My favorite Christmas podcast is back

My favorite Christmas podcast, Hark! The Stories Behind Our Favorite Christmas Carols, is back for a new season. Check out their official website or find them wherever you get your podcasts. I recommend them highly.

Hark! is about "the meaning and the making of our most beloved Christmas carols and their time-honored traditions." It researches the history, lyrics, music, theology, and more of each piece. As their site puts it: "Where do these beloved yuletide songs come from? What inspired the people who composed them? How did they become popular and even mainstream? And what impact do their ancient Christian messages have on an increasingly post-Christian culture?"

So far this year, they've done "We Three Kings" and "The Little Drummer Boy." Past years have included "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," "Silent Night," "Carol of the Bells," "Good King Wenceslas," "The Huron Carol," "Joy to the World," "In the Bleak Midwinter," "O Holy Night," "Go Tell it on the Mountain," and more.

(My second-favorite Christmas podcast, Christmas Past, is also back. It's a more generalist Christmas podcast -- "equal parts nerdy deep dive and warmhearted celebration... inspired by public radio" -- and it puts out many more episodes per season. Here's their official website.)

Fannish options & enthusiasms: December 2024

Here are some recent fannish things I've happened to see and would like to share:

Spotlight: Toys
My Super7 "Ultimates" D&DC cartoon action figures came! I've now cleared a shelf of books (a big deal unto itself) the better to pose and display my assorted D&DC toys. This is the first Super7 set (Sheila, Hank, Dekkion, Shadow Demon); I'm keeping fingers crossed that they will complete the entire run, probably at the rate of one set per year, and that they will not postpone Diana until last. I'm not an action figure collector. I had never heard of Super7 before they dipped into D&DC. But now I know that they definitely have the right kind of nerdtastic awareness of '80s and '90s cartoons, as well as various other fandoms, and they seem to be generally well-regarded for quality. Their two main lines are "ReAction" figures that are strongly reminiscent of the classic Kenner toys, and "Ultimates" figures with all the contemporary articulation and alternate faces. They also do some figures in the mold of the original He-Man toys. Check out their official website.

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • fandomtrees is a gifting fest successor to Fandom Stocking. Sign-ups through 12/05; fills through 01/09; reveals 01/11.
  • holiday_wishes is a gifting fest along the lines of Fandom Stocking and Fandom Trees, but more relaxed. Wishlists must post by 12/31; fills have no deadline.
  • wish_upon_a_meme is a prompt-meme-style gifting event along the lines of In Small Packages. Fills through 1/14.
  • hanukkahbingo is a bingo fest in which works star "a Jewish or Jew-ish character celebrating Hanukkah (or the scifi/fantasy equivalent of Hanukkah)."
  • lul_soulmatesex is a fanfic exchange for soul connections. Nominations through 12/08; sign-ups through 12/15; assignments due 2/01.
  • gdgdbaby is hosting a holiday love meme thread.
  • trope_of_the_month's December theme is "food and cooking."
  • allbingo's December theme is an amnesty (finish and post any WIP).
  • pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in fannish exchanges. For example, heroexchange is currently seeking pinch hitters.
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); December theme: an amnesty (recs for any past theme)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)

Sidelight: Streaming services
These are all the streaming services that I subscribe to, in order of how frequently I watch them:

1. YouTube Premium (at least daily)
2. PBS Passport (about weekly)
3. Disney+ (monthly, unless Marvel has something new)
4. Paramount+ (monthly, unless Strange New Worlds has new episodes)
5. Amazon Prime (rarely)

Note: "Recently:FK" is now "Recently:Enthusiasms."