16 Festive Tasks
16 Festive Tasks – The Prize (Part 2)
… and following (almost) straight on the heels of MbD’s post, here is part 2 of your prize and our donation: So, not only did you all earn enough points to furnish a mobile library in Africa with almost 30 books, the points you earned also make it possible to teach a child in Africa […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: THANK YOU — and Final Tally
Sooo … with a staggering two-week delay, your hosts are finally getting around to the game’s closing post. (Yeah, we know. Let’s just say the new year started rather busy for both of us …) Anyway, MbD and I wanted to thank all of you so much for joining the game and participating so actively! […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Final Tally
The Markers: Stack of Books: Books read Red Bows and Ribbons: Other Tasks completed Joker cards used: The Squares, Books and Other Tasks: Square 1: November 1st: All Saints Day / Día de los Muertos & Calan Gaeaf Book themes for Día de Muertos and All Saint’s Day: A book that […]
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Our Traditional New Year’s Eve Dinner: Wieners & Potato Salad
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 16 – New Year’s Eve / St. Sylvester’s Day Tasks for Hogswatch Night: Make your favourite sausage dish. As it so happens, wieners and potato salad are my mom’s and my traditional Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve food. This year we cheated (store-bought instead of homemade potato […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 8 – Las Posadas
Tasks for Las Posadas: Which was your favorite / worst / most memorable hotel / inn / vacation home stay ever? Tell us all about it! I think I am going to divide the honors three ways here — and very fittingly, two of the three hotel stays in question were in Spanish speaking countries. […]
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The Women I Respect the Most
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 14 – Quaid-e-Azam Tasks for Quaid-e-Azam: Pakistan’s first leader – Muhammad Ali Jinnah – was a man, but both Pakistan and neighboring India were governed by women (Benazir Bhutto and Indira Gandhi respectively) before many of the major Western countries. Tell us: Who are the present-day or historic […]
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Victor Gunn: Death in December
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 3 – Armistice / Veterans’ Day Murder at Castle Cloon This novella by Victor Gunn (one of several pseudonyms of Edwy Searles Brooks) also forms the centerpiece of the second British Library Christmas mystery short fiction anthologies edited by Martin Edwards that I read this month (Crimson Snow), […]
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A Cornucopia of Holiday Stories
Turns out I already knew five of the ten stories in this anthology: Ellis Peters’s The Trinity Cat Julian Symons’s The Santa Claus Club Ian Rankin’s No Sanity Clause G.K. Chesterton’s The Dagger With Wings and Marjorie Bowen’s Cambric Tea. So I skipped those (though I do really like the stories by Ellis Peters, Julian […]
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Truman Capote: A Christmas Memory, One Christmas & The Thanksgiving Visitor
Southern Holidays Truman Capote’s charming, magical memories of his childhood Christmas and Thanksgiving with his mother’s Monroeville, Alabama family — particularly his much elder and much-beloved cousin Miiss Sook, who thanks to her own child-like nature was mother, grandmother and elder sister to him simultaneously; but, most importantly, the greatest source of warmth, love and […]
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Charles Dickens: The Chimes
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 16 – New Year’s Eve / St. Sylvester’s Day Prophetic Bells Well, well — nothing like ringing in the New Year (albeit a day early) with Charles Dickens: What he did for Christmas in the story about the old miser Scrooge, he did again a year later for […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 15 – Boxing Day
Tasks for St. Stephen’s Day / Boxing Day — BONUS task: box up all the Christmas detritus, decorations, or box up that stuff you’ve been meaning to get rid of, or donate, etc. and take a picture and post it. Won’t be donating this, but anyway, here’s the result of my after-Christmas house cleaning: … […]
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John Mortimer: Rumpole at Christmas
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: The Light Joker Christmas at the Old Bailey (and Elsewhere) Rumpole at Christmas is a collection of previously uncollected Rumpole short stories written late in John Mortimer’s life: there are some minor inconsistencies vis-à-vis the main body of the series, but what really matters here is that Mortimer’s craftsmanship […]
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The Dalai Lama: The Power of Compassion
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 10 – World Peace Day Words of Wisdom The Dalai Lama speaks about the Four Noble Truths, maximizing your inner strength, dealing with anger and death, the power of compassion, the challenges facing humanity today (including globalization, warfare, environmental protection, overpopulation), and the great world religions’ core tenets […]
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Candlelight Breakfast and a Book
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 3 – St. Martin’s Day – and Square 15 – Newtonmas Tasks for St. Martin’s Day: Write a Mother Goose-style rhyme or a limerick; the funnier the better. –OR– Take a picture of the book you’re currently reading, next to a glass of wine, or the drink of […]
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The Medieval Murderers: The Sacred Stone
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 16 – New Year’s Eve / St. Sylvester’s Day A Miraculous “Sky Stone” Book themes for Hogmanay / New Year’s Eve / Watch Night / St. Sylvester’s Day: a book about starting over, rebuilding, new beginnings, etc. –OR– Read anything set in medieval times. –OR– A book about […]
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Two Favorite Chinese Dishes – and Sherry Cream Dessert
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 11 – Dōngzhì Festival Tasks for Dōngzhì Festival: If you like Chinese food, tell us your favorite dish – otherwise, tell us your favorite dessert. Alright, I admit I haven’t made these in a while (so the pretty pics aren’t mine), but the Chinese recipes are from a […]
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My Grandma(s)
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 9 – Mōdraniht Tasks for Mōdraniht: Tell us your favourite memory about your mom, grandma, or the woman who had the greatest impact on your childhood. –OR– Post a picture of you and your mom, or if comfortable, you and your kids. Bonus task: Post 3 things you […]
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Family Christmas Traditions
6 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 13 – Christmas Tasks for Christmas: Post a picture of your stockings hung from the chimney with care, –OR– a picture of Santa’s ‘treat’ waiting for him. –OR– Share with us your family Christmas traditions involving gift-giving, or Santa’s visit. Did you write letters to Santa as a […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 14 – Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
Tasks for Dies Natalis Solis Invicti: Find the sunniest spot in your home, that’s warm and comfy and read your book. –OR– Take a picture of your garden, or a local garden/green space in the sun (even if the ground is under snow). If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, take a picture of your local […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 7 – International Human Rights Day
Tasks for International Human Rights Day: Post a picture of yourself next to a war memorial or other memorial to an event pertaining to Human Rights. (Pictures of just the memorial are ok too.) Anógia village, Crete: the Andartis (resistance fighter) monument near the museum to the village’s destruction in WWII. Crete was occupied by […]
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