December 16th: Themes for celebration and contemplation
If you are looking for some themes and points of interest to add to your advent countdown, the Bulldogz Christmas spirit is in full flow and we can provide you with some of the fun, serious and little known points of celebration for each day on this magical countdown.
The third pair of the Last 16 matches in the Christmas Film World Cup are played out today with the London Set showdown seeing Love Actually take on Last Christmas and meanwhile Die Hard is up against the Muppets Christmas Carol. Cast your votes here!
December 16
Barbie and Barney Backlash Day
The concept of this day is to enable parents a day of peace from noisy toys and irritating repetitive cartoons and songs. Giving long-suffering parents the opportunity to purge that annoying product for a single day.
This could be the basis of a very easy conversation topic as adults can be asked what childhood songs or programmes they watched on repeat or noisy toys they annoyed their parents with. Parents can nominate such things for destruction (I for one would banish Frozen the film to non-existence!) Children can sing their favourite songs or talk about their favourite noise-making toy!
Underdog Day
On the third Friday of December, we celebrate Underdog day, a chance to support the underdogs in your life. Backing the Underdog is a curiously British habit and explaining the joys of this attitude could fill some minutes. You could, for example, tell them about the wonders of FA Cup third round giant-killing magic, Bulldogz provide you with a handy guide to the forthcoming third round weekend and a round-up of the greatest third-round shocks, all collated in handy video form....here
Ugly Christmas Sweater Day
Another third Friday of the month thing, which just encourages people to wear their Christmas jumpers to work.
Here is a video on how to make your own Christmas jumper....
December 16th in History
Events
1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.
1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party: Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbour as a protest against the Tea Act. (Find out about tea and how it caused revolutions and wars here)
1882 – Wales and England contest the first Home Nations (now Six Nations) rugby union match.
2020 - East 17 "Stay another day" becomes the first song to overcome The Pogues "Fairytale of New York" in the Christmas Song World Cup prior to the final.
Births
1485 – Catherine of Aragon, Spanish princess, later queen consort of England (d. 1536)
1775 – Jane Austen, English novelist (d. 1817)
1917 – Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction writer (d. 2008)
1928 – Philip K. Dick, American philosopher and author (d. 1982)
1946 - Göran Bror Benny Andersson, Swedish singer, musician and composer, ABBA
1961 – Bill Hicks, American comedian and musician (d. 1994)
Deaths
1980 – Colonel Sanders, American businessman, founded KFC (b. 1890)
Christmas films
On the outskirts of Whoville lives a green, revenge-seeking Grinch who plans to ruin Christmas for all of the citizens of the town. Based on the Dr. Seuss book.
Loveable family Christmas fun with Jim Carrey and a star studded cast. The kids love it, but you might need some egg nog to get through it.
Second Seed in Group A. Last 16 elimination on each of the three previous competitions. The Grinch was a surprise casualty of the group stages this year.
Christmas music
On this day in 2020 East 17's "Stay Another Day" made Christmas Song World Cup history by eliminating The Pogues "Fairytale of New York" to send the giant home before the final for the first time. The Novello Award winning ballad has quite a story, find out more here.