The Laboratory

Happy Christmas! love from Adam & Sarah

Our theme for this year's Christmas card is Polaroid. 80 years after Edwin Land got his first patent for developing instant photos, the Polaroid company have ceased production of film for their cameras. While Save Polaroid campaigns to find a new manufacturer, we present these images in memory of Christmas past.

Clearing the decks (with boughs of holly): Here are all the other photos that didn't make it in before the 24th. Thanks to Karen & Alan for this tasty Pandoro cake which we polished off at our Christmas drinks A fat jolly old man ... and Santa IKEA's rocking moose ... ... and a rocking Dala horse

Our church held its carol services yesterday and today, the one chance I get each year to hammer out some good tunes on its organ, which is coming up to its 100th anniversary next year. As well as the traditional numbers, our worship pastor Martin led the band and choir in renditions of 'A Christmas Offering' and a very gospelly 'Joy to the World'. It's strange to think that so many of the carols that people regard as really traditional have only been popular since the 60s and 70s, when David Willcocks and his team did new arrangements for the 'Carols for Choirs' series, a standard that supplanted all other publications. Universally used by choirs worldwide, the harmonies and descants that we love to hear and sing were almost all created for these books. People almost get offended when a carol service doesn't include their own favourite. This month the BBC Music Magazine had the results of a poll into choir leaders' favourite carol. The results were...

Our local shopping centre has had a change from its usual Santa's Grotto. Instead it has a selection of animatronic Eskimos decorating a Christmas tree outside their igloo. Children are encouraged to throw copper coins at the penguins. Shopping there yesterday was brisk, with people fighting over the tat in Poundland and the 60% off items in Woolworths (where a sign by the tills warned customers against verbally or physically abusing their staff, after a spate of bargain-hunters swearing at the assistants because the discounts aren't deep enough).

The last in our Saturday series of presents you would prefer to re-gift before unwrapping them! We found these in our new Poundland Christmas Store, a shop so cheap it makes Woolworths look upmarket. Pet gifts are always a treat (who can forget the cat cracker of a few years ago) and any dog would surely look 'adorable' in a Santa cape. Tenuous movie tie-in household cleaning products are hard to come by, so hopefully the HSM3 kitchen roll will encourage the youth of today to mop up any spills of Sunny D they make. And the mini Henry will vacuum your keyboard for you, powered by only 2 AA batteries. And so easy to clean! Fortunately none of these are the prize in our competition!

We're big fans of fan art, where afficionados of a pop combo or TV sleb draw what they fondly imagine is a pencil homage to the object of their adoration. We're also fans of the portrait sketchers who line the streets of major cities offering at a high price what is, at best, a grotesque caricature of your family member. So here's our competition for this year: name the actors who appear in this beautiful rendition, snapped in Spitalfields Market, and as a tie-break, say how much you would be prepared to pay for it. The person who gets the answer closest to Sarah's valuation wins an exclusive seasonal gift. Bonus prizes for anyone who emails their own drawing of a celebrity! Send your entries to: adamcreen@hotmail.com