Tradition is great, but if your Christmas celebrations need to be spiced up, you can incorporate someone else's tradition into your holiday. If pork is your go-to Christmas dinner main dish, the Philippines do it up right. Looking for a twist on fruitcake? Try Australia's White Christmas. And for a beverage with a kick, Chile's cola de mono might fill the bill.  

Eggnog and glogg will leave you toasty and numb, but if you really want to get soused, consider the Chilean holiday drink cola de mono (meaning monkey’s tail). Like a White Russian, it’s a creamy coffee cocktail that goes down smooth, but where the cola de mono messes you up is the use of aguardiente, the anise-flavored spirit that translates to “fire water” for a reason. This particular recipe we tested—holy shit!—was like an iced coffee with a knuckle sandwich chaser. (You can substitute brandy or pisco if you don’t have aguardiente.)

The recipe they are referencing is here. There's also a video at The Takeout. It's just one of the Christmas food traditions from other parts of the world you should check out.

(Image credit: Flickr user restaurante kaialde)

Every year, thousands of people participate in reddit's Secret Santa gift exchange. Although it is not a competition, the metaphoric brass ring goes to the person whose name is drawn by Bill Gates. The Microsoft founder and billionaire goes the extra mile to find out what the recipient would like and then sends multiple gifts. For 2017, that astonished recipient is VietteLLC. From her entry letter, and by checking her posting history and social media, Gates discovered her preferences, in particular that she dreams of opening a no-kill cat shelter. He made donations to three of her favorite shelters ($750 total), and send a giant Pusheen cat!     

I could fit about 5 of me in the box I got. I did, in fact, stare awkwardly at the FedEx guy - I was so far beyond confused. Then I saw my Reddit username and apparently said “wwhaaatttt” in such a weird way, the delivery guy started laughing. I tried to pull it inside and I guess looked ridiculous, so the guy ran back up to help me lol

I figured it was some cat tower from Amazon prime - right? I mean - what else.. a gigantic cat? Let’s be serious. I instantaneously recognized the big grey blob shape and 2 tail stripes and, I kid you not, screamed like a little girl. I was over the moon, and immediately loved my mystery santa for all of eternity, for ever and ever. They CLEARLY knew my soul.

As Pusheen was being released from his box, I picked up a letter with a picture, and thought it was SUPER weird that someone was so obsessed with Bill Gates as to send me a photo of him. Then I just caught fragments of the letter all at once “a donation has been made” “bill gates”, and my cat’s names. It clicked and I started to burst out loud laughing and crying simultaneously. I was a cliché.

There were plenty more gifts included. VietteLLC gives us a list of them and the story of receiving her Secret Santa gift here. -via Mashable

Did you know that koalas can stretch their necks upward to reach tasty leaves and pull in internet wifi? And that the European wasp survives mainly on coffee? Just make sure to avoid the pizza snake!

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This retro-style documentary on Australian animals is admitttedly about as plausible as the real stories of these weird animals, but is not to be taken as the work of someone who actually knows what they're talking about. -via Laughing Squid

There's no way Hollywood can render a movie superhero who look exactly like the comic book original, because people aren't drawn that way. But some of them are pretty darn close, especially the better-known characters like Superman and Batman. Others go through quite a few changes moving into the world of live-action fim. Aquaman seriously needed a makeover, considering his reputation as a lame comic book superhero, and they did him right by casting Jason Momoa in the role. See how other comic book superheroes were changed (or not) for their live-action movie versions at TVOM.  

There were a lot of office Christmas parties in the last couple of days. Some of these workplaces try to boost holiday spirits by staging a contest. Who will go out of their way to dress in a Christmas theme? Some people went above and beyond the call of duty, and posted their creations at reddit. Above, sas7ate9 was a tree. The garland was sewn onto a sweatshirt, and the star is attached by a headband. She didn't mention whether she won the contest.

Redditor dibbiluncan won her office costume contest with this tree hairstyle. The prize? An ink pen. It wasn't even a fountain pen.

The theme for Rule1ofReddit's party was wacky hair. So she went as Cindy Lou Who.

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And GFYZain posted a video of the winner at his office's ugly Christmas sweater contest. A good time was had by all.

Instead of an iron fist, King Louis XIV ruled with his dancing shoes.

In 1692, a young French aristocrat visiting King Louis XIV’s royal court was asked if he knew how to dance. The cocky aristocrat, who went by Montbron, replied with characteristic overconfidence, gloating enough to attract the attention of other courtiers. Rookie mistake. It wasn’t long before the room of nobles asked him to prove it.

It was a truth universally acknowledged that a man pining for a political career in 17th-century France needed a dance teacher. The ability to dance was both a social nicety and a political necessity, the birthmark of an aristocratic upbringing. “Good breeding demands that pleasing and easy manner which can only be gained by dancing,” the famed dance teacher Pierre Rameau wrote in 1725. Dancing badly in court wasn’t just humiliating, it was also a potential career killer -and Montbron was all talk and no game.

The aristocrat took to the floor and immediately lost his balance. The audience doubled over in laughter. Embarrassed, he tried deflecting attention from his legs with “affected attitudes,” waving his arms and making faces. The move backfired. Everyone laughed louder -including the most important man in the room, King Louis XIV.

“There were reportedly more than two hundred dancing schools in Paris in the 1660s, all devoted to training young noblemen to avoid similar dread breaches of etiquette,” writes Jennifer Homans in Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. The young aristocrat didn’t show his face in court for a long time after his grand flop.

King Louis XIV, a lifelong ballet dancer, would have it no other way. To him, ballet was more than an art. It was the political currency that kept his country together.

We don't really want to see an elephant explode, unless it's in colorful and fictional graphics from Kurzgesagt. In other words, we will only look at how it's theoretically possible. This video explains the difference between how a small animal, such as a hummingbird, and a large animal, such as an elephant, deal with the physics of life. Animals of different sizes have to balance energy, metabolism, and heat transference in a way that's optimal for their size. You can't just take a certain species and change its size without changing its design as well, despite movies like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.    

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We also hear the narrator say the word Kurzgesagt, or at least I think that's what he said. It's not pronounced anything like the way it looks to an English speaker.

So much of local news is broadcast live, there are bound to be screwups, photobombs, and unexpected wrenches thrown into the mix. Oh yeah, and a lot of uncontrollable giggling. Even prerecorded bits have unaired gems that are eventually shared on YouTube. News Be Funny gathered all their clips from 2017 and put the funniest ones together.

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You've seen some of these, but most of them should be new to you. And they all happened in just the past year!  -via Digg

Mary and Paul Sommers of Dayton, Ohio, sent all three of their children through the same Catholic grade school. This is the final year for their youngest son, Jake. To show their appreciation for the patience they employed, the Sommers got Jake's teachers bottles of chardonnay as Christmas gifts, with specially-printed labels you can see here. Their older son DJ Tweeted pictures of the gifts.

My parents always get our elementary school teachers a present around Christmas. Typically something small like a candle or flower to say thank you. This year they got them bottles of wine & replaced the labels with their own with my brother on them... Happy holidays pic.twitter.com/hErPgrjX44

— DJ Sommers (@Sommers_DJ) December 18, 2017

The response was overwhelming, which Mary did not expect. They even made some TV stations and newspapers. The teachers were very appreciative. -via Buzzfeed

The Winter Solstice is upon us, the shortest daylight and the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Here's a short but beautiful greeting for the occasion in the form of a cut paper animation from Angie Pickman. 

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-via Nag on the Lake

Oh yeah, you recognize this as a Schrödinger's cat joke right away, but then it veers left into the punch line of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The combination is no doubt quite deadly. You're lost, cat! Or man, as the case may be. This comic is from John Cullen at NHOJ. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

Peter Capaldi will make his final appearance as the 12th Doctor Who on the Christmas Day special called "Twice Upon a Time." That's when he'll hand over the reigns of his identity to a new incarnation to be played by Jodie Whittaker. In honor of the occasion, BBC America has released a video of fan tributes to Capaldi's work on the series.   

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They also tell us a little of the story in the Doctor Who special.

Two Doctors stranded in an Arctic snowscape, refusing to face regeneration. Enchanted glass people, stealing their victims from frozen time. And a World War One captain destined to die on the battlefield, but taken from the trenches to play his part in the Doctor's story.

-via Laughing Squid

Lori Jones works at Horsetooth Inn and RV Park in Stout, Colorado. Last month she watched a deer walk into the gift shop like it owned the place. The doe looked around at all the wares, while Jones snapped pictures. She then got a peanut bar to lure the deer back outside. But that wasn't the end of the story.

“Later, I was in the office checking the store stock,” Lori wrote. “I walked out and there she was with her twins and a lone buck that she nursed. I just used my phone to snap the pics. I laughed so hard!”  

It's like that old saying, if you give a man a fish, he'll be back tomorrow for another fish. You can see the entire sequence of images at 9news. They'll display larger here. -via Mr. Drinks On Me

(Image credit: Lori Jones)

When I was a child, the movie theater was a magical place you went to at twice a week, because that's how often the movie changed. Then I made friends with the grandchildren of the theater owner, and not only gave up paying to see a movie, but also learned more than I should have about the local theater business. But things have changed in the past 50 years, and so has the movie theater business. Theaters are opened by chains and have multiple screens and digital equipment. But the popcorn tastes pretty much the same.

Find out what movie theater employees don't have the time to tell you. See 22 of these illustrated facts about movie theaters at TVOM.

Raising your glass in a toast was common from ancient Greece to fairly recently, but appears to have fallen out of favor in the 21st century, outside of weddings. The group act of drinking in unison with a common thought is a way of bonding, of communicating a sentiment, and a ritual that should be brought back. To understand the reasons why, we need to look at the history of the toast. It has gone through a few changes while keeping the same basic form.

Indeed, amongst both the Greeks and Romans, toasting could not only serve as a declaration of well wishes (and an excuse for copious drinking!), but also a provocation — a challenge. Being able to hold one’s liquor was considered a form of toughness and discipline, and a night of toasting surely tested a man’s capaciousness. Just as the Greeks who pledged their drinks to the gods expected blessings in return for their sacrifice, toasts made to one’s fellow mortals were expected to be reciprocated. One toast would beget another, and back and forth the tributes went. With each, the vessel would have to be entirely drained of its intoxicating contents; as we’ll see, merely sipping one’s drink after a toast is a modern refinement. Thus, offering a toast was sometimes a way of throwing down the gauntlet — an invitation to competition and a kind of duel; could the others match you cup for cup? Unsurprisingly, a night of toasting frequently found participants passed out in a stupor by its end.

In later eras, toasting did not automatically mean drinking more than you should. The history of toasting is followed by an elegant argument for reviving the custom at The Art of Manliness.  -Thanks, Tim!