It was with heavy heart that we heard God Don’t Like It were calling it a day after four years of bleeding noise, terror pop and dance shenanigans, but the London promoters are going out in style with a four night stint at The Lexington.

Anthony Chalmers has booked one hell of a line up between Christmas and New Year, starting with Drum Eyes on 27 December running to Grubby Mitts on 30 December, via the brilliant Teeth of The Sea, playing upstairs with GDLI DJs in the downstairs bar.

Tickets are dirt cheap too. You can get a ticket for all four nights for £12, while tickets for individual events are £5 or £6.

The current line-up, with more to be confirmed is:

• 27 December Drum Eyes, Deadfader
• 28 December Teeth of the Sea, Devilman & Speak & the Spells
• 29 December Left With Pictures, Eyes & No Eyes & Grant K Fennell
• 30 December Grubby Mitts

In the meantime God Don’t Like It still have some excellent shows to head to, including Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci frontman Euros Childs at The Vortex in Stoke Newington, 14 December for £9. Go to them, you won’t regret it.

God Don’t Like It closing parties, 27-30 December, The Lexington 96-98 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JB. Tickets for all four nights are £12 through Ticketweb.

The best real-world use of Twitter yet, or a silly frippery that’ll be forgotten by the time the festive season is over? Advertising company Wieden+Kennedy have put this detailed scale model of Spitalfields, designed by Jaimie Barker and James Cartwright, in a small space opposite their office on Hanbury Street. Even better, the model is slowly being covered by “snow” triggered by the micro-messaging platform.

With the kind of ingenuity that comes only from a well-refreshed brainstorming session, they’ve rigged up a contraption that drops a “snowflake” (actually a bit of paper with the tweet printed on it) everytime somebody around the world includes the tag #snow in their message.

It’s unlikely to win Twitter refuseniks over, but even those not sold on the platform can probably appreciate the rather adorable model-village Spitalfields. Click through the gallery above to see it in detail.

Tweets of Snow is in Hanbury Street, E1.

The 2011 incarnation of the London Word Festival is a few months away yet, but if your loved one has literary leanings or wonders at words then here’s a groovy original gift with the prized exclusivity of the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket.

The LWF Magic E Ticket gives priority access to two festival shows of your choice, one of which will involve be a bespoke, fun, if possibly slightly disconcerting VIP experience. Get the best seats and a uniquely privileged take on a Word Fest production, guaranteeing your mind will be blown.

The Magic E Ticket package is £60 which includes 1 x Pair of Magic E-Tickets and 1 x Pair of general tickets to any LWF show with early notice of the programme and a beautifully illustrated ticket will be sent so your special someone has something to unwrap and marvel at too. Be quick though: these special tickets are limited edition!

Last year’s Word Festival sold out early so this is one way to ensure you don’t miss out in April 2011.

Browse previous Santa’s Lap entries for inspiration and check out Christmas Markets and Fairs around town for festive shopping opportunities.

That’s probably not a fair summary of the survey in question, but hear this Londonista out.

A London church commissioned a survey of people’s religious beliefs, with the results released (exclusively it seems) to the BBC. The Beeb reported, with a surprised look on its face, that 70% of people don’t believe that the nativity happened in the way portrayed by small kids in church halls at this time of year.

Far be it from us to question the wisdom of the BBC, but we are more shocked that 30% of people believe that it did. So there was a virgin birth, a flimsy manger made of painted cardboard, a stuffed donkey (from Benidorm), an old doll (from someone’s mum), your mates in a ripped up bedsheet as three kings (what’s myrrh anyway?), some crappy bits of straw (nicked from a local field) and a church-ful of glowing parents squashed into pews, all willfully ignoring the mind-curdlingly intense screams from the baby at the back.

Now then – most of society hardly ever sees the inside of a church; and most of those that do, go only once or twice a year. So we are genuinely shocked that the ’30%’ figure, that believes the nativity, is so high. This may be influenced, of course, by who commissioned the survey. Over time, society is becoming increasingly secular, with church losing market share to other Sunday activities – spending time with family and friends; DIY; doing the washing; going out for a run; talking about politics; sleeping; and even – *shudder* – watching re-runs of ‘Friends’.

Almost all of us have issues with the small number of dedicated fundamentalists that ram their beliefs down our throats – those brandishing loudspeakers or ramming pamphlets in your face at Oxford Circus; those that just launched a legal bid to nullify 18,000 marriages in the US. (On a side-note, how on earth can they pretend that destroying the security of these families is any way ‘pro-family’?) But at least they have read up on their subject, done their research and spent hours and months pondering these issues before signing up to their particular views.

But the group identified in this survey are very different. These are people who bow to peer pressure, who never pray, who have never read a bible in their lives – but who pop to church once a year to give the appearance of being Christian, to assuage their guilt and then tick boxes in ignorance-checking surveys like this one.

Is this a reality TV thing – Do these people watch the nativity and believe it must be based on a documentary? Do they think the same about panto? Do they still believe in Father Christmas? Do they think that the characters in Sex And The City exist? Do they have the vote? Do they think that the Archangel Gabriel lives on the top of Christmas trees? Would they think this classic Kath and Kim moment is blasphemous?

*Goes off for a lie-in in a dark-room*

Festive Factoid For You To Baffle Your Family Around The Christmas Dinner Table – Father Christmas would need to visit 832 homes per second to deliver presents to all the children in the world. (That alone would save the Sherry industry from the credit crunch, no?)

Nativity image from deadheaduk’s Flickrstream under the Creative Commons License

Far be it from us to snigger at someone else’s misfortune…

…but we are amused at the cack-handed incident in Trafalgar Square yesterday, when a Blue Peter presenter managed to drop the star from the top of the iconic Christmas tree from Norway, causing light damage.

The broadcast went ahead, with video of the incident up here.

As far as we know, no children or animals were squashed or injured by the large falling object. We are pleased to report that the infamous Blue Peter skills of using sticky tape etc saved the day – which is probably a good moral for this Christmas tale, no? If we weren’t so cynical, we’d think this was all planned. Hmmm.

Twinkle, twinkle, etc.

Trafalgar Square chrimbo pic from Anyhoo’s Flickrstream

Every day this month the Londonist team will be pointing you in the direction of a Christmas present that (with a bit of luck) you won’t already have on your list. Climb up onto our collective lap and we’ll see what we can move from our sack to your stockings…

Looking for a present for your American friend who’s moved to London and is missing their home treats, or just someone with a rather sweet tooth? Our favourite sweet shop Cyber Candy is looking to put a grin on our faces this Christmas with a range of Mystery Parcels. Packed full of imported sweets mainly from the States but also from Japan, Australia and around Europe, the store is offering three sizes priced at £10, £20 or £30. The base kit includes Cherry Ripe and long gone favs Jolly Ranchers while the £30der chucks in the tasty sounding KitKat Cookie Dough and Pretzel Flips.

Visit the store on Garrick Street at your waist’s peril or buy online here

Last week the department store opened their Christmas department a whopping 142 days before Xmas. We know it’s good to get organised but surely that’s a bit ridiculous? We put this to Harrods and a spokesperson told us that, “With such an international clientele passing through the store during the summer months, the opportunity to buy traditional Christmas decorations (which in many cases differ greatly from those available overseas) has been welcomed by our foreign visitors as well as Londoners who like to organise themselves well in advance of the big day!” Actually we have to give it them, that international thing does make sense.

Their Xmas World is 10,000 ft big and features a sand sculpture by artist Andrew Baynes. If you fancy buying something you can anything from £1.50 for a tree decoration up to £1,999 for a 8ft Woodland Santa (?!?).

Big business and to make you feel all warm and xmassy here’s what it looks like.

]]> Are you getting that tight throated feeling? Is your wallet feeling lighter? Are you panicking because there simply isn’t enough time left. Well have no fear ladies and gents Harrods have come to the rescue!

Last week the department store opened their Christmas department a whopping 142 days before Xmas. We know it’s good to get organised but surely that’s a bit ridiculous? We put this to Harrods and a spokesperson told us that, “With such an international clientele passing through the store during the summer months, the opportunity to buy traditional Christmas decorations (which in many cases differ greatly from those available overseas) has been welcomed by our foreign visitors as well as Londoners who like to organise themselves well in advance of the big day!” Actually we have to give it them, that international thing does make sense.

Their Xmas World is 10,000 ft big and features a sand sculpture by artist Andrew Baynes. If you fancy buying something you can anything from £1.50 for a tree decoration up to £1,999 for a 8ft Woodland Santa (?!?).

Big business and to make you feel all warm and xmassy here’s what it looks like.

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