Here we are December…
Advent Begins
1st Dec 2025
Advent is the 24 days leading up to Christmas, when Christians prepare for Christmas. It is often celebrated by lighting Advent Candles and opening the doors of Advent calendars.
Advent is a season observed in most Christian denominations as a time of waiting and preparation for both the celebration of Jesus’s birth at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, often referred to as Advent Sunday. Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christianity. The name comes from Latin adventus (‘coming; arrival’), translating the Greek Parousia from the New Testament, originally referring to the Second Coming.
Elf Day
3rd Dec 2025
Elf Day is a festive fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Society designed to get you in the Christmas spirit whilst raising money to help beat dementia. Unleash your inner elf by dressing up – as much or as little as you like.
International Cheetah Day
4th Dec 2025
The world’s fastest land animal is racing against extinction. This day is about raising awareness of the cheetah’s imminent extinction.
St. Nicholas Day
5th Dec to 6th Dec 2025
Celebrated across mainland Europe, St. Nicholas has a reputation as a bringer of gifts. Children will often receive a small gift during this time.
Saint Nicholas Day, also called the “Feast of Saint Nicholas”, observed on 6 December (or on its eve on 5 December) in Western Christian countries, and on 19 December in Eastern Christian countries using the old church Calendar, is the feast day of Saint Nicholas of Myra; it falls within the season of Advent It is celebrated as a Christian festival with particular regard to Saint Nicholas’ reputation as a bringer of gifts, as well as through the attendance of church services.
The American Santa Claus, as well as the British Father Christmas, derive from Saint Nicholas. “Santa Claus” is itself derived in part from the Dutch Sinterklaas, the saint’s name in that language. However, the gift giving associated with these descendant figures has come to be associated with Christmas Day rather than Saint Nicholas Day itself.
Bodhi Day
8th Dec 2025
Bodhi Day is a Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that Gautama Buddha (Shakyamuni) is said to have attained enlightenment. It is celebrated by meditation, carrying out kind acts and eating a traditional meal of cake and tea.
Human Rights Day
10th Dec 2025
The anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. It is usually marked by high level political events and conferences.
The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the new United Nations. The formal establishment of Human Rights Day occurred at the 317th Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on 4 December 1950, when the General Assembly declared resolution 423(V), inviting all member states and any other interested organisations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.
Christmas Jumper Day
11th Dec 2025
Christmas Jumper Day is organised by Save The Children to raise money to help children around the world. You can join in by wearing a Christmas Jumper and making a donation.
International Mountain Day
11th Dec 2025
This UN designated day is to raise awareness about the importance of mountains to life and bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.
Panto Day
12th Dec 2025
A day to celebrate that most British of Christmas theatrical traditions – Pantomime! The theme for 2025 is Year of Transformation.
A type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment, generally combining broad and topical humour and cross-dressing actors with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre developed in England in the 18th century in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and to shout out phrases to the performers.
The origins of pantomime reach back to ancient Greek classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell’arte tradition of Italy and partly from other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall. An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Modern pantomime is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season, and includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing.
Outside the British Isles, the word “pantomime” is often understood to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form described here.
In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional English folk play, based loosely on the Saint George and the Dragon legend, usually performed during Christmas gatherings, which contained the origin of many of the archetypal elements of the pantomime, such as stage fights, coarse humour and fantastic creatures, gender role reversal, and good defeating evil. Precursors of pantomime also included the masque, which grew in pomp and spectacle from the 15th to the 17th centuries.
Hanukkah
14th Dec to 22nd Dec 2025
The Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire.
Jane Austen Day
16th Dec 2025
Jane Austen’s birthday, and a day dedicated to celebrating her life and achievements.
National Robin Day
21st Dec 2025
An annual nationwide event raising awareness of small birds and other wildlife in winter and how you can help them through this tough time of year.
Summer Solstice (Southern Hemisphere)
21st Dec 2025
This day is the first day of astronomical summer in the southern hemisphere. Also known as midsummer.
Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere)
22nd Dec 2025
The winter solstice represents the beginning of the astronomical winter and is the shortest day – the day with the least daylight.
The winter solstice, or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, and when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky. Each polar region experiences continuous darkness or twilight around its winter solstice
Christmas Eve
24th Dec 2025
On the day before Christmas, it is your last chance to buy presents and get them wrapped, or just sit back, relax and anticipate the big day!
Christmas Day
25th Dec 2025
The Christian festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, which is celebrated around the world in a more secular way to bring some festive cheer to the cold winter months and dark nights.
Boxing Day
Also known as Offering Day was once a day when gifts were donated to those in need. It is also concurrent with St Stephen’s Day.
New Years Eve
Also known as Old Years Day. New Years Eve is celebrated on the last day of the year.
New Years Eve celebrations can be traced back over 4,000 years when the Ancient Babylonians celebrated with an 11-day festival in late March each year.
Moving along history we then see the Roma influence and in 46 BC, Julius Caesar reformed the calendar and established 1st Jan as the start of the new year to honour Janus the Roman God of beginnings and traditions.
Most of us will sing or at least try to sing Auld Lang Syne – which translates to Days gone by.
The lyrics remind us to reflect on friendships and experiences from the past.
Auld Lang Syne – I thought I’d include the lyrics so we can all sing-a-long!
Should old acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup
and surely I’ll buy mine
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
for auld lang syne.
We two have run about the slopes
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot
since auld lang syne.
We two have paddled in the stream
from morning sun till dine
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
And there’s a hand my trusty friend
And give me a hand o’ thine
And we’ll take a right goodwill draught
for auld lang syne
So that’s all from me for 2025, the year has flown by and we’re all ready for the Christmas break so we can recharge the batteries and come back fighting fit in the new year.
Thank you for all of your support throughout 2025 and here’s to another successful one.