stonepicnicking_okapi

Wishing all who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas!

I finished this puzzle a few minutes ago: Christmas Ornaments, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Not that difficult until you got to the end and all you have this the little frames of the boxes.

This was an impulse buy for the fun of it in the grocery store. It was too expensive for 6 donuts, but I had to see what a Grinch donut tasted like. So the Grinch head is filled with a grey-colored cream (maybe chocolate? I really couldn't tell) and the belly is full of a white cream. The Cindy Lou Who donut has berry flavored icing. The rest of them are chocolate glazed with sprinkles.

I am pushing hard to get to the finish line by the end of December!!

I like Advent calendars and advent calendar-themed challenges.

Fic

Two multi-fandom comms I am participating in this month which have daily prompts and an advent calendar type graphic are.

1. adventdrabbles. There is a tree. The prompts are images (with text descriptor).
2. fffc has a Winter Calendar of text prompts

To make it murder, I had Sherlock gifted an anonymous advent calendar. Those who know me can imagine who this is from and what dark things it might contain. This is for drabblezone prompt 426: see if I care.

Title: Arrival of an advent calendar
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: Gen
Length: 300
Characters: John, Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson
Summary: Just prior to John's temporary absence from 221B, Sherlock receives an interesting anonymous gift.

( Read more... )



Crafting

Also inspired by a video on the Treasure Books Youtube channel, I made an advent calendar for bethctg. This is Super Secret Craft Project #2 and she's going through it now. I used one of Minor's old binders from school and covered it and trimmed it. I made most of the envelopes and some of the things inside (little notebooks, bookmarks, Xmas tags) but a lot of the things inside are stickers collected from various places and bought on etsy. There are big envelopes for the first day, the last day (Xmas day) and yesterday (Jin's birthday because my friend is Jin-biased). So the themes were Silver and Gold (Jin and Xmas), Mocha and Ink (chocolate/coffee and books) and I tried to include a representative of each of the four categories in each day.



Links

I haven't gotten very far but luvbarryfefe posted this and I like it. It's personal care (deep breaths, drink water, etc) or social (share a recipe) tasks to do every day of December. Advent of Joy.

https://adventofjoy.com/

( The list )

I love Christmas. [I usually call it Xmas because unlike the bumper stickers I prefer to keep the Christ out of Christmas, but I don't mind the word or the idea or any of it.]

I like the carols. I like the images. I like the decorations and gift giving and baking. I like the films and TV specials. All of it.

This is the first spread I've done in a while. I think it turned out very well.



And, of course, Christmas can absolutely be murder. This is a drabble I did for adventdrabbles.

Title: Christmas is Murder
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Length: 100
Rating: Gen
Prompt: Day 3: Christmas self-care
Characters: Jim Moriarty (criminal mastermind) & Sebastian Moran (sidekick sniper)
Summary: Jim's got an idea.

( Read more... )

( The list )

So I wrote this fic for my In the Seom friend from Iraq who is V-bias. It is a fairy tale AU where Prince Taehyung (V) is looking for his cat.

Prince Taehyung and the Cat Kiwi (6383 words) by okapi
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Seokjin | Jin, Jeon Jungkook, Min Yoongi | Suga, Park Jimin (BTS), Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Original Cat Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Prince Kim Taehyung | V, Prince Kim Seokjin | Jin, Prince Park Jimin (BTS), King Kim Namjoon | RM, Kim Seokjin | Jin & Kim Taehyung | V are Siblings, Cats, Adventure, Poetry, Jungkook Yoongi and Hoseok are brothers, Kim Namjoon | RM & Park Jimin are Siblings, Yeontan is a horse, Desert
Summary:

Prince Taehyung is bored and lazy. The quest to recover his missing cat will change that.

For Noorry.

I think it's a little late for Clement Moore, but I did do some Dickens today. I watched the Christmas Carol version with Alistar Sim which some of you recommended while I was taking down and packing up the Christmas decorations. It was good. He makes a good Scrooge, especially after his conversion.

I also listened to 3 stories from an audiobook/story collection of Dickens' Christmas stories my library has, all originally published in the 1850's Christmas editions of Household Words. I listened to The Child's Story, The Schoolboy's Story, and A Christmas Tree.

The Child's Story was short and a bit like The Giving Tree meets A Pilgrim's Progress but less sad. The Schoolboy's Story is about a victim of bullying getting a fortune and turning the other cheek and his bullies repenting. Meh. I couldn't help think that in an alternate universe the main character would Kill Them All. by far the most interesting was A Christmas Tree. I have bookmarked it for later consideration. First, there's a description of all kinds of toys and I think it would be PERFECT for a horror stories. In the same vein, the second half is nothing but a list of ghosts (?!). Also really good fodder. Like 20 possible ghost stories in a couple of paragraphs. Go boz!

I wrote a haiku about my favorite.

go look under-pond
beneath dead-still waters where
stags refuse to drink

I always prefer reading mysteries to any other genre. Poetry comes a close second. And I ALWAYS read mysteries at Christmas time.

Today I am re-reading the Christmas mystery novel Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer, which has the advantage of being my favorite kind of mystery: locked room mystery!

Most of the time, I read short stories, though, and I still believe I have one of the est collections of Christmas mystery short stories in the English language.



Here are some favorites I recommended in 2021 and I don't think my opinion has changed.

1. "Death on Christmas Eve" by Stanley Ellin. I love Stanley Ellin, and in terms of role models for my own writing, he's definitely one of them. This is the story of a lawyer's encounter with a highly dysfunctional family. [Murder for Christmas, edited by Thomas Godfrey]

2. all four stories in P.D. James' The Mistletoe Murder and other stories with a special gift in the stocking for the final two which are Adam Dalgliesh tales, "The Boxdale Inheritance," which is a very, very clever twist, and "The 12 Clues of Christmas" which is a spoof of Agatha Christie, but very well done.

3. "The Trinity Cat" by Ellis Peters (of Cadfael fame). An old lady gets murdered and a stray cat reveals clues. [Murder on Christmas Eve, edited by Cecily Gayford].

4. "On Christmas Day in the Morning" by Margery Allingham. Campion as detective and the critical clue is rather a sweet one. [A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards].

5. "Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech" by Cyril Hare. An excellent blackmailing story. [The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories edited by Martin Edwards].

I managed to crank out this Good Omens ficlet I've had in my head since Halloween.

That Plague Doctor (is a Real Demon) (1700 words) by okapi
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens)
Additional Tags: Private Investigators, Christmas Fluff
Summary:

At Aziraphale's request, hard-boiled, hell-fried private investigator Crowley crashes a Boxing Day pantomime.

Based on the GK Chesterton Father Brown story "The Flying Stars."

I don't drink spiced warm beverages like mulled wine, but I find holiday coffees and coffee blends interesting.

So I've tried:

at Starbucks (all hot, I don't drink iced coffee):

Chestnut Praline latte

(tasty! sweet, can't really tell what's going on, but would do another)

Sugar Cookie latte

(strange, over-sweet, not bad, but won't be buying another, definitely have the sense that 'this is the product of a weird chemical thing created off the New Jersey turnpike--where flavors are created in the US')

Ground coffee:

Holiday blend

(Okay, a bit smokey/bitter)

Peppermint Mocha

(Good, a strange hit of peppermint, see about New Jersey turnpike)

Dunkin Donuts:

Peppermint mocha (hot, prepared beverage)

(So mildly peppermint, mildly mocha that I couldn't really tell)

but my favourite holiday coffee is still:

Dunkin Donuts Holiday blend! I did a collage last year.

What are your favorite holiday coffees?

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem by Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.
( Read more... )