Um, merry Christmas

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Afternoon all, It’s with trepidation that we wish you a merry Christmas, given today's offering. It’s hard to have avoided the story of the Christmas truce recently. Well, we’ve got a slightly less heart-warming Christmas day story. In one of his bizarre stories of Victorian Christmas, Jeremy Clay has found what must be the very opposite to the truce. Hostilities actually broke out at Christmas between British troops arguing over who had had the best dinner. The troops who had goose were adamant that theirs was better than the others’ beef and pudding. We're imagining Harry Hill saying "We like goose, we like beef pudding. But which one's better? There's only one way to find out. FIGHT". Only this fight was between troops and the guns were blazing for 10 minutes. Victorian Strangeness: Four Christmas incidents If that has put you right off celebrations, we’ve got the perfect antidote. At 3pm switch on King's College Carols on Radio 4. It marks the start of Christmas. But spare a thought for the choristers – they are only in year eight (that’s around 13 years old). When we went to meet them, one boy pondered that if the soloist makes a mistake, a hundred million people will hear it. So the choir master has a novel way of preventing nervousness and making sure everyone gets a good sleep the night before. He doesn’t tell them who is going to do the solo until the very last minute. Inside King's College Choir ahead of Christmas services And finally, here’s an amazing picture:

But behind the picture is an even more amazing story. The boat fell on the house during the Tsunami. Fauziah and her five children couldn’t outrun the water so they sheltered in the house. Only, another even larger wave came. The water was round their necks. They thought they were going to drown. Until they saw the boat. Her son made a small hole in the ceiling and pulled them all through to the boat. It’s still there today as a tourist attraction. The boat that landed on a roof and saved 59 people That’s it from us today. Merry Christmas