I’m not a fan of Yates’, which I ended up in on Monday because a friend violently objects to Wetherspoons for whatever reason, but they had some lovely Christmassy hats hanging from the ceiling over Christmas. We were the only people there and I asked the very chirpy barman (presumably glad to see life and try out his array of bad jokes/awkward chat up lines) if I could have one. He said yes and this made me happy as I like small wonderful Christmas-hat type things, and it made me smile.

Maybe Yates’ isn’t as bad as I thought, if you ignore the pole dancing area and the swarm of yobs that arrived the minute closing time was announced, at which time closing time was suspiciously called off.

And yes, as the photo demonstrates we celebrate Christmas by devouring Terry’s Chocolate Oranges and playing with curtain finials.

When I was in London over Summer I found @tiredoflondon which blogs one thing a day to do in London. I was never organised enough to use it (probably read here: in bed at weekends) but loved the idea and this month I started writing one for Brighton (Tom, the guy who writes TOL was super helpful here).

I moved here to go to Sussex Uni in October 2007 and spent my first year understanding what an Oceana was and why it should be avoided. I’ve mostly managed to miss the important side to Brighton – the bits for everyone, that don’t necessarily involve dancing badly or massive pupils, and the parts that make everyone feel that it’s in some way intrinsically different to any other city – and whilst writing @boredofbrighton I’m starting to become aware of everything I’m missing (well, to a point – I’ve still idea what’s on at the Cowley Club, but then that’s not listed on Brighton tourism sites so I might have to go leaflet hunting and ask about with hippy friends).

We like doing things, as Liam is busy demonstrating here on our way to walk around the frosty cemetery last year.

A nice person called Jonathan, who also writes a nice blog, has been writing about bands with me. He recommended the Hornblower Bros. They sing about Waterstones, how could it be wrong? I’m clueless with local bands as it seems I’d much rather keep Cat Stevens on Spotify for hours on end, than have a nose around MySpace. Perhaps my priorities are wrong.

Either way, when I’ve handed in my two looming, doom-filled January deadlines on the 14th, I want to start going to the things I’m writing about. Not all, but more. And take photos. And get more people interested, but that’s more of a side note.

I stole an idea, but we’re sticking with Faris’ notion that that’s okay and it somehow makes me a genius. Bitchbag takes videos and cuts them together in snappy chunks; nice insight to life I think. I liked the idea back in November and also had no video editing skills – a good excuse to master the simplicities of iMovie, if you can call those video editing skills.

Anyway, I got distracted playing around with video from the last half year but finally cobbled together my bits for November and December (which is good because they’ll become massively more irrelevant the minute it hits 2010) . I’ve learnt the pain of removing long chunks of video that I love but no one else would (mostly gig footage), but soon got over it. I quite like them.

Lost my camera charger in December so there’s less chunk-age. Although all that really means is there’s slightly less fit-triggering Christmas lights footage, which I had plenty of anyway.

I made a Gingerbread house on Christmas Eve, mostly inspired by seeing this video by Justine at which I like to scoff in a superior and obnoxious manner. “Gingerbread house in a box?” thought I, “What a cop out.” It all went swimmingly although I measured everything nicely before it went into the oven and conveniently forgot everything expanded inside.

Luckily when haphazardly trying to stick it all together, which was like using lumpy breakable bricks and was imaginably a pure delight, my father walked in proclaiming his tiling skills. I’ve never seen my Dad actually interested in cooking-related things so seriously before, but under the guise of DIY he (like me) got far too excited.

I was really pleased with all this until I met a friend at a pub who’d done exactly the same thing. We compared photos – hers was beautiful and intricate, and even had footprints in the icing snow. Mine looks like it’s been done by a five year old and the roof join has a big hole. I don’t really care though. We spent Boxing Day drinking champagne, playing a four hour game of monopoly and demolished it.

Also most impressed with ability of a roofy piece to stand up by itself.

There are nice things about going home to my little village for Christmas. Not only sozzled parents but also a big snowy untouched back garden.

We wanted to build a snowman but it was too icy so we settled for a half-built igloo using spades to cut chunks and accidentally batter the grass. I parcel-taped my camera to the upstairs window frame at the back of the house, with the window open throwing wild abandon to heating costs.

And then it rained, and got dark. So I threw a bucket of water over it hoping it might turn into ice, and we went inside for tea.

The music is by ‘Christmas Song’ by The Hornblower Bros (a local Brighton band who I need to write about at some point) poached unashamedly from Jonathan.