BestChristmasDays.com » General

Unusual and Creative Christmas Trees

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:36:49 +0000

By now you probably have your Christmas tree installed and decorated.

But if not, you might try something unusual. Take a look at these strange, unusual and funny Christmas trees.

The Christmas Truck With 3000 Lights

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:30:25 +0000

Twenty-five years ago, Kris Marshall of Iowa draped a strand of Christmas lights across his pickup truck. Now, eight incarnations later, the Christmas Truck has 3,000lights. Matt Hardigree writes for Jalopnik:

It’s amazingly nontechnical, it’s literally just lights taped to a truck. According to Marshall “It’s not very scientific, it’s a hideous site in the daylight, there’s black tape and wires in the daytime.” But at night it’s amazing. Marshall has used eight trucks and added dozens of strand since, though it’s always a 2WD Chevy/GMC with a regular cab and eight-foot truck bed “the way a truck ought to look.”

By his own estimate there are 50-to-70 strings with a mixture of 50 and 100 lights each, making a conservative estimate of 3,000 lights. There are no LEDs, just the cheap $0.89 strings, though he’d like to add some to take pressure off the taxed generator.

Christmas Cakes

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:07:05 +0000

Christmas isn’t just about cookies – it is also a great time of year to serve cake. Whether you are looking for an elegant cake design to serve at your holiday party, celebrating a Christmas birthday or planning a cake for a Christmas wedding, we have you covered with great pictures and design ideas.

Christmas Logos Around the Web

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:52:38 +0000

It’s Christmas time, and there’s no need to stick to your standard company logo. At Christmas time, we let web designers have a bit of fun, and in our world of brand identity, we can spread a smile of joy.

But say a prayer; pray for all the other ones: all those weary web travelers who have woken up and jumped into their regular browsing routine.

If it weren’t for all the Christmas-themed logos, would they know it’s Christmas time at all?

Yes, it’s Christmas, and you’ll find bits of holiday cheer on almost every major website. Like every year, we’ve scouted the web and listed a couple of Christmas logos we like.

Of course, if you know of any other cool examples, please let us know in the comments. And yes, Merry Christmas to you all!

source: mashable.com

The 12 Graphs of Christmas

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:40:13 +0000

As 2009 sneaks its way into the annals of history, many are taking this time of year to join for the holidays or reflect on the year that was.

As the most measurable, social year in human history, the tools of 2009 showed us how fast something can catch on, who is talking about what and how small the world has become.

In that spirit, we have created some data visualizations to show how Christmas buzz is taking shape and what products are being talked about on the web.

1. Christmas on Twitter

Christmas, though confined to a day or two in December, is a buzz term all year long, with an escalation of thousands per day starting in the Fall and ratcheting up to a fever pitch as the holiday grows closer. Though we haven’t seen the full spike mature yet, tweets containing either the term “xmas” or “Christmas’ are now nearing 20,000 per hour or over 300 per minute.

Compare this to last year when we showed a very similar graph and tweets for “Christmas” were topping out at 40k per day and you’ll get a sense of how much Twitter has exploded in 2009.

2. Christmas in the News

Since November 1, Google News is showing 111,493 new results and a massive 106 million new blog results for the term “Christmas”, driven in part by the indexing of tweets, as the search giant makes a meaningful move into the real-time future.

3. Christmas in Photos and Video

As the social web matured this year, photo and video sharing has become second nature to many. With more smartphones and applications making this type of engagement possible, expect to see these sectors flourishing in 2010. Notice below, videos tagged “Christmas” on YouTube () pushed the video portal to its public API return max for a tag to 1 million by mid-December.

4. Obama Vs. Claus

President Obama is one of the most talked about people on Twitter year round, but in this season, he and Santa duel for prominence in the public’s mind.

5. Love Vs. Hate

In the epic battle of love vs. hate, there is a clear winner on Twitter this holiday season.

6. Location-Based Tweets in NYC

An important trend for 2010, as recently described by Pete Cashmore, is location-based social networking. And in the spirit of special sharing, here is a new feature set we at Wiredset are rolling out with Trendrr for the very first time: Data surrounding “check-ins” on Foursquare (). Here’s a sample look at possible holiday activity in the Big Apple, as shown in “check-ins” per day.

7. Holiday Retail Wars

And where are the “Twitterati” spending their shopping time? This graph, first shown by Jennifer Van Grove in a piece on Black Friday, shows how the rest of the heavy shopping season buzz panned out — with Amazon staying on top of giant retailers on Twitter.

8. Kindle Vs. iPhone

Here is a look at Twitter buzz for two personal devices that captured America’s attention, harnessed imagination, and drove innovation in 2009. To put the buzz in perspective, most TV shows get less than 5,000 tweets per week. This shows the conversation levels per day.

9. Smartphone Blog Buzz

With an average of over 100 million blog results returned for a typical Google () search, iPhone is clearly the hottest blog topic in the smartphone category. Here’s a look at some others in the blog space.

10. Video Games

The multi-billion dollar gaming industry is here to stay and will be a staple this holiday season in many homes. You can see the peaks driven by a flurry of new game announcements this fall, followed by a look at how new games are fairing on Amazon.

11. Zhu Zhu Pets on Amazon

Every year there is a product that comes out of nowhere to become a must-have for the kiddos. This year the Zhu Zhus — robotic hamsters — are the new entrant making waves in the children’s category. Even with a consumer group contending parts of the anatomy to be unsafe in early December, the fuzzy robots have made their mark on consumers this year.

12. The 12 Days of Christmas Tweets

Most know the song, but few can remember all the words to “The 12 Days of Christmas.” The first five days of Christmas are the most talked about on Twitter. Here is a look at them all.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto , Osuleo

The Pirate Bay Goes Retro for Christmas

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:58:44 +0000

Remember how one of the most popular torrent sharing sites, The Pirate Bay, looked back in 2003?

Today, you have a chance to refresh your memory, because the pirates have gone retro, changing the layout of the site to the way it looked back then, when the Internet was innocent and there was no pile of lawsuits on their desk.

Surprisingly enough, the site actually looks quite good; some might even argue that it’s easier to navigate than it is in its current iteration.

There is one slight problem, though: the site is entirely in Swedish. The reason is explained on the Pirate Bay blog:

“In 2003 we started out as a tracker (on a tiny adsl connection in Mexico) mainly for Swedes. Today our servers operate in many countries and our users can be found wherever a tiny bit of internets can be found.”

The Pirate Bay folks aren’t content to merely look back with nostalgia, though; they’re planning exciting things for the next year.

“Enough with the old! Bring on the new! 2010 has no room for boring debates about old worn out values that old rotting industries try to shove down your throats. 2010 will be the year of the hydra. Let thousands of new exciting projects emerge!”

The 10 most depressing people to spend Christmas with

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:15:48 +0000

Well here it is, depressing Christmas. Nobody’s having fun and Alan Carr just shot himself while doing Channel 4’s alternative Queen’s speech. Still, it could always be worse, you could be spending Chrimbo with any one of this lot.

10. Joanna Newsom

Who’s up for knitting some quirky sweaters? Who’s up for playing a mediocre game of charades? Who’s up for dressing up in a badger costume? That’s right, you’re in for one overrated, out of date Christmas, my friend.

9. The Vicar of Dibley

There she is, being all matronly and splashing lots of wine in her glass and eating a great big fudge cake because it’s just so “wickedly tempting” and there you are, having to pretend that her fucking shtick doesn’t get really boring after about 15 seconds. Oh, you’re a fun food-loving vicar, are you? Oh, Christmas is about presents and stuffed turkey, is it? Listen Dibley, cut the crap and lecture me about Jesus and the Virgin Mary. I had to listen to you gnawing on an old turkey carcass last night and I need some spiritual healing.

8. Michael Owen

You’re a football fan and you get an invite to the Owen house for Christmas. You think to yourself: fantastic, I’m going to hang out with one-time England goal machine Michael Owen. He can’t really play football anymore but I bet he’s got some good stories about Alan Shearer and larking around with the lads. Then you get there and you have to spend the day with a dead-eyed gambling addict who won’t shut up about all the horses he owns and insists on cooking the turkey on a barbecue on the patio under his outdoor heater.

Look at the hand

7. Robbie Williams

Even knowing who he is is depressing. Imagine having to spend the festive season with him, in his cavernous LA mansion peppered with photos of his dick. Maybe he could invite his old lover Geri Halliwell round and all the depression on earth would be sucked into their black hole of seasonal self-hatred, so that while you listened to them cry about the nineties, everyone else on earth would find true happiness.

OJ’s not in the list, but this is a pretty depressing Christmas card. Celebrate your freedom, you murdering Christmas turkey!

6. Jews for Jesus

Well, hey, we don’t celebrate Christmas per se. I mean – it’s not like we’re doing what all the other Christians are doing. We’re not Christians. But neither are we hanging on for Hanukkah like all those square Hebrews. What we’re really doing is celebrating the birthday of a really great guy. This guy is – why beat around the bush – this guy is the Messiah. And while we won’t be eating a big meal, giving presents or any of that kind of thing, we will raise a lovely big glass of squash to our main man Jesus and say: “Good for you big J, good for you.”

5. Woolworths

The most depressing thing about spending this Christmas with a Woolworths would be that you would spend ages trying to find one and then, if you did find one, you wouldn’t be able to shop in it. On top of that, you’d have to listen to it weeping as it told you about all the great and varied things people used to buy in it only one year ago, and how it never really minded when people stole pick ’n’ mix at Christmas time.

4. Bob Geldof

Bob, could you just stop asking me if “they” know it’s Christmas time? I’ve been on the internet recently and it turns out that Christianity is quite a big deal in most of that continent, which means that they cottoned on to the whole “birth of Christ” thing a while ago. Just because it’s hot and you found some kids with flies on their faces doesn’t mean they don’t know about Christmas.

3. People who love sunshine

You know what’s really great? Spending Christmas in Australia. Did you know it’s summertime down there? Unbelievable. It’s a whole other world. I mean, you eat your turkey and then, get this (it’ll blow your mind), you run out on to the beach and you have a bloody great sun-drenched, water-filled life loving surf. I fucking know. It’s insane.

Actually, do you know what’s not really great? DOING THAT. Christmas isn’t about being comfortable, getting a tan and going to the beach. It’s about sitting inside while it refuses to snow but at the same time remains quite brisk. In the New Year you can fuck off to Club Med or wherever it is you like to jet ski, but until then, shut up, go back to Bradford, and remain mildly but not excessively cold for a few days.

2. Marilyn Manson

I met a guy once who actually did spend Christmas with the God of Fuck. When he got there, Marilyn was on his own doing coke and watching horror films. Just imagine him trying to think of ways he could defile the season without getting off the sofa.

1. Your local vicar

If I wanted to spend my Christmas day in a bitterly cold sanctum being told how shallow I was then I would have gone to a meat freezer run by pious vegetarians. Most people only go to church on Christmas day and so vicars and priests up and down the country decide that they will spend that very day berating their audience for not coming more often. Way to enthuse the flock, chaps. Once they’ve done that it’s on to a nice long lecture about the true significance of Christmas (Jesus = born) and the spiritual rottenness of the money-loving, toy-orientated culture we live in. Then they pass around the donation hat and make whimpering noises about needing a bigger altar.

Beware: 10 Scams That Could Ruin Your Christmas

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:51:40 +0000

For most of us, Christmas is a time for giving. But not everyone feels that way. For some, Christmas spirit signals a time of easy pickings and a chance to help themselves to our hard earned cash.

It’s a sad fact that the Internet is not just a way to get the Christmas shopping done without fighting through the crowds – it is also home to the majority of Christmas money scams:

1. Fake charity appeals:
If you get an email asking for donations, apparently from a recognised charity, proceed with caution. Reputable charities never ask for money via email, so any website you are directed to will probably be designed to collect your personal and banking details – which will then be used to steal your money.

2. Holiday e-cards:
It’s great to be green of course, and e-cards are one way of cutting down on Christmas waste. But beware, some e-cards are not what they seem – people receiving them are directed to website designed to, you guessed it, steal their personal information and, ultimately their money. So, if you receive an e-card, or an email promoting e-cards, be careful what you click on.

3. Be careful what you Google:
Scammers are nothing if not resourceful. Research has found that results from a wide range of seasonal searches can be peppered with dodgy sites – searches ranging from Free Santa Screensaver to Free Santa Music can be risky.

4. A coffee and a scam:
Sitting in a coffee shop surfing the internet is not always as handy as it might seem. Make sure the wireless network is password protected, or someone might just be using specialist software to watch your every move, and steal your passwords. If you are visiting your bank from an unsecured, public network, you are asking for trouble.

5. Auction fraud:
More and more people are visiting auction sites to find bargains. But remember that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. If you are not careful, you will pay up, but never receive the item you bought. Always check the sellers ratings and only use payment methods with in-built protection, such as PayPal or a credit card.

6. Themed attachments and ‘spam’:
Unsolicited email should always be treated with suspicion, more so in over the Christmas season. Any email from a sender you do not know, and which asks you to visit a website or open an attachment is probably not the festive fun it claims to be.

7. Laptop theft:
If you are going away for Christmas, lock away your laptop. If it is stolen, the chances are the thief will find a way to access your passwords and personal details, then have a merry old time spending your money.

8. Telephone scams:
Not every scam is carried out on the internet. Any phone call offering you a now or never offer and pressuring you to give out bank details is surely a ruse. Don’t fall for it.

9. Fly by night web merchants:
It’s amazing how many new discount websites spring up around Christmas. Many are genuine of course, but some are not – and they will typically be selling the year’s must have toy or gadget. The site might simply take your money and disappear, or those behind it might continue to use your details. Again, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

10. Door to door charity collections:
Good old shoe leather is still a valuable tool for seasonal scammers. Just make sure you see some proper ID before making a donation. Otherwise you will lose out and so will the real charities.

5 Ways to Connect With Santa on the Web

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:03:35 +0000

Back in the old days, the only way to get an audience with Santa was to head to the mall and wait in line for a chance at the fat man’s knee. Today’s kids have a wealth of online options for hooking up with the Claus.

We’ve scoured the ‘Net for the five best ways to connect with Father Christmas, from the iPhone version of a letter to Santa, to some sleigh-tracking GPS tools.

If you have kids (or are just a big kid yourself), we think you’ll enjoy sharing these holiday web treats.

1. Get an E-mail from Santa

Super-organized parents may have already ordered their child an “official” hard-copy, mailed letter from Santa from one of the many places that offers that service, but the rest of us (or indeed, those that shun snail mail) can have a more last-minute go via SaintNick.org.

The site has a form where you enter the child’s name, age, location, how nice they’ve been, and their Christmas wish list. Once sent, an almost instantaneous letter from Santa will appear in your inbox which cleverly incorporates the data provided into a coherent, personalized letter to your little one from the big man himself.

2. Ask Virtual Santa a Question

If you’re struggling to explain to a youngster exactly how Santa knows whether they’ve been naughty or nice, why not just let Kris Kringle phrase the answer himself? You can ask the authentic-looking Virtual Santa a wealth of common questions that may be worrying kids, such as “Will you still come if I don’t have a chimney?” or “How do you travel around the world in just one night?”

The on-screen Santa will give video answers delivered in a jolly manner. There’s also an option to ask Santa a question of your own, but we’d stick to the pre-set list, as it seems the elves’ A.I. programming for such user-generated questions is a little on the random side.

3. Get a Phone Call from Santa

Aimed at younger children who will be susceptible to such trickery, this Santa-themed iPhone app simulates a phone call from the man in red and could have two applications. It can be used to generate some pre-Christmas magic for a child speaking to Santa before the big day, or it may be a handy tool to get naughty kids to behave.

There are three call options: 1. Santa praises the child for being on the good list with promises of Christmas surprises; 2. Santa issues a verbal warning for bad behavior; and 3. Santa suggests a lump of coal is en route unless they shape up soon. All are delivered in an “upbeat and positive” way, but you might want to pre-screen option three just to be sure you don’t traumatize the little tyke.

4. See Santa Live on a Webcam

We’ve been watching this Finnish feed on and off for a little while now, hoping to catch “Santa” in some compromising position. So far though, Santa’s been nothing but professional, meeting and greeting kids in his comfortable home at the North Pole ably assisted by a couple of elves.

The live webcam broadcasts during office hours, meaning you can tune in from anywhere in the world to see Santa in action between visitors. You’ll have to work out the time difference (it’s GMT+2) to catch Claus at work, but hopefully a live glimpse of Santa doing his thing will be worth it.

5. Track Santa’s Journey on Christmas Eve

It’s an American Christmas tradition that’s gone global thanks to the web. Once a year since the 1950s, the North American Aerospace Defense Command turns its high-tech radar system towards the North Pole and follows Santa’s progress around the world as he delivers his present payload.

To really get the kids hyped on Christmas Eve, you can go to the NORAD homepage and then track Santa’s journey thanks to a Google Earth team-up. You can also catch some snaps from the strategically positioned Santa-cams that grab pics of Santa and his reindeer as he makes his way across the night sky. Good luck trying to get the kids off to sleep after that.

50 Best Christmas Resources: Wallpapers, Themes, Icons, Vectors and More

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:27:04 +0000

Christmas is getting close. Whether you are still in the midst of the last minute Christmas newsletter design, or just want to spice up the desktop a little bit, chances are there’s always something for everyone.

We are talking about the free Christmas related icons, vectors, fonts, wallpapers, tutorials, themes, etc created designers and shared all over the net. They are probably our early Santas.

Here’s our final Christmas related entry – a mash-up of the Best Design Resources for Christmas around. If there’s any we’ve missed, let us know in comment, we’ll add it in. Merry Christmas in advance.

1. Icons

PSDTOP: 25+ Beautiful Chrisstmas Icon Set

PSDTOP would like to present especially for you 25+ Beautiful Christmas Icon Sets which you can use for your web site or your desktop.

Web Design Ledger: 23 Awesome Christmas Icon Sets

Web Design Ledger presents you 23 Awesome Christmas Icon Sets to put you in the Christmas spirit.

aComment: 13 Elegant Free Christmas Icon set in PNG/Gif

aComment showcased some elegant and high quality Christmas icons which lets you use them in your websites easily.

Design Bliss: 10 Sets of Beautiful Free Christmas Icons from deviantART

Design Bliss has hand-picked 10 sets of beautiful Christmas icons from deviantART and they’re all FREE!

Smashing Magazine: Smashing Christmas Icon Sets

Photoshop Roadmap: Nice List of Christmas Tutorials, Brushes, Clipart and Icons

Photoshop Roadmap built this list gathering some new (and old) Christmas related tutorials, brushes, cliparts and icons for personal use..

Vu Nguyen: 20 Beautiful Christmas Icons

Vu Nguyes prepares 10 beautiful Christmas icons for you to decorate your web according to the Christmas spirit.

Smashing Magazine: Christmas Icons and Christmas Wordpress Themes

Smashing magazine has selected high quality Christmas icons, and Christmas Wordpress themes to let you get into the true Christmas spirit, decorating your personal desktop and adding some Christmas flavour to your recent designs or weblogs.

2. Wallpapers

PixelResort: Xmas Holiday Wallpapers

You will find a few goodies of Xmas holiday wallpapers to decorate your desktop.

Smashing Magazine: Christmas Wallpapers

Some Xmas specials – for your desktop or current web-project.

60 Beautiful Christmas Wallpapers For Your Desktop

Here you can find some really Beautiful Christmas Wallpapers for you to decorate the desktop while counting down to Christmas.

A New Morning: Best Christmas Wallpapers 2008 Download

Some really nice Christmas wallpapers posted by A New Morning.

Crestock: 16 Stunning High Resolution Christmas Wallpapers

Take this opportunity to put your desktop in that festive mood with wallpapers courtesy of some of Crestock’s finest contributing photographers and designers.

3. WordPress Themes

Developer Fox: 15 Interesting Christmas Free Wordpress Themes

Developer Fox thinks you might be interested in dressing up your blog with a new Christmas free wordpress themes.

SheepTech: 30 Christmas WordPress Themes

SheepTech has compiled 30 Christmas WordPress themes if you are a WordPress user and wants some holiday feel on your WordPress blog.

Pulse2: 42 Free Breathtaking Winter Wordpress Themes

Here is a list of 42 of the best Wordpress winter themes to get your blog ready for the winter.

4. Photoshop Brushes

1stWebDesigner: 48 Snow, Ice, Snowflake and Christmas Brushes

There are pine, ice, snowflake, snow and many different Christmas related brushes for every taste in this list.

Web Resouces Depot: Christmas Design Toolkit: Photoshop Brushes, Vector Images And Tutorials

This is a giant design pack which includes Photoshop Christmas brushes, Free Christmas vectors, and Christmas-related Photoshop & Illustrator tutorials.

Observin: 23 Wonderful Winter Photoshop Tutorials & Brushes

Observin has gathered these winter photoshop tutorials and brushes are the perfect way to spruce up your designs and get you in the holiday mood.

Design Bliss: 5 Sets of Free Christmas Photoshop Brushes (2008)

Here are some free Christmas Photoshop brushes Design Bliss found over the past year.

Toxel: 20 Free Christmas Photoshop Brush Sets

A collection of free Christmas Photoshop brush sets that you can use to design something special during the holidays.

Photoshop Roadmap: 25 Nice Christmas Photoshop Tutorials and Brushes

Photoshop Roadmap has compiled another nice selection of Christmas Photoshop tutorials and brushes. All the brushes featured on this article are free to use on personal, non-commercial, projects.

Gosublogger: 16 Photoshop Brush Set For Christmas

This sets include xmas tree brushes , xmas ornaments brushes, xmas decoration brushes and other sets.

5. Photoshop Tutorials

Toxel: 24 Free Christmas Photoshop Tutorials

To help you prepare for this year’s Christmas celebration, Toxel presents this collection of free Christmas-themed Adobe Photoshop tutorials.

StayUpdate: 31 Free Christmas Photoshop tutorials

StayUpdate has gathered free Christmas Photoshop tutorial for designers to be able to have the best design skills for Christmas.

My Ink Blog: 10 Fantastic Christmas Inspired Tutorials

My Ink Blog helps get everyone in the Christmas spirit by sharing some awesome Christmas related tutorials.

Smashing Magazine: 60 Beautiful Christmas Photoshop Tutorials

You’ll learn how to design Christmas trees, snow globes, snowflakes, Christmas candles, Christmas balls and much more.

6. Fonts

Dafonts: Free Christmas Fonts

Dafonts provides over 70 free Christmas for download without paying a single penny.

Woork: 10 Free Christmas fonts

Take a look at this list with some of Woork’s favourite Christmas fonts which you can download and use on your design projects.

Font River: 20 Superb Christmas Fonts and Dingbats

Font River gathered a wide variety of funny fonts and dingbats to pep up your designs. Make your own matching Christmas cards, invitations, favors bags, place cards, napkin rings, and much more!

Simple Thoughts: 20 Attractive Free Fonts for you This Christmas

Simple Thoughts prepared 20 fonts for you this Christmas which are absolutely free.