Christmas Livestreams

The Yogscast Christmas Livestreams are a series of Livestreams that are shown over the course of December and January each year with the intention to raise money for charity.

2011
The Christmas livestreams first began in 2011, when Lewis, Simon, Duncan and Sips streamed a number of games, such as Anno 2070, OpenTTD and X-Com: UFO Defence. During this time, Sips became more popular and eventually began making his own videos on his channel YogscastSips. Within a month, Sips had amassed a total of 28,000 subscribers, much to Simon and Lewis' surprise. On the BlueXephos channel there was also a series of daily "calendar videos" to accompany the streams, all for the Christmas holidays. The aim of the 2011 Christmas Livestreams were to buy goats, which were then sent to third-world nations in Africa to support families and villages.

2012

 * For a complete list of streams and to watch on demand, see List of Christmas Livestreams

Rumours that the livestreams would be returning in Christmas 2012 had been circulating amongst the Yogscast community for months. In late November, it was revealed via Facebook and Twitter that the streams would be returning. On 1st December, Simon and Lewis put out an official announcement video on the BlueXephos channel confirming the 2012 livestream.

The aim of this year's livestream is to support Oxfam with two projects: 'Plan Bee' and the '365 Emergency Fund'. The charity drive was nicknamed "Honeydew's Honey Drive ". The money is split between each project. (The first £10,000 is going to 'Plan Bee', and the remaining to #365 Emergency Fund') Plan Bee aims to provide training and a workshop for the manufacture of modern beekeeping equipment for Ethiopian families. 365 Emergency Fund is a project dedicated to a relief effort aiding emergency situations worldwide.

Oxfam responds to around 25 situations worldwide at any one time. Near the ending of the livestreams, after Christmas, Simon & Lewis uploaded a video to the main BlueXephos channel in which Simon  Santa introduced Lewis, who was wearing a sexy bee costume as promised. The number of people who needed to receive eye laser treatment during the days following the upload is currently unspecified.

Over the course of the 2012 livestreams, a total of £211,235.86 was donated by 13,407 charitable people.

The streams were carried out everyday other than Christmas Day itself, and were hosted by a number of Yogscast members and special guests, such as Hat Films, Athene, TotalBiscuit and Mike Schramm.

Livestream Events

 * 4 Chord Song - Sparkles*, Sam, Martyn and Parv performed a 30 minute '4 Chord Song'.
 * Strippin' Strips - Sam Thorne took his shirt off after hitting £80,000 in donations.
 * Just Dance 4 - When worse came to worse, Just Dance 4 was played.
 * Smooth Jazz - Just before midnight, chief Smooth Jazz deployer Sparkles* would deploy Smooth Jazz!
 * Area 11- An Area 11 Song would be played at exactly 11:11

2013

 * For a complete list of streams and to watch on demand, see List of Christmas Livestreams

In Hannah's Christmas Announcement Vlog, she confirmed the Yogscast Christmas Livestreams would be returning in 2013 and an official announcement was posted on the main channel on December 1st. Also, in YogNews - Wizard Wars and Summer Expos!, cows could be seen holding the total amount raised from 2012 livestreams, and they said that "The livestreams are all about the cows now." This was confirmed when the Twitch offline screen was changed to Honeydew in a cow outfit. 2013's donations were handled through the Humble Bundle who initially offered a TF2 item, the Heart of Gold, for a $5 donation and a group of 6 games and a War of the Vikings exclusive hat DLC for a $25 donation. As the livestreams progressed, five more games were added to the Humble Bundle.

Despite the cow theme (which caused many cow puns on the first night of streaming), all donations were split between five non-cow-related charities - Oxfam, Special Effect, Little People UK, Games Aid and War Child. Donators could choose how they wanted to split their money between the five charities. Sparkles*, Strippin, Martyn, Kaeyi & Sam demonstrated the hardware used by Special Effect during the "Dream Stream" on the 7th December, where they played Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed, using only eye movements.

Over the course of the 2013 Christmas Livestreams, a grand total of $1,156,799.80 was donated by 47836 generous contributors. The top contributor was www.g2a.com who donated $14100.

2014
On Lewis's Vlog Updates! video, he stated that the live streams would be returning in 2014. It has also been mentioned it would be returning this year various other times on other channels.

Sidenote: sips is one handsome devil (no-one must change this sidenote)