Via MetaFilter, a selection of Christmas and End of Year Quizzes:

(1) BBC News – Quiz: 52 weeks 52 questions

(2) Canadian TV – Year End Quiz

(3) Financial Times – Quiz 2004

(4) The Guardian – 2004 End of Year Quiz

(5) New Scientist – End of 2004 Quiz

(6) New York Daily News – 2004 Movie Quiz

(7) The New York Times – Pratfalls, Catcalls and Spitballs: A Year in Ephemera Year End Quiz

(8) The Observer – 2004 Books Quiz

Time to put your creative hats on ladies and gents – this time you need to pen a little something to welcome in the new year – a poem, a limerick, a haiku, an essay – the form and content are up to you.

Closing date is midnight on 1 January next year and the prize is a compilation cd, handpicked for the winner. Tremble ye not.

Entries can be posted on your blogs, in the comments, in an email, whatever you’re happiest with and I’ll gather them all up in a collection for prize day.

Good luck!

And the winner is… Leah! She obviously hasn’t been in the US long enough yet though, Milk and Biscuits indeed! Karan was a very close runner up with just one error (8. Fossette De Chariot). Here’s the complete list:

1. Nymphe D’Enchaînement / Web Nymph
2. Pas asse’ont dessiné dans le monde / Not Enough Drew in the World
3. Aléatoire Pense / Random Thinks
4. Chien ou plus haut / Dog or higher
5. Lait Et Biscuits / Milk and Cookies
6. Le Cancer rit nerveusement / Cancer giggles
7. Une belle révolution / A beautiful revolution
8. Fossette De Chariot / Dolly Dimple
9. Épousseter Mon Cerveau / Dusting my brain
10. Je pourrais avoir été un compétiteur / I could have been a contender

Bleep, bleep, bleeeeeeeeeeeeeepety bleeeping internet connection is dodgy so I’ll try and get a few posts in while I can.

Times I wished I had a camera #1: Frodo running his tongue along the bumpers of cars to on Christmas Day, trying to eat as much snow as possible in one go.

Starfire has an interesting post about Justice Department lawyer John Yoo while Jo has a link to David Sedaris reading the Santaland Diaries. Oh fiddlesticks, oodles of Sedaris. Must. Go. Back. Later.

Question: What have Subbuteo, turtles, Indiana Jones and Llanddewi Brefi got in common?
Answer: All of them have featured in some of the most-read stories on the BBC Wales news website this year.

Time for supper – Paul Rankin Irish soda bread with Green Thunder cheese, a present from my father. Mmmmmm.

Great Christmas posts, part 2:

Toni is making me giggle with, amongst other things: vortex of impossibility, smack me with the stupid stick and the leading cause of penguin death.

From anan

This was originally written about Venice, but after reading about the loss of almost 23,000 people to the sea yesterday, i can only remember the last two lines, over and over.

Inna LilAllayhih Wa Inna Allayhih Rajai’un… to Allah we belong, and to Allah we shall return. (Traditional Muslim invocation, upon hearing of a death.)

Great Christmas posts, part 1:

Andre [who by the way has a new snap idol competition], go lookee.

Amber #1 and Amber #2

e is looking for reading suggestions while her children plot how to unmask Father Christmas.

If you’re fed up with/don’t celebrate Christmas, how about a snowball throwing challenge?

Someone has taken the time to ask Google to translate this page [merci!] and as I chuckled at the very literal translations of blog names I had a “ding” moment – how about a quick quiz – the first one to leave a comment with all answers correct gets a Daisy Winter Burn – similar to the Summer Burn cd but with a few surprises. So, here’s Quiz #1 : French:

1. Nymphe D’Enchaînement
2. Pas asse’ont dessiné dans le monde
3. Aléatoire Pense
4. Chien ou plus haut
5. Lait Et Biscuits
6. Le Cancer rit nerveusement
7. Une belle révolution
8. Fossette De Chariot
9. Épousseter Mon Cerveau
10. Je pourrais avoir été un compétiteur

CNN list of charities taking action; the Charity Navigator to check up on a site before you donate and the Tsumani help blog – all links thanks to Dog News.