Hurry up please. It's time

hmm... ok, so server time is wholly unreliable and e2 keeps crashing. I'd like to say sorry to any of you who haven't been able to finish off a writeup but the quest ends today, the 6th of January, as advertised. Blessings and chings will be doled out once the jury have conferred, so that will by the end of the week, as long as e2 is stable until then. Thanks for joining in!


Now with 100% EXTRA twinkling icicle lights!!!

It's coming up to that time of year. The shops are a sea of sparkling red and green. You're browsing catalogues for pressies, signing cards, making mince pies and dreading stuffing the turkey. There's fun to be had trying to work out how to get old Uncle Albert to sit in the same room as your Cousin Bill without them killing each other. Yes, Christmas. Love it or hate it, it's just around the corner. Again.

We ninjagirls, renowned and revered for our amazing cooking skillz are also pretty hot when it comes to keeping the traditional crafts and stories of our great grandmothers alive. We propose to inundate you with stories from around the world. How this special time is spent in other lands, faiths and cultures. Who eats what and why. Traditional gifts, songs, myths and pastimes.

The darlings wertperch, alex, Lucy-S and graceness have offered to sponsor this quest. wertie professes an interest in other seasonal holidays such as Saturnalia whilst alex offered to bestow myriad gifts upon those who offer to share their knowledge of Yule, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. So let's see plenty of alternatives to the western commercial concept that is Christmas for many of us on e2 and find out what others get up to at this time of year.

So, go away, do your research or delve into your imagination. Sprinkle it with some HTML magic and post it before the 6th of January. For rules and regulations, see the small print.

The small print

No plagiarism please, we're noders.

You don't have to be a ninjagirl to enter.

For your entry(ies) to be valid you need to

  1. let me know so that I can link it/them from this here node
  2. refer to this quest at the end of your writeup(s)
  3. post it/them after the timestamp on this writeup and before midnight of the 6th of January 2004 (server time, despite its current dodginess).

Besides the above rules: anything goes! No restrictions on length, no formatting specifications. The only thing we ask is that you keep to the "Christmas-or-other-celebration-which happens-at-this-time-of-year" theme. Fact or fiction? Recipe or description? Story or carol translation? Funny or tragic? You name it, it fits in this quest! However, I think this kind of thing has been done to death, so while we crave an open debate, here is not the place. You want to ply us with facts? Knock yourself out. Aching to give us your opinion? Don't bother, thanks.

Those gods who are sponsoring the quest will dole out their prizes as they see fit. Their decision is final. Except where huge bribes of sex, drugs and free holidays in Barbados are offered, in which case they may enter into negotiations. I have no say in the distribution of prizes but gifts are welcome anyway.


Contributions

montecarlo brings us December 21, 2003 and Crunching snow

LX offers us gingerbread cookies and Estonian Christmas ham

smartalix comes bearing Uncle gifts

lometa provides a manger

izubachi delivers Great Aunt Gertrude's Christmas Fig Cookies

beryl tells us about Winter Solstice

nocte gives us Japanese Christmas and Bonenkai and Shinnenkai

tburns shares some Peppermint Dipped Cookies while Lighting the Kinara

drownzsurf passes round Southern Christmas breakfast sticky buns

Moradan tells us of the tradition that is Killing the carp

earthen enlightens us with Christmas cookery

in10se tells us of Bodhi day

BrooksMarlin reviews Bad Santa

arieh sings Maoz Tzur for us and explains Nittelnacht

SgtP declares a truce! Christmas Truce 1914

oakling tells us what it's like to be Born Under a Lucky Star

wertperch serenades us with The Holly and the Ivy

Pseudo_Intellectual wants an Unsilent Night

tWD sings Jingle Bells

e7h3r makes some Mince pies

C-Dawg gets misty-eyed On the death of a partridge

Pint extols the virtues of an Inflatable Christmas Tree

anamnesis prefers a Zen Buddhist Christmas Tree

Chiisuta passes us her Mum mum's Ginger Cookies

Snark lights the menorah

peanut hands round the Mexican hot chocolate

Jobert describes A Philippine Family Reunion on Christmas Day

Wiccanpiper proffers Fruitcake at Yule

TehBesto sumbits (sic) December 31, 2003

CaptiveSoul tells us all about green fluffy stuff

bewilderbeast enlightens us with Pirozhkis

sloebertje introduces us to Sinterklaas


Near misses

Writeups which don't quite fit the rules:

Timeshredder wrote Julnissen last week

GrouchyOldMan suggests New Year's Tradition should go here

Movie clip party is an old writeup from Ereneta

m_turner says "alas, I wrote all my x-mass nodes years ago... Peace on Earth, Christmas Spirit, Some Jews actually get pissed when you wish them a Merry Christmas, Christian holidays - now secular, no room in the inn, Star of Bethlehem and Jesse Tree"

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