One of my favorite podcasts, Hark! The stories behind our favorite Christmas carols, is back for its third mini-season (four episodes a year; one weekly for Advent). Check it out on its own site. Or find it wherever you like to get your podcasts! (Here it is on Google Podcasts, where I get mine, until the migration to YouTube Podcasts next year.)

Each episode deep-dives a single carol though history, music theory, literary analysis, sociology, and theology. If that sounds heavy, it's not! The engaging researcher/reporter questions her expert sources on our behalf, teasing out the wonder, delight, sophistication, coincidences, and -- occasionally -- horror and tragedy, behind each composition. So far, across all their seasons to date, they've done: "O! Holy Night," "Joy to the World," "In the Bleak Midwinter," "The Huron Carol (Twas in the Moon of Wintertime)," "Silent Night," "Adeste Fideles (O Come, All Ye Faithful)," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," "Good King Wenceslas," "Carol of the Bells," and the premiere episode devoted to the history of carols in general.


If you're interested in Christmassy podcasts, you might also be interested in Christmas Past, which puts out many more episodes per season, starting right after Halloween and increasing its rate as Christmas approaches. As they describe themselves: "Behind every Christmas tradition is a story, often a forgotten one. ... Think: NPR meets Clement Clarke Moore." It's now in its eighth season, so a great back catalogue if you're looking for something specific.

The Yuletide collection released earlier than usual this year, and I know that everyone who wants to read fanfic today has a bounty of sparkly new choices (including two ~9K FK stories!).

But in case you're more in the mood for Christmas-themed FK tales this Christmas Day, here are just are a few magnificent classics that are still available online:

• "Angel Crossing" by Susan G. (1993, PG)
• "Coin of the Realm" by Susan G. (1993, PG)
• "Flowers in the Night" by Scottie (1993, PG)
• "Darkness Shall Have No Dominion" by Deb H. (1994, PG)
• "Snowfall" by Dorothy E. (1999, PG)

You'll find more under my trope:holidays tag! And if you're lucky enough to own a copy of the Forever Net Before Christmas zine, be sure to enjoy at least one of those stories this season.

Merry Christmas!

Happy (US) Thanksgiving! Happy Hanukah! What are your favorite Thanksgiving and Hanukah fanfictions in fandoms I may know (especially FK, HL, YB, original BSG)? Please link me!

My own favorite Hanukah fanfic is the counterintuitively named "I'll Be Home for Christmas," a Forever Knight story by Marian G. (December '93) that's not available online, but you can enjoy it if you can find the hard-copy zine Forever Net Before Christmas edited and produced by Valery K. (or if you visit me in person, you may read it from my shelf ~grin~).

Off the top of my sleep-deprived, holiday-hurried head, however, I can't think of a single Thanksgiving story. How odd!

I conceived this fairly light gen piece for the fkcommentfic/fkcommentfic "Bloor Mistletoe Challenge" (open through January 6), but it grew all out of commentfic proportions. I considered bonsai-ing it. However, after very generous betareading from batdina and pj1228 on New Year's Day itself, I concluded that a short story fit the idea best.

Available:	The AO3 | I'll put it on my fansite soon.
Length:	2,408 words
Date:	FKFic-L and AO3 01/01/13
Rating:	G
Characters:	Nick, Schanke, Natalie; cameo by Stonetree; passing mentions of Myra, Jenny, Janette, Lacroix, Norma, Grace, Fleur, Patrice, Dietrich, Lipinski
Summary:	Schanke has Christmas cookies for almost everyone.
Quotation:	"I feel lousy resorting to this for my own partner, but— go on, open it."

Do you have a favorite holiday episode? If so, what makes it a favorite?

Any television series, any holiday, but it must be a regular episode (e.g. FK's "Be My Valentine") not a special (e.g. Black Adder's Christmas Carol). (I realize that's a bit tough on some UK shows, with their different traditions about holiday airings, but... my post, my parameters.)

It always seemed strange to me that Highlander had so little holiday content in all its six seasons and successors. There's a nineteenth-century US Independence Day celebration in the flashbacks of "Obsession," and a 1980s New Year's Eve party in the flashbacks of "Revenge is Sweet," and a Prohibition-era one in the flashbacks of "Bless the Child," I think, but that's all I know off-hand (though admittedly I'm not nearly as good with the later seasons as the early ones; isn't "The Stone of Scone" set at a holiday, too? and what about the "Deliverance" flashbacks?). Holidays are threads running sideways through time, binding the years together; surely that's something worth touching on with such long-lived characters.

My favorite holiday episode, however, doesn't come from one of my best-beloved series: FK, HL, YB, BSG, BatB... No, it's "The Man in the Fallout Shelter" from Bones. Now, I adored that show's first season; it sung to me. The second season changed, becoming another story altogether; swiftly, nothing remained to speak to me, never mind sing, and I walked very sadly away. But in the middle of their first season shines this gem. Long story short and spoilery, the main cast is quarantined in the lab over Christmas; under the simultaneous pressures of having all their plans disrupted and breathing a potentially deadly contagious pathogen, personal tidbits and personality quirks emerge for every character. How do you face Christmas, and how do you face death? At the same time, of course, they work to solve a mystery, and in this case the case richly parallels Brennan's own scars -- then, just being revealed to the audience -- of unexplained abandonment. The layers of resonance are as vivid as a flashback; the holiday sharpens their cutting edges. I left that series as it left me... but that one episode can still make me laugh and cry.

Looking for some Christmas-themed Forever Knight fanfiction to enjoy this weekend? You might filter the AO3 for the fandom FK and the tag "Christmas" (just 3 stories at present), or look at my 2010 and 2009 Christmas blog posts (linking to 6 and 24 stories, respectively), or even 2007 (chatting about FK Christmas story challenges).

Additionally, here are the Christmas-themed stories featured in the FK recommendations project so far:

• 12/2011: "Darkness Shall Have No Dominion" by Deb H. (1994, PG)
• 12/2010: "Little Altar Boy" by Christy S. (2004, G)
• 12/2009: "Black Ice" by Mary Ch. (2000, PG-13)
• 03/2009: "Flowers in the Night" by Scottie (1993, PG)
• 12/2008: "The Heart of the Holidays" by Jill K. (1996, PG)
• 07/2008: "Traditions" by Susan G. (1996, G)
• 11/2007: "Three Spirits" by Perri S. (1995, PG)
• 12/2005: "Snowfall" by Dorothy E. (1999, PG)
• 03/2004: "Christmastime in the City" by April F. (2003, PG)
• 12/2003: "Silver Bells" by Bonnie P. (2000, PG-13) (Series: "Blue Christmas," "White Christmas," "Greensleeves.")
• 12/2001: "Coin of the Realm" by Susan G. (1993, PG)

There are many more out there. A personal favorite is Susan G.'s unexpected, unmatched, Lacroix piece, "Angel Crossing" (1993, PG). Would you like to recommend any? Please, share! (Mentioning your own is permitted. ~grin~)

And... merry Christmas!

Looking for some Christmas FK fanfiction to enjoy today?  Last year, I posted a list of twenty-four good stories in no order... but I'll admit that "Angel Crossing" by Susan G. and "Flowers in the Night" by Scottie are personal favorites.

What we should all best get to enjoy, of course, is a hard-copy of the Forever Net Before Christmas zine, which I am lucky to have myself (thanks to V.K.), but have no way to share with you except by linking to as many of its stories as are somewhere online now.  So in addition to those on the list noted above, we also have: "Trick or Treat" and "''Tis the Seasoning" by Susan G., "It's a Wonderful Knight" by Mary F., and "A Vampire in my Stocking" by Jennise and Margaret.  (I believe that the remaining two 'zine pieces are unavailable by their authors' choices.)

What's Good?  Christy S.'s "Little Altar Boy" (2004, G, ~600 words) chimes in on the song challenge by entwining lyrics and story so closely that they merge into a music video.  This reflective gen vignette is sweet and rich with the thematic aspirations of first-season FK, but is set indeterminately on any Christmas Eve after the flashbacks of "Only the Lonely."

(I neglected to get Christy's permission to feature this before she died in 2006, so until I changed the rule about deceased author authorization this year, her one and only FK fanfiction wasn't eligible for the recommendation-of-the-month project.  Now it is.)

-----
What's New on FKFic-L?  No stories have yet posted in December, but in November the list saw three new stories by three authors: ( list with links )

If anyone is looking for some Christmas FK stories to wrap up in, here are just a few, in no particular order:

• "Angel Crossing" by susanmgarrett
  
• "Flowers in the Night" by Scottie
  
• "Bah! Humbug!" by Nancy K.
  
• "To Drive the Cold Winter Away" by wiliqueen
  
• "Silver Bells" by Bonnie P.
  
• "Dona Nobis Pacem" by Nancy K.
  
• "Christmas Surprise" by Kathy W.
  
• "The Soldier" by Amanda B.
  
• "Christmas: Shepherds" by Mary Co.
  
• "Neither Flesh, Nor Fowl, Nor Good, Red Herring" by susanmgarrett
  
• "The Heart of the Holidays" by kirbyfest
  
• "Christmastime in the City" by heartsblood
  
• "Gifts" by Nancy K.
  
• "I Heard the Bells" by Megan H.
  
• "Coin of the Realm" by susanmgarrett
  
• "Snowfall" by Dorothy E.
  
• "Three Spirits" by neonhummingbird
  
• "This Christmas Day" by Amanda B.
  
• "Christmas: Wild Things" by Mary Co.
  
• "Blue Christmas" by Bonnie P.
  
• "Bells on Bobtail Ring" by Nancy K.
  
• "A Kitty for Christmas Dinner" Libby S.
  
• "Little Altar Boy" by Christy S.
  
• "Send My Love" by Me

What's Good?  For 2009's last recommendation-of-the-month, I'm pleased and proud to get to spotlight Mary Ch.'s "Black Ice" (2000, PG-13) today.  Pleased, because it's a satisfying, layered, episode-like novella with something for everyone (well, second-season's "everyone," anyway).  Proud, because I've almost re-synchronized my calendar at last! ;-)

For those seeking/avoiding certain strains at this time of year, let me note that "Black Ice" unfolds in the deep midwinter, with the teaser on Christmas Eve, the body over New Year's, and the tag at Epiphany, as I read it.

      He was too late. The daylight had advanced too far. He made a desperate lunge for the door, hoping against hope that he could reach it before the burning forced him to retreat, but in his weakened state the light was too strong and the distance too great. He staggered back to the wall, the skin on his face and hands blistered and smoking.

What's New?  In November, fkfic-l saw one new story by one author: "The Relapse" by pj1228 (5 posts, 89KB).