Christmas Links #25

A Thinkfluencer's Christmas Carol:
"Marley was dead: to begin with. Or his brand was, anyway. His Twitter avatar was an egg, and his only tweet read, “Hello, #world. Still figuring out this #twitter thing.” He had no LinkedIn profile. Did Scrooge know Marley’s brand was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? He had forced Marley out of the counting-house, citing his failure to promote the business on social media as an abrogation of his duties."

How does a vegetarian do Christmas?
"I love the few days before Christmas. In fact, I think prefer them to the day itself. I thrive on the frantic last-minute shopping, the armfuls of bags, the evenings wrapping and tying presents. Queuing out the door of the greengrocer’s to overfill my basket with every possible thing I might need (and then the same on top again)."

Why Mariah Carey’s Christmas hit will be around forever:
"Mariah Carey had a banner year in 1994. Her third studio album, 1993’s Music Box, had grown into a blockbuster hit, thanks to the chart success of songs such as the Harry Nilsson cover “Without You” and the inspirational “Hero.” Billboard named Carey the top female pop singles artist of 1994—she had five singles chart in the Hot 100—and the top female pop artist overall, as measured by combined albums and singles activity. Still, even being on a commercial hot streak didn’t guarantee that her 1994 Christmas album, Merry Christmas, which spawned “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” was going to find an audience."

Pregnant waitress gets $900 tip just days before Christmas:
"Everyone knows that waiters and waitresses in the US get lousy wages. It’s one of the reasons people usually try and remember to give them a tip. One couple in Arizona certainly bore that in mind when they gave a heavily pregnant waitress a Christmas gift of $900."

I interviewed Peter Capaldi for the Guardian and here’s the rest of the transcript…
"Regular readers may know that I am slightly a fan of Doctor Who, so it has been a great pleasure over the last few weeks to have had the chance to both interview and meet Peter Capaldi as part of my job."



Crowding Around the Nativity:
"The Gospel of Luke says that the pregnant mother of Jesus could not find shelter in an inn, so she had no place to put down her newborn but in an animals’ food trough—phatne in Luke’s Greek, the word rightly translated as praesepium (Latin), krippe (German), crèche (French), presepe (Italian), manger or crib (English)."

A Blood Curdling Collection Of Scary Snowmen:
"The typical soft and smiley snowmen just don't seem appropriate for a year as messed up as 2016, so it's no surprise there have been way more horror snowmen going around the net this year than ever before."

Ryan Reynolds explains why he looks so sad in *that* photo from Taylor Swift’s party:
"There are a lot of things we love about Ryan Reynolds, but we had all the sads for him when a photo popped up on social media of he and his wife, the lovely Blake Lively, celebrating July 4th at Taylor Swift’s house."

Eva Wiseman: The Christmas journey:
"You're reading this (indulge me) in hour three of a five-hour train ride. Spread out on the table in front of you are an unread novel with an illustration of a teacup on the front (teacup book covers are the new pink stiletto, keep up loves) and a greasy Marks & Spencer salad box containing a single flaccid bean."

Why "I’m The Bishop Of Southwark" Is The Christmas Slogan We Need:
"Ten years ago a senior bishop in the Church of England went out for a Christmas drinks party. He came back with a sore head, accusations he’d broken into the back of a Mercedes, and an increasingly legendary story that would give birth to a proto-meme."