Weird and wonderful Christmas Advent Calendars

I confess I've neglected to check my fan mail since September. "Lots of fans have sent in Christmas Advent Calendars.. and plenty of musical cards too!" muttered my incoming postal clerk, Miss Beryl Favish, this morning as I entered the Sorting Room.

Like a child in a sweet shop, I adore Christmas Advent Calendars, ever since Blue Peter told you how to make your own with only sticky-back plastic (no glue to get high on in those days), Sellotape, bits of Ryvita and old margarine tubs.
 
Nothing more enticing than a different surprise treat behind a different cardboard door, every day in the run-up to Christmas Day. Simply titillating! As it's only 4 days until Christmas, I get to open the previously-missed 22 doors of each Advent Calendar and scoff 22 chocolates all in one sitting!

It was certainly eye-opening to delve into my post-bag. Here is a collection of weird, wonderful, and often horrifying Christmas advent calendars that have arrived here at Raffles this year as gifts, proving, beyond all doubt, that there really is no accounting for good taste:

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A good start: I shall enjoy eating the chocolates from this calendar. Which launderette is this? I wish I knew! Thank you, thank you! x I love this calendar! x

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Who in their right mind sends a Jim'll Fix It 2012 Christmas Advent Calendar? I dread to think what's inside. It's one of those musical Advent Calendars too, so it's playing the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It, something that's brought a rash out on my chest. I  had a horrifying panic attack at finding this disgusting object in the post-bag. I've dowsed it in petrol and chucked the whole thing straight on the fire!

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And what the Hell do you call this? A Christmas Advent Calendar showing two women engaging in a game of lesbian nipple-tweaking. Entitled 'Make Love Not War', it's been sent from the North Amersham Indoor Bowls Group. Really, that's what you get up to? You should be ashamed of yourself for bringing the game of bowls into disrepute!

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Oh yes, I simply ADORE this Advent Calendar.   Pictured here is my arch-enemy, Lady Vagina, not wearing make-up. In fact, she's on a Dress-Down Friday, pushing her bicycle through the streets of Soho. No, don't believe the spin pumped out by her literary agent, this is the REAL Lady Vagina. No glamour; no diamonds; just the way she was born (.. in the gutter). It's made my Christmas to receive this wonderful advent calendar. And in the mean-spirited way of Lady Vagina, all the little compartments contained absolutely nothing. This will take pride of place on my bedroom wall. Thank you to the beautiful fan who sent this in, I will marry you tomorrow and leave my entire estate to you in my Will.

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I hope this buffed, bronzed Santa Claus comes down my chimney! Loved the miniature set of handcuffs in window 1, and the chocolate fondant penis in window 17.

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Who ate all the Fray Bentos pies?  By the looks of it, this is a full-fat Christmas advent calendar.  I do hope that this Satan Claus - yes, it's not a typo, I did write SATAN Claus - does not cum anywhere near my chimney. In fact, the staff have placed a huge plastic condom over the chimney to prevent any accidental visits from this beer-swilling walrus.

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And here are some Christmas cards that I've received, most which didn't even see the light of day as they were thrown on the roaring log fire no sooner had they been removed from their envelopes:

What a disgusting invitation.

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Drag queen Mona Breezeblock sent me this.  I quite like it.  Thank you, Mona.

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Happy Christmas from Swansea, signed by "Geraint" - I cannot remember ever meeting a Geraint.  Clearly, "Geraint" works for Swansea's tourist board, as this wonderful, alternative Christmas card depicts a typical night out in the Welsh city.  Such a sophisticated city.  I cannot wait to return.

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Honesty really is the best policy!

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Thank you, Mrs Butterfield of Oldham, Lancashire, for this defecating reindeer Christmas card.

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Thank you for this card, Jeremy Lee, DSS claimant/wanabee pop singer, from Corby.

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And what of the Christmas Cards and Advent Calendars that Fanny sends out to her friends, fans and enemies?  

To all my beloved sisters in this world, I am sending this card:

and the inside the card:

 


To my enemies (Lady Vagina, my last estate agent, etc etc), I have not sent a Christmas card but instead I have posted an anonymous, home-made Christmas advent calendar with this bucolic scene of a snowy country cottage on the front.

Each of the 25 compartments, marking a day in the run-up to Christmas, contains a premium chocolate fondant hand-sculpted by Fanny's fair and delicate hands, using only the finest chocolate that money can buy:

Early Christmas lunacy

One of my waiting-staff was picked up by her ears, pushed into the dumb-waiter elevator (normally only used for serving food) and then  thrown from the third floor sitting-room window after I discovered this monstrosity:

This was the dining-room in my south annexe, not the main banquet hall, but still an important place where I was planning on hosting a meal for local dignitaries.  

I had left detailed instructions on how to put the tree up, how it was to be decorated.  Imagine my horror to discover, Gretel, one of my waiting staff, fast asleep under the dining table, having drunk two bottles of rum, and the Christmas tree hanging upside down, affixed to the ceiling, like a scene from Alice in Wonderland.  Quite why some members of my staff feel the need to play these ridiculous pranks is beyond me!  She has been dealt with in the most appropriate way, that is to say, ejected from the third floor window.

It was at that point that my personal assistant announced that my guests had arrived at the gatehouse and would be in the building any minute.

I rushed downstairs to check Cook's progress and see how the turkey was cooking (she has stuffed the bird with oysters and laced with creme de menthe), as the door-bell rang.

It's one of Cook's favourite dishes: a whole turkey crown, stuffed with raw, shucked oysters and laced with creme de menthe.  Delicious.

I won't go into too much detail about the dignitaries, only to say that they came with a gift - a Brill village Christmas Advent Calendar 2012.

Bravo! What an attractive gift and a wonderful photographic composition: this high-quality, no-expenses-spared Christmas Advent calendar, celebrating Brill's beautiful and iconic windmill has almost sold out in shops up and down the country.  If you ignore the strange greenish tinge to the photograph and the clapped-out ice-cream van, it is a remarkably beautiful shot.

Just as I was going upstairs to join the assembled party, painfully aware that they would all be talking about the Christmas tree hanging upside down from the ceiling, I opened up one of the little doors on the Advent Calendar, to see what wonderful treat it contained.

It contained a lovely little chocolate in it.  How delicious, I thought, as I bit into it before realising that something didn't taste quite right.  Almost gagging, this is what I spat out in absolute revulsion, the hidden filling: