Could You Survive a Victorian Slum? – For a new living history series, the BBC is looking for families and individuals to live as poor people in 1870s London would have done. (via WitchArachne)

Boris the Christmas Tarantula – Heartwarming tale about a Christmas-loving giant tarantula who journeys to the North Pole in hopes of finding a place to belong.

Happy Birthday, There’s a Corpse in Your Cake! – A look at Victorian “Frozen Charlotte” dolls. (I have a minor quibble with the author’s suggestion that the tradition of baking miniature dolls into cakes originated with these; the custom is a lot older, so these particular dolls were probably used during this time period because they happened to be readily available and cheap.) (Hat tip to Jes)

Yuletide Snake Advisory – Some species are more active at this time of year. Beware!

Classical Depravity – Atlas Obscura’s “guide to the perverted past.” You gotta admire the dedication of some sculptor who spent hundreds of hours carefully carving a statue of a satyr fucking a goat. NSFW (duh).

Haunted Beauty Zombie Bride Barbie – I’m rather miffed that I was unaware of the “Haunted Beauty” line of Barbies. This is the fourth in the series, following Mistress of the Manor, Vampire, and Ghost.

DiCaprio to Play H.H. Holmes – Martin Scorsese is filming a biopic of “America’s First Serial Killer,” which will star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Cthulhian Font – A TrueType font of Lovecraftian characters. (Hat tip to Bruno)

Neil Gaiman Reads A Christmas Carol – Everything is better with the addition of Gaiman, including Charles Dickens.

Wine Coffin – Instructions for making a gift “coffin” for a bottle of wine. If you don’t want to mess around with a miter saw, you could use thick cardboard and duct tape, then cover the whole thing in pretty wrapping paper to hide the seams.