,
In Los Angeles and in New York.
John Moynes