EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know as you start your day.

1. #CHRISTMAS MASS: A special Christmas mass was held yesterday for the former Vita Cortex workers who are staging a sit-in at their former employer’s premises in Cork over redundancy payments, RTÉ reports.

2. #TEXAS: Seven people have been found shot dead in an apartment in Texas. The AP reports that police say they believe the shooter is among the dead and that all of the deceased were related.

3.#NIGERIA: Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathon has called on the country to “stand as one to condemn” the series of bomb attacks which killed 39 people across the country yesterday.

4. #NORTH KOREA: A small delegation from South Korea is being allowed rare permission to travel into North Korea to mourn the late Kim Jong Il. Al Jazeera reports that the delegation is part of an effort to improve North-South relations and that among the group will be the widow of late South Korean president and the chairwoman of the Hyundai group.

5. #PAY DAY LOANS: In his column this morning, Nick Leeson writes about the four lessons to be learned from 2011 and warns against the rise of so-called ‘pay day’ loans in the UK which can ruin people who are financially desperate.

6. #RECESSION: In an interview published in France’s Journal du Dimanche yesterday, the IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned that the European debt crisis could spark another global recession.

7. #ANONYMOUS: The hacking group Anonymous claims to have accessed thousands of email and credit card details from the US security company Stratfor, whose clients include the US defence department and law enforcement agencies, claiming the company’s files weren’t encrypted.

8. #QUEEN’S SPEECH: In her Christmas speech for 2011, the British monarch paid tribute to her four-day trip to Ireland earlier in the year and said the “spirit of friendship” in Ireland and the US “can fill us all with hope”.

9. #SHOPPING: Planning on hitting the Christmas sales this morning? Here’s our guide to which stores are opening today, and if the video below is anything to go by, we recommend wearing trainers:

(Video via jonathaneisaacs)