'Advent' silliness

Not that I have any truck with the religious aspect of Christmas, you understand.... but I do get rather sentimental about the children's tradition of counting down the last few weeks or days before the big day with a special Advent Calendar. For a '70s child like me, Blue Peter is always the key reference for this. This classic BBC children's magazine show (50 years old this year!) went out on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and on each of the last 4 shows before Christmas they'd light one more candle on their four-pronged 'advent crown' (Note: this link blocked in China!!) - a hanging decoration precariously constructed from coat-hangers and tinsel, which always seemed likely to be an atrocious fire risk (see below).

Now, I'm probably already too late to keep pace with them, since Christmas Day is falling on a Thursday this year, but.... I have a series of 3 or 4 amusing Christmas pictures to share with you over the coming two weeks. Ho, ho, ho!

First up is this. My discovery of 'tampon art' the other week - via the reliably diverting List of the Day website - led me to investigate the artform's home website, Tampon Crafts (slogan: For any time of the month...), where they have such jaw-dropping wonders as..... this Christmas Tree. (They're very multicultural: they also have a menorah - check it out.)