Good morning, and thank you for trudging through the snow and ice to Daily View. It’s Christmas Eve, and the staff at LDV Towers are expecting a half-day holiday if they get through all their work.

Across Europe, it’s today (rather than tomorrow) that many continental children receive their visit from Santa. Is that enough date-related trivia? Hell no! Carol Vorderman, Caroline Aherne and Barry Chuckle were all Christmas babies and are celebrating birthdays today.

Literary giants Harold Pinter and William Makepeace Thackery both died on Christmas eve, albeit 145 years apart.

And in events on Christmas eve: in 1946, the French Fourth Republic was founded; and in 1968 the crew of Apollo 8 were the first humans to escape the Earth’s gravity, and the first to broadcast the bible from space.

An eventful day! But click on to find what’s happening today.

2 Big Stories

All the papers are leading with some sort of CARMAGEDDON!

As up to 5 million motorists hit the roads to join relatives on Christmas Eve, delays, deaths and dangerous conditions loom. We’re certainly having the conversation in our household that many others across the country will all be having. Should we get into our car and drive across the country to join our family, or should we stop home and break out the emergency lentils?

The news stories seem to be advising stopping home and then conceding that most people will be making the journey anyway.

Times: Christmas travellers face icy roads and cancelled flights and trains
Daily Mail: Big freeze threat to family Christmas: As death toll hits 16, millions warned to stay off roads, jeopardising festive gatherings
Telegraph: Millions of motorists wait until Christmas Eve for last minute dash to family and friends
Guardian: Cold snap leaves record numbers of motorists stranded
And don’t miss: the Guardian’s Luton-centric photo gallery.

Church recruiting drive targets two-year-olds

The Guardian has details of an outreach programme for the Church of England to reconnect with the nation’s youth. Whether this is an outrageous indoctrination programme or a sensible connection of a volunteer resource with a needy demographic will depend on your point of view.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• Duncan Stott finds a superb Youtube documentary about a lost Tube line – do watch it. How do you learn to edit video like that? How long must it have taken to shoot? And how did they film that bit of him running along the central reservation of the M1?!
• “Eco councillor” Alexis Rowell asks what planet is Mark Lynas on?

The meeting Mark was in as an adviser to the Maldives was not the UN conference – it was a conference wrecking sidebar, which may have done lasting damage to multilateral decision-making structures.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

Holiday Bonus

As a holiday bonus, Jonathan Calder has details of the design of the next Lib Dem election poster – and details of a new hard-line party discipline policy.