Christmas
Casino Revamp for Christmas
The popularity of Casinos seem to be growing in the UK and have proved to be a popular destination for those seeking a little fun over the festive period.
For many, influenced by popular culture such as the James Bond films, roulette is still the classic image that comes to mind when they think of a casino. Maybe they also imagine such places as late night gambling dens, but these days there’s a new type of casino in town.
The Grosvenor Casino (www.grosvenorcasinos.com) in Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth may still have the traditional gambling games, but there’s also a bar, a restaurant, a designated show bar and a poker room - all thanks to a £2.7mn renovation that finished just before Christmas.
Get in touch to share your experiences of Christmas Parties and Casinos.
Christmas comes early for tombola players
While kids open their advent calendars this Christmas, adults will also get their chance to join in with the festive excitement thanks to tombola bingo’s new FREE Advent Calendar game.
The game, which will be inviting users to simply register (without a credit or debit card!) for their chance to win prizes between a £5 bonus to £5,000 cash.
Each day players will look for the date on the present, when found a symbol will be revealed; each symbol has its own prize. To win simply match any of the three symbols.
And most importantly, if played every day from the 1st December, players are guaranteed to win £5 bonus to £5,000 cash.
So what are you waiting for? Head to tombola.co.uk now and get playing!
Prizes include; £5 bonus, £10, £20, £50, £100, £500, £1,000 and £5,000 cash prizes. If you play every day until 24th December you’re guaranteed to win at least £5 bonus.
Online Spending stats for Christmas Day!
Almost 4m Britons spent over 100m quid online on Christmas Day, according to figures issued by the IMRG.
Some 3.8m consumers spent a total of £102m - an average of £26.80 per shopper - on Christmas Day, up 21% on the same day last year.
However, the number of people shopping online on Christmas Day was 14% lower than in 2007.
James Roper, CEO at IMRG, said, “The volume of transactions was 26% higher, and the value rose by 21%, indicating that serious bargain hunting was the order of the day.”
On Christmas Day etailers such as Marks & Spencer, John Lewis and Play.com were running online sales.
Statistics from online digital research firm eDigitalResearch found online traffic increased by nearly 100% between Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Chris Russell, director at eDigitalResearch, said, “We noticed that most traditional retailers commenced online sales when stores closed on Christmas Eve, with pure play retailers starting after last delivery day deadlines were reached. This means that the increased purchases on Christmas Day and the huge surge in traffic on Boxing Day could have been as a result of this.”
Source: NMA
Did you know, 10 Unusual Christmas Facts…
1. Did you know: It is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day. Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas pudding, mince pies and anything to do with gluttony. That law has never been rescinded so mince pies are illegal.
2. Did you know: Goose is the only bird you can eat legally on Christmas day! In 1588 Elizabeth I enacted a law making it an offense to eat any other bird on Xmas day.
3. Did you know: Christmas crackers were invented almost by accident by Tom Smith in 1847 originally using sweets in a twist of paper. The tradition is now only found in the UK.
4. Did you know: 7 out of 10 dogs will recieve a Christmas present in the UK.
5. Did you know: Over 200,000 trees are felled each year to make the 2 billion Christmas cards that are sent in the UK over Christmas.
6. Did you know: Dido, Annie Lennox, Sir Isaac Newton, Anwar Sadat, Humphrey Bogart and Sissy Spacek all share their birthday with Christmas Day.
7. Did you know: Santa Claus is real and based on St Nicholas of Myra, ‘Sinterklaas’ who lived in 4th century Byzantine Anatolia and gave secret gifts. Did you also know that the Coca Cola Company invented his distinctive red suit.
8. Did you know: Over 10 million turkeys are eaten over Christmas.
9. Did you know: Xmas originates from the greek letter chi, pronunced with an aspirated (kh), which is the first letter of Christ’s name.
10. Did you know: That Christmas day used to be on the 24th December but was moved in the 15th century for political reasons.
Charades
An old favourite, Charades is great for family get-togethers, such as a “Charades Party” at Christmas-time. All you need is a stop watch!
Basically, Charades is pantomime: acting out a word or phrase without speaking. For example, “football” could be broken down into “foot” and “ball.” “Softball” might be more interesting.
Charades can be played with any type of word or phrase; but with kids, you may find that movie titles work best. Sleeping Beauty, Lion King… Most kids are familiar with many simple movie titles. And even the youngest can do Pinocchio!
Usually Charades is played by two competing teams in a race against time: each time a player acts out a phrase, a stopwatch is used to track the time, with a maximum of two (or three) minutes for each turn. The team with the least amount of total minutes and seconds wins. With young kids, however, you might want to skip the stopwatch and the competitive element.
Charades: getting started
There are many variations of how to play Charades, but here’s one format:
Divide into teams, move into separate rooms.
Think of a bunch of titles to be acted out, and write each title on a slip of paper.
These slips of paper will be given to the opposite team.
write a player’s name on each slip of paper: make sure that young kids get easy titles to act out.
First, indicate to your team whether you’re going to mime the title of a movie, book, tv show. (make the appropriate signs for these)
Next, indicate how many words are in the title. (Hold up the number of fingers.)
Next, indicate which word you want to start acting: hold up three fingers for “Third Word”, and so on.
IMPORTANT: Act silly!
London is the Party Capital
London firms are splashing out £100million on staff parties over just two nights as the capital celebrates the biggest party season of the year.
Hotels, restaurants, clubs and bars will be full to capacity tonight as around one million workers down tools to celebrate ahead of the Christmas break.
Analysts today revealed that London companies had sanctioned between £80million and £100million on two massive party nights, last night and tonight.
The figure is down slightly on last year, when £120million was spent over the Thursday and Friday nights before Christmas, with the fall blamed on the credit crunch.
Companies have swapped huge company bashes for smaller departmental events, as well as sharing venues with other firms to cut costs. Many firms are moving their annual bash to January to secure a better deal
Source: Mail Online
Christmas with all the Strimmings
It took the Holleys five years to prune the evergreen into the perfectly round shape it is today.
The couple achieved the life-like effect by spraying the branch tips with diluted white emulsion paint, using plywood for the leaves and attached toilet ballcocks for the berries. It is proving a much-loved local landmark in the front garden of their home in Yeovil, Somerset.
Grandfather-of-two Roger, 60, said: “We’re so proud of our Christmas pudding. It’s taken a lot of work to make it look this good, but the effort was worth it. “The tree is a real favourite with the neighbours, and the local schoolchildren just love it.
“It’s become something of a local phenomenon among residents, who say it looks good enough to eat.”
The incredible pudding is made up of two 25-year-old conifers which Roger merged together to make a ’single’ tree. Roger and Valerie, both keen gardeners, began pruning the tree into its round shape five years ago. They spent hours every summer intertwining its boughs and trimming its tips to give it the cylindrical shape.
Retired Roger, said he was given the idea to transform it by his granddaughter. “She took one look at the tree and said ‘That looks like a massive Christmas pudding!” he said.
Source: The Telegraph
Selfridges Santa Sacked
Lap lands Selfridges Santa landed with the sack despite his chief elf warning him on plenty of occassions. Claus was kicked out of Selfridges’ grotto for inviting a grandmother to sit on his lap
Andrew Mondia, 32, had been hired by Selfridges as one of their troupe of Santas dishing out Christmas cheer and presents in the London store’s grotto. But he claims he was sacked after only three days on Monday after a grandmother complained that he had invited her to sit on his lap.
Mondia, who splits his time between acting and promotional work, said he was sad that he offended one of his clients. “I had no intention of offending her, I just wanted to include her in the moment. Christmas is for adults too,” he said.
The company said it is made clear to potential Santas during their training that no one should sit on Santa’s lap and Santas must certainly not “promote or proactively seek” anyone to do so.
Brings a new meaning to Santas Sack!!
Christmas tree boss denounces fake versions
The head of Britain’s Christmas tree-growing industry has likened artificial versions to “toilet brushes” and claimed they are damaging to the environment.
Roger Hay, secretary of the British Christmas Tree Growers Association, admitted sales of real trees are likely to fall this year as a result of Britain’s worsening economy.
But he insisted they look better and cause less damage to the environment than “junk food” artificial trees, particularly as they can be recycled into compost.
One in three of Britain’s 25million households – around 8million – bought a real tree last year.
But 25 per cent price rises because of import costs and the pound’s weakness mean real trees cost up to £40 this Christmas, compared with less than £10 for a fake one.
Source: The Telegraph
John Sergeant now heads for the airwaves
John Sergeant has captivated the nation with his flat-footed dance routine and he now hopes to do the same with his voice as he records a Christmas single.
John Sergeant has teamed up with television presenters Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley from The One Show to make the charity song. The track, called “Let’s Not Fight This Christmas”, is out on Dec 8 and will battle it out with this year’s X Factor talent show winner in a bid to top the charts this Christmas.
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