January 2: Devoted dad Lindz Mason raises money for an operation for his son by dressing as an elf every day.
Echo: Your very good elf
BBC: With a little elf from my friends
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January 3: Villagers in Spain maintain tradition by going into battle with flour and eggs.
Echo: Battered into submission
BBC: Flour to the people
January 4: Secret the sheepdog goes sledging in America.
Echo: Freeze a collie good fellow
BBC: Every dog has its sleigh
January 5: Scottish footballer Stelios Demitriou is hit by a bar of chocolate – so he eats it.
Echo: Oh, he’s bit the bar
BBC: I am the linesman with a Bounty
January 8: Peg the duck gets a prosthetic leg after her foot was nibbled off by a turtle
Echo: Walking quack to happiness
BBC: Walk this drake
January 9: Golf nut proposes to girlfriend on course in Alabama
Echo: My fairway lady
BBC: The Brider Cup
January 10: Woman places newspaper advert to try to woo a “sexy conductor” on her train
Echo: Ticketywoo
BBC: Woo the locomotion
January 11: Appeal to find a cat with a distinctive “moustache” a new home in Queensland.
Echo: Furr-cule purr-ot
BBC: The best a miaow can get
January 12: Knitted literary figures descend on RSPB Saltholme for the Yarn Bomb Story Weekend.
Echo: Wooly Wonka
BBC: Ripping Yarns
January 15: Man in Minnesota proposes to girlfriend by carving a giant “Marry Me” in the snow.
Echo: Ain’t snowbody, loves me better
BBC: Slushy
January 16: Woman in Northern Ireland marries the ghost of a pirate.
Echo: Dead over heels in love
BBC: Dead-ringer for love
January 17: Newly-weds in Carrickfergus embark on a marathon straight after exchanging vows.
Echo: Runnymoon
BBC: Marry-thon
January 18: Thieves steal quad bike but are foiled by Durham cops who follow tracks in the snow.
Echo: Snow-where to hide
BBC: The Flying Quad
January 19: Man in Glasgow sells buckets of snow for £1.
Echo: Slush fund
BBC: There's snow business like snow business
January 22: Mally Barnes, of Cockfield, reinvents himself as The Chimney Sweep Poet.
Echo: Read ‘em and sweep
BBC: I’m gonna brush that soot right out of your flue
January 23: London mum builds a business with cakes that are replicas of family pets.
Echo: The Great British Bark-off
BBC: One meringue and his dog
January 24: Jack Reynolds still loves abseiling at the age of 105 and says his intrepid lifestyle is due to a daily glass of whisky.
Echo: Whisky business
BBC: One for the rope
January 25: The annual cheese-rolling event in Stilton, Cambridgeshire, is cancelled due to lack of interest.
Echo: Couldn’t give Edam
BBC: Can’t brie bothered
January 26: A newspaper in Texas publishes an obituary to a pet chicken.
Echo: Gone but not forgot-hen
BBC: Laid to rest