Christmas means different things to different people. For some it means celebrating love and peace. For others it means food and wine. But for me, Christmas means Batman.

From Batman #285: The Mystery of Christmas Lost.

Every year as Christmas gets closer I start seeing the Dark Knight everywhere; as if I’m wearing contact lenses with the bat signal printed on. Obviously this is founded on a childhood of Christmases that all featured Batman in some way or another – from playing with Batman action figures received from Santa to drawing pictures of Batman with Derwents received from Santa. But Batman and Christmas have a much deeper connection than just my own (probably common) Batmanania under the Christmas tree. Christmas, as it turns out, is a big part of the Batmanverse and the comicsverse too.

Both Marvel and D.C.  have a long history of putting out Christmas comics. Superman was at the North Pole saving Santa from Nazis back in the 1940s. D.C. has put out various Christmas With the Super-Heroes collections over the years. (That’s the cover of a 1974 edition above). And here’s twelve of the best D.C. holiday comics according to Comics Alliance.

Speaking of Christmas comics my favourite one of late is It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies – an illustrated collection of Christmas carols told from a zombie’s point of view. It’s the latest in the trend of mixing zombies with well-known cultural cornerstones. But that’s a distraction from our Caped Christmasader conversation.

It’s not only the Batman comics that are inextricably linked to the festive season. The second Tim Burton Batman movie, Batman Returns, is set in Gotham City during Christmas. And one of my favourite episodes of Batman: The Animated Series was ‘Christmas With The Joker’. I recommend watching the whole episode below.

For me Christmas continues to the Bat time of the year. I already know that this year there will be Batman presents, chatter about Heath Ledger during Christmas lunch and quite possibly The Batman Board Game will get a play in the evening.

I suppose any popular cultural icon that has lasted for so many years is bound to make a big appearance during the gift-giving season. And when you walk through shopping centres and see little children decked out in full Batman costumes, holding Mummy’s hand as she does her last-minute Christmas shopping, it’s evident that Batman is going to be a yuletide fixture for many years to come.

Have you lost your camera recently? Mislaid it somewhere in a national park? Left it in a taxi? Dropped it in the gorilla pit? Anyone can be a victim of the thoughtlessness and/or sleepiness that can lead to Camera Loss.

‘How can I prevent Camera Loss?’ I hear you ask, wishing I’d get to the point. Well, you can’t prevent cameras from getting lost, but you can do something so your camera can be found very soon after it has vanished.

All you have to do is take some photos – which you never delete from your camera – so when someone finds your camera at the bottom of the gorilla pit they are able to locate you and return the lost property to its rightful owner.

To illustrate just how you can safeguard your camera from the crippling effects of Camera Loss, here are the pics that I always keep on my camera.

Over the past few months I have been addressed as ‘Andrew’, ‘Sir’ and ‘Oh no, that guy is coming over to talk to us – fake smiles everyone – oh hello Andrew.’ I am content with all of these monikers. What I am less thrilled about is being known as the ‘Goat Skull Guy’. Ever since I blogged about taking my own Goat Skull to work with me for Take Your Skull to School or Work Day I have been categorised – or pigeonholed if you will – as that guy with the skull.

Pigeonholing is an ugly sport, like elephant poaching or playing Twister in winter. It renders both the pigeonholee and the pigeonholer one-dimensional and it evokes the image of a cartoon character being shot with pigeon-shaped bullets that leave pigeon-shaped wounds. Like I said, it’s an ugly sport.

It can take on many different forms too. There is Actor Pigeonholing for actors who never move on from successful roles (Buffy, I’m looking at you) and there is Author Pigeonholing for authors who never escape their most successful books (J.K. I’m looking at you). And there is Present Pigeonholing. This kind of pigeonholing has probably happened to you before. You express an interest in – let’s say – custard – and for the rest of your life you receive custard-themed presents: cartons of custard, custard powder, custard apples, books of custard recipes, books about General Custer, etc.

But Weird Pigeonholing – aka being pigeonholed for a perceived weirdness – is the worst. I say this as both the Goat Skull Guy and as a person. I haven’t always been on the receiving end of Weird Pigeonholing though. At school I was overshadowed by characters such as Robert the Bloodeater who was known for eating his own blood, Fast Brent who was known for running and JessieandCassie who were known for being twins.

No, it wasn’t until 2009 that I was truly reduced to being a one-thing wonder. Since posting about goat skulls on this blog I have received an endless stream of emails from people who say they have been reminded of me by a certain skull or goat-related object they’ve come across.

Does it even matter though? Should we care if we are pigeonholed? I thought about this a lot and I realised that there is actually a lot more to me. I am a real-life human being with loads of different layers of emotions and garments and personality traits. I am not a goat-obsessed weirdo with a taste for bones. And it really doesn’t matter if people pigeonhole me. I felt much better after I realised this and had freed my mind from a torturous line of thought. And so I stepped outside and went for a leisurely stroll through the goat graveyard out the back of my house, content in the knowledge that I am the well adjusted person I have always thought I am.

I recently got an email from a teacher at Varsity College on the Gold Coast who had been reading The Greatest Blogger in the World with her Grade 5 class. Apparently they liked the book so much they decided to run their own in-class Greatest Blogger competition. They used the specs from the official competition that ran back in July, to compose a short story with words and terms from the book such as ‘Barcode’, ‘Lola Cat’ and ‘Trunk Food Company’.

The Varsity College Greatest Blogger competition has been and gone and I can now exclusively reveal that the winner of the compeition was Olivia. Good on you Olivia. You are the Greatest Blogger (at Varsity College, if not the world). And here is Olivia’s winning composition for your reading pleasure.

My granny is soooo annoying that we built her granny flat out of straw in the hope that one day, the big bad wolf would come and blow it down and eat her! But instead when she opened the door she saw Lola Cat with the Boots – Puss-in-Boots, along with his famous outback, ironman of an animal BARCODE – or stage name – DUCK ON A LEASH!! I won’t tell you the rest, things might get feathery!

Before Mum’s wedding, I got my hair cut so short that on the day I wore a tuxedo instead of a dress. They were selling illegal red cordial at the time of the after party, so I took my chances and had a sip. It tasted better knowing where I’d end up, because nobody would see me like this in jail. I guess it was the Trunk Food Company behind it.

The biggest animal on our farm is the unshorn merino. At our school par-tay they wanted it there instead of the school mascot. A kid called Dr Maryloaf started to ride it. It’s now in hospital…sad really! It must have been groomed by my mum after her FAP meeting. Mum makes everything look like cardboard…including me! Maybe he thought the merino was one of those cardboard models that you just jump on and ride?

Yes, I have been a bad blogger of late – ignoring my blog, not answering emails, writing in a real-life diary instead, etc. I have been in New York and Canada having what we call a ‘holiday’, what the locals there call a ‘vacation’ and what the US government calls ‘a valuable input of tourist money into a flagging US economy’.

And here is the most amazing thing I found during my North American travels.

Yep, more goat skulls! After I spent a good portion of this year blogging about goat skulls, it was perfect that in an art gallery in Montréal, Canada I would find moving creatures with the heads of dead goats. I watched them for a lot longer than the above video goes on for. The combination of goat skull with crab claws is inspired.

The artist of these disturbing (good disturbing, not bad) exhibits is a local guy called Eric Braün (who does some pretty cool artwork and comics as well).