When animals got prezzies!

The animal residents at Drayton Manor Zoo had a pleasant surprise earlier this month, when they all received a little something from Santa himself.

They all got early Christmas gifts, when the great man himself paid a visit to the 15-acre attraction on Wednesday 17th December, as part of its Animal Enrichment programme.

There was a wide variety of festive gifts for the animals, from rabbit for the leopards, mealworms for the meerkats.

The gibbons and parrots had nuts and seeds respectively.

Joyce Roberts, who is the manager of the zoo told That's Christmas: "Christmas is the season for giving and we wanted to make sure our residents at the zoo weren't forgotten, either!"

She went on to say: "The animals have given families who have visited the zoo a day out to remember and they definitely deserve their gifts!”

Drayton Manor Theme Park’s Magical Christmas event will be open from the 27th – 31st December and Europe’s only Thomas Land™ attraction will open on Saturday 14th February 2015 for a fun-filled February half term, closing on Sunday 22nd February. The 15-acre zoo will also be open. For further information about Drayton Manor Theme Park or to pre-book discounted entry tickets visit www.draytonmanor.co.uk or call 0844 472 1960.

Don't let them be alone this Christmas! But half a million will.

6.9 million older people in Britain will be relieved when Christmas is over, national research shows.

And what is worse, half a million older people in Britain will spend Christmas Day entirely alone.

New research, undertaken by pub chain Ember Inns shows that 20% of older people will awake on Christmas morning dreading the day ahead.

And nearly in 20 older people didn’t receive one single present last Christmas.

The worst part about Christmas Day for nearly one in 10 older people is spending the time alone. In fact, 11% say they feel upset when they see other people with families on Christmas Day.

Nearly one in 10 older people say will be making do with a pre-purchased ready meal on Christmas Day.

Ember Inns has decided to redress this problem by donating a table at every one of its 130 pubs across the UK on Christmas Day to lonely older people from the local community.

Each pub has donated a four course Christmas dinner, free of charge, so lonely older people can spend the day surrounded by their peers.

Fiona Richardson, who is the Marketing Manager for Ember Inns, said, “At Ember Inns we're passionate about communities. We all have friends or relatives who live alone. This can be a very hard for some of them, especially so in the run up to Christmas and our pubs are ideally situated in the community to help.

"Our pubs are all over the UK so lonely older people will be certain to have one near them that they can rely on for the perfect Christmas this year.”

In the UK over half of all 75 year olds live alone and one in ten suffers ‘intense’ loneliness but is reluctant to ask for help and 17% of older people think Christmas is ‘just like any other day’.

For more information visit www.emberinns.co.uk .

Merry Twixtmas from Wales!

A new idea that is aimed at beating a modern social problem, a lack of time due to over-planned and scheduled lifestyles, is happening in Wales, in  Bridgend County, to be exact. It's happening over the five days between Christmas and New Year.

Bridgend County is the first Welsh host of Twixtmas - a UK-wide campaign to offer a chance for families and friends to get together and try out some new activities, help other people and to rediscover how to reclaim valuable time during a traditionally 'dead' period in the calendar.

Between 27th and 31st January, the #WelshTwixtmas programme will motivate people to try something new, help others, or do things they've been putting off throughout the year.

In Bridgend, the Twixtmas campaign group's got together with top tourist operators and community groups, backed by the local council, to offer a fantastic range of Twixtmas events to transform what can be a boring part of the year into a period for families to enjoy a ‘happiness binge’.

#WelshTwixtmas will encourage you to do something different during Twixtmas. It encourages you to ‘Seek’ ‘Blitz’ ‘Learn’ ‘Give’ and ‘Walk’ during the five days, through a series of engaging events in Bridgend County Borough. These will include:

27 Dec: Seek the Naturekeeper’s quest through a family treasure hunt in the Bridgend countryside through the council’s new ‘Dare to Discover’ mobile app
28 Dec: Blitz your environment through a beach clean-up at Porthcawl’s Rest Bay beach
29 Dec: Learn something new at a ‘University of Twixtmas’ event at Cwm Tawel Yurts
30 Dec: Give blood to the Welsh Blood Service or donate food to Bridgend Food Bank
31 Dec: Walk the stunning Bridgend stretch of the Wales Coastal Path

As part of its support for the Twixtmas campaign, a UK-wide initiative,  the campaign group will also launch a ‘Happiness Binge Guide’ to encourage people to take up the activities on offer and set goals for 2015 in line with the Twixtmas drive to ‘do something different’.

Andy Green from the Twixtmas campaign group, said: “We live in a society that is characterised by overscheduled lifestyles and rife with a real lack of time to spend quality time with ourselves, our families and friends. Research shows that the average British family spends just 49 minutes per day together - with many parents having to adopt a ‘shift parenting’ approach to taking care of their children."

“The five days of Twixtmas are an opportunity for people to reclaim valuable time, reassess their lifestyles and do something different - for themselves, the community, their family or someone else. It’s a timely reminder to all of us of the importance of taking quality and leisure time seriously to address work/life balance issues.

“We’re delighted that Bridgend will be the first Welsh county to host an event for #WelshTwixtmas. It’s positive to see so many businesses and the local authority supporting the initiative with a suite of exciting and unique activities across the county.”

Bridgend Council Leader, Mel Nott OBE, said: “The Twixtmas concept is all about transforming the five days between the Christmas and New Year holidays into a unique opportunity that reminds people to reclaim valuable personal time, undertake new experiences and approach 2015 with a fresh outlook for managing their work-life balance over the year ahead."

To learn more please visit www.twixtmas.com and www.bridgendbites.com.

(EDITOR: Thatschristmas will be following Twixtmas on Twitter.)

Report a Christmas Crime discretely on the trains

If you are on a railway station or on board a train over the Christmas period and you witness a crime British Transport Police are advising you that you can discreetly inform them of the situation by texting them on  61016, which is their force national text number.

You can also call them on  0800 405040.

However, they do remind us that in an emergency, we should still use 999.

Views on that's Christmas are up!

Which is only to be expected as people are doing online research for last minute Christmas presents, food ideas and the like.

Folks, chill out, you can do it!

I would like to take this opportunity to raise a glass of Single Malt Scotch to all of my readers and to all of the PR folks who have come to my assistance this season and who have helped make That's Christmas the website that it is!

And if you are still worried about finding a suitable gift for someone, please refer to this post that I made several days ago which will help you sort out a Christmas present at this late stage in the day.

http://thatschristmas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/dont-panic-you-can-still-get-great.html.

Which reminds me, later today I will have to stop working on That's Christmas long enough to pop into my nearest Morrison's store to buy wrapping paper and labels!

Today is Defrost Your Turkey Properly Day

The UK's Food Standards Agency is running a campaign to help ensure that every frozen turkey served throughout the homes of Britain are properly defrosted to ensure the minimum number possible of people suffering from food poisoning.

"Families across the nation are getting ready for Christmas and the majority of us will have turkey on the menu. Incorrect thawing provides a way for bacteria like campylobacter to spread, leaving you with a turkey dinner that looks and tastes delicious, but contains a hidden risk that can’t be seen, tasted or smelled.

"The Food Standards Agency is reminding you and other consumers that it’s the little things that you do that will keep you and your loved ones safe this Christmas. That's why this year we're saying: 'defrost your turkey correctly'."

For the full information on the campaign and some useful tips please visit https://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/campaigns/defrost-your-turkey-properly.

The zodiac Guide to Successful Relationships and Careers

The zodiac Guide to Successful Relationships and Careers written by Y Kwan Loo is a truly amazing book.

It's strapline is "How research-based Western and Chinese astrology can help you make the big decisions in life."

That's a pretty big claim and after looking through the book (aided by an astrologer, as That's Christmas is nothing if not thorough!)  we had to come to the conclusion that this book is, indeed, the real deal and that, to once again mine shamelessly in the rich seam of the cliche, that this book does, indeed, do what it says on the tin.

The author has spent many years on deep analysis of multiple streams of data and has woven them together to form a synthesis of a theory of how we all work together in reference to our star signs, both Western and Chinese.

The data that he has amassed and processed covers, amongst other items, nearly 1,000 different careers and reachsearch based on a staggering array of people, in excess of 24,000, to be honest!

We checked our entries in the book and were more than a little intrigued to see that the book had correctly identified our major character traits but had also accurately listed our likely career fields, too.

It also shows which media personality also matches your sign.

The book also has a chapter that uses public examples of notable business or romantic relationships, pointing out a variety of points where astrology indicated good and bad aspects.

The book will make an ideal Christmas present for the dedicated follower of astrology or the person who is curious and who wishes to learn more about the world around them.

It is published by Mereo Books, the ISBN is 978 1 86151 202 4.

It costs £12.99 and can be bought at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones, Amazon.com, WH Smiths and Google Books.

http://www.mereobooks.com.