PROFIL
EIf I go on Mastermind, I know what my
specialist subject will be: Christmas. For the
last 19 years I’ve run what’s now the biggest
Christmas information site on the web:
whychristmas.com.
It all started in 2000 when some primary
school teachers came to me asking why they
couldn’t find a Christmas site that was child
friendly and “wasn’t trying to sell the kids
something”. So, for a fun project, I created a little
Christmas site for a single school. I could have
never imagined it would grow like it has.
Running the site takes up much of my
Novembers and Decembers, as does answering
questions from visitors and also taking part in
media interviews on radio stations around the
world talking about all things Christmas. I love it!
When I started the site, I knew a bit about
Christmas – but now I know a whole lot more. Did
you know that the word ‘mistletoe’ can be
translated as ‘poo on a stick’ or that in Sweden it’s
a tradition to watch some Donald Duck cartoons
on Christmas Eve afternoon?
The site is still primarily used by schools and
also by teachers of English as a second language,
because the information is written in simple
English. This has helped me when writing otherweb copy – keeping things nice and easy to
understand for everyone!
Over the years I’ve created various Christmas
sites for festive fun including tistheseasonto.be –
which is a Christmas karaoke site. All of my
Christmas sites still have a no ads policy and I run
all of them out of my own pocket simply for the
love of Christmas.
Another part of Christmas I love is the music.
There are currently over 290 Xmas albums in my
iTunes – I’m planning on breaking 300 this year!
(Some are wonderful but some are truly terrible...)
Being ‘Mr Christmas’ has also helped me ‘get
out’ into the world. I’m basically house-bound
with ME/CFS, which I’ve had for longer than I’ve
been making Christmas sites. With my health, I
can’t get out and about to enjoy Christmas like
most people do but I can help to share its joy
around the world with the millions of visitors to
the site – all from my home!
So wherever you are: Happy Christmas!CHRISTMAS
James Cooper on how being Santa’s digital elf and running
popular Christmas sites has helped with his web designBEYOND PIXELSCooper (@jpc101) is a web-
designing, ukulele and mandolin
playing, geek. He is also
thechristmas.expertFEED
Beyond pixels
STUFF I LIKE
NICK SHERMAN
Founder of HEX Projects, founder
of V-fonts.com and co-founder of
Fonts in Use
w: nicksherman.comWAKAMAIFONDUE
Wakamaifondue is a web-
based tool that provides
detailed reports on the
functionality of any font you
throw at it. I use it all the time
to look under the hood of new
variable fonts before I add
them to v-fonts.com.
wakamaifondue.comFLICKR
Flickr is one of the most old-
school platforms for sharing
photos but it is still the best
option if you care about image
resolution, archiving,
metadata or avoiding shady
tech companies. I’ve uploaded
more than 16,000 images to
Flickr since 2005.
flickr.com/nickshermanROBOFONT
RoboFont is my primary tool
for making fonts. The app’s
default functionality is
streamlined but is built
around the UFO font format
for integration with user
scripts and other UFO-based
apps. It’s great for people
who like to customise tools.
robofont.com