Old Holiday Joke that would get passed around Architecture and Engineering firms this time of year.
My holiday plans, specs, and elevations
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This is loooong but so brilliant! It’s the stuff like this that has kept me on tumblr for over a decade…
kaity–did
Okay in my house we have a strange tradition. My mother builds this beautiful Christmas village.
It wraps all around our house through the rooms and under the trees and it’s wonderful.
Every year she hides the Christmas Vampire
This started when I was a very small goth child and spread to all of my friends, including my best friend from elementary school who I just so happened to grow up and marry. Now that we have grown up and moved nearly 600 miles away we still always go home for a week at Christmas for multiple reasons, including the Christmas Vampire.
Needless to say we still partake and things have gotten heated.
Stay tuned for the epic conclusion and to see my husband and father in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s sooty costume when I find the Christmas Vampire First!
Happy Haunting!
Dad has no fricken clue how to trash talk and I don’t trust him in the slightest.
kaity–did
The saga continues. Mom hasnt finished the village yet and it’s starting to get to her….
oldearthmapping
Hahahaha, I mean I love this on multiple levels. But what really threw it over the top was the mom’s anxiety over the world-building and city design being right. I feel you vampire-hiding mom, I feel you.
prince-of-legba
Christmas town looks amazing, how much is the rent?
kaity–did
My mom has started constructing the village, and she would like you to know that the rent in the Christmas village is pay what you can and it can be in Christmas cookies. This village is very anti capitalist and when the Walmart moved in (my dad bought her a ceramic walmart) the villagers protested (read this as my mom made teeny tiny picket signs and stuck them to villagers hands)
villainous-queer
OP was the picket successful did they run the walmart out of town? I need to know. I am so concerned. Does the vampire live in town? Is he a beloved yet eccentric member of the populace, or do the townsfolk live in fear of him? Does his bat have a warm place to sleep during winter?
kaity–did
The picket is on going. This year they are all socially distanced. The vampire lives on the mountain in an old house. No one fears him but there is a story every year. 2 years ago he frightened the carnival worker who operated the merry go round, gave him a heart attack and he was in the hospital! The vampire was so scared he fled and there was a man hunt (because everyone was afraid for their friend and also insurance) …. My mom might be insane his bat is always with him and has a wing of the house to himself
kaity–did
For every one asking the protestors have changed their target in the village this year
elodieunderglass
Content warnings: Christmas, creatures of the night.
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I love this family. I want to hug the stuffing out of that mom. She started this because she had a goth child, and now that child is grown up and married and they’re still doing it? And it’s bigger and better and there are real concerns about the village and its ‘people’ and OMG this family has won the game of Life. Full stop. I will do whatever it takes to marry into that family!
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At last, the spherical turkey!
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(Not sure this is working)
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Works great!
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It really is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on tumblr. 
Here are the rest what spring to mind:
HERO
Someone in the Fort Collins Area owes me an explanation
1 smol bonus:
everythingfox
Flashy shibe
merelygifted
Those ears look like the marvelous denty-in European glass Christmas tree ornaments XD
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herbertwest
happy christmas to my favourite story of all time
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Man, having such quick wit and managing to get it immortalised in Hansard is the dream
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I want this so bad.
I think I’ll make kjöttbullar for dinner this weekend.
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That’s the great thing about parliamentary record: you get to change it to what you wish you’d said. Parliamentarians are not subject to l’esprit d’escalier like the rest of us.
Also the above is just a joke at the expense of war on Christmas types and not actually a thing.
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The Norwegian Foundation for Industrial and Technical Research has published a 16 page guideline document with the rules and regulations for building a gingerbread house to code.
PDF link (in Norwegian)
Extract (auto-translated because I’m lazy):
172 Requirements for passive gingerbread houses
Unlike the passive house standard for ordinary houses, the passive house standard for
standard for gingerbread buildings, NS-BAK 3700, does not require the use of heat recovery.
Passive gingerbread houses must meet the following requirements:
- minimum 4.5 mm thickness of rolled out dough (will require longer baking time)
- minimum 2 mm insulation of foam cushions, marshmallow slices, or
sandwich elements of ice-cream wafer biscuits - leakage rate ≤ 0.6 air changes per hour
173 Design
When designing passive gingerbread houses, increased dough requirements must be taken into account
as a result of the increased thickness of the rolled dough. New research shows that the amount of dough
obtained by following the recipe in section 411 is just enough for a passive gingerbread house. 411 is just enough for a passive gingerbread
gingerbread house based on 5 mm thick dough and building elements with dimensions as in
fig. 323
Greater dough thickness will cause the building elements to rise more during baking.
This can result in elements with finished dimensions that deviate significantly from the construction drawings.
Recesses for windows and doors are particularly prone to deviations. It is important that the
designer carefully specifies the clean cutting of recesses for windows and exterior doors after
baking in the supporting documents that are handed over to the executing contractor, see
item.
174 Execution
It may be necessary to combine a lower cooking temperature and longer cooking time to
ensure that the building elements are cooked through but not burnt.
In principle, a passive gingerbread house is built in the usual way, but
but extra strict requirements are placed on the quality of the work to ensure that the
planned.
18 Reuse mapping
BAK17 requires that - before destruction and consumption - you must map which
building components that can be reused. Some components can be exempted
from reuse mapping as you only need to establish that what has been eaten has been eaten, cf.
the application of the law in [643]. Components that may be relevant for reuse are typically
- foundation slab
- snow and vegetation imitations
- elf and animal figures made of non-edible material
- lighting components
There is no requirement for actual reuse. You only need to identify which components
that could possibly be reused in an ideal world. What is most likely to be
likely to be reusable from project to project is the actual
reuse mapping.
Actual reuse is easiest to implement if the components are not traded.
Components that are traded (change owner for consideration) must have documentation of
properties in order to be legally traded, see section 27.
- Such documentation is usually
usually impossible to obtain.
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I’m getting to the point where I hate the village and I’m going to start breaking things
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Also explained: why so many birds?
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Okay… but…
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They are Christmas cookies, after all, so I thought this should be here as well as in the Noms thread:
injuries-in-dust
“Sounds like it must sting, but hey, whatever gets you going!”
Ich liebe die Pfeffernüsse!
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… Thousands of torches are assembled each year in preparation for the Ndocciata — but that doesn’t mean that entire forests are knocked down for the ritual. Torches are constructed out of white fir trees that are sick, dying, or were felled during winter storms. These are identified and marked by the National Forestry Corp in the spring, collected and dried in the summer, and assembled into 10-foot-tall conical torches in the fall. Dried branches of the Ginestra flower, which burn easily and brightly, are sandwiched between white fir logs. When lit, it produces a loud popping sound, a noise once believed to frighten off witches.
The procession begins in the town’s center when the bells of Agnone’s main church toll at 6 p.m. The first to appear are the figuranti, a group of women, very young children, and the elderly, who carry chickens, rabbits, and lambs in a physical manifestation of a manger scene. Then come the children, usually accompanied by their parents, who carry a single ndoccia, meaning “torch” in the local dialect. “This is one of the most fundamental aspects, because the tradition carries on when all ages participate, from the youngest to the oldest,” explains Meo. “There is almost certainly a future for this ritual because of this.” …
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