The Laboratory

Every year on the Advent Calendar we are delighted to present guest posts from our friends, and making a regular appearance is Louise from St Fagan's: "Here are two wreaths for your advent calendar. They were made by my sister Kate, and we foraged for most of the greenery in Williamson’s Park, Lancaster."

Our amazing talented friend Lou turns her Welsh cottage into a glorious blaze of Christmas decorations like you've never seen. Here are just two of her creations.

Do you remember when you first joined social media? Maybe it was the dear departed Friends Reunited, and you spent ages messaging people you hadn't seen since you were 16. Or perhaps Facebook swept you up and now you have 400 friends and can't keep track of all your notifications. For Adam, it was joining Twitter in 2009, because some friends from the Jon Ronson forum had recommended it. And 9 years later, those friends as far away as Cardiff, Edinburgh and County Down are now people we have met in real life. Here are three of their Christmas photos. Kelliepie's new Christmas brooch: Maxnugget's hand-made front door wreath: Mistertumnus's funny tree decoration: Here's to more than another 9 years of friendship!

A guest post from our friend  @maxnugget : This year I had intended for my entry to the Advent calendar to be a glowing tribute to the handcrafted Christmas card I would inevitably receive from my friends Helen and Matt who live in London.  Helen and Matt are both incredibly gifted artists and each year I get the most amazing card, usually with a painting of some magical winter landscape on the front done by Helen, and Matt’s interpretation of the same theme on the inside.  I relish getting their card and it always takes pride of place on the mantlepiece beside cards from other treasured friends. Knowing I was going to showcase their card, and anxious that I might for some reason be overlooked, I sent MY card to Helen & Matt early, and then waited patiently for something to pop through the letterbox.  I felt like I’d made a bit more of an effort with my cards this year,  not getting them from Asda or Tesco, but I’d actually bought them from NEXT!  ...

All the posts this week are guest-contributed by Twitter friends. Today,  @maxnugget  shares a Belgian family tradition: I'm making speculoos in celebration of Sinterklaas. (I'm 6 days late though) from Wikipedia: Speculoos is a type of shortcrust biscuit, traditionally baked in Belgium for consumption on St Nicholas' Eve (December 6). They are thin, very crunchy, slightly browned and, most significantly, have some image or figure (often from the traditional stories about St. Nicholas) stamped on the front side before baking; the back is flat. They are baked with light brown sugar and baking powder, but Belgians make them with little or no spice. There are several interpretations for the origins of the name Speculaas. It may derive from Latin speculum, which means mirror, and refer to the fact that the images are cut as a mirrored bas-relief into a wooden stamp which is then used to decorate the Speculaas. Another explanation of the name refers to the Latin word ...

We are so lucky to have such talented friends. Maxnugget has contributed this fantastic photo she calls "Seasonings Greetings", as the two little Santas are also salt/pepper pots. You can see more of her Christmas photos, amongst many others, on her Flickr stream . There's still time for you to contribute, either a picture, photo or suggestion of something you'd like to see. But we're more than halfway there, which means it will soon be competition time!