Discovered in a Christmas Cracker

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well, this really is the closing post for our Discovered in a Christmas Cracker challenge - thank you so much to everyone who took part, whether creating or reading and commenting and encouraging all the people who posted! Our Pros community always looks so gorgeous over winter/Christmas/December-January/Solstice-time, because of all the people who join in and make it gorgeous - you're all brilliant!

I never really know whether anyone uses this but myself, but you'll now find that the calendar links to the posts of each person on their day - click on the 1st December, for instance, and you'll find murphybabe's contribution, click on the 2nd and you'll find moonlightmead's fic for the day (click on the 5th and you'll find all her posts for that day!). If you missed a day in the calendar, you can hover over it to see who posted, and click on it for those posts to come up.

You will also find a link to the entire challenge on the community User Information page (and to all previous challenges, of course... *g*), and you can search the community by author via the tag system too (there's an lj link at the top of the User Info page to all the comm tags) and you'll also find them here - clicking on an author's name will bring up everything they've contributed to the community (ignore tags that end in things like "cracker" or "tree", we use those to make the calendar and user info page links, of course!).

1st Yellow paper hat	2nd Whistle	3rd Plastic toy	4th Fortune-telling fish	5th Red paper hat
6th A bad joke	7th Plastic moustache	8th Pair of dice	9th Spinning top	10th Green paper hat
11th Plastic toy	12th Bad joke	13th Plastic false teeth	14th Tiny plastic car	15th Purple paper hat
16th Shiny plastic ring	17th A bad joke	18th Yellow paper hat	19th Plastic hopping frog	20th A keyring
21st Sliding block puzzle	22nd Pair of dice	23rd Fortune-telling fish	24th Plastic whistle	25th
26th Red paper hat	27th Plastic false moustache	28th A bad joke	29th Plastic whistle	30th Shiny plastic ring
31st Fortune-telling fish				1st sc_fossil
2nd Sliding letters game	3rd A bad joke	4th A key-ring	5th Plastic hopping frog	6th Spinning Top

I hope this isn't too much for anyone's flist - I thought it would be nice to have one final glimpse of our gorgeous Cracker calendar.

Thanks again - and look out for the next discoveredinalj post...

Comments

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the information about the links. Sadly I've missed a lot this year and I still have to catch up.
But as much as I realised The Christmas Cracker was great! :-)

Thanks to all of you!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I still have some catching up to do myself - there's just not enough time in this life! But that means I still have things to look forward to, too... *g*

Thank you! *g*

[londonronnie.livejournal.com]

And thank you for all your time and effort in organising the whole thing!

With RL being a bit crazy at the moment I've only managed to read one or two of the contributions, but it's lovely to know that they're all still there to read at my leisure when I get the chance, unlike some advent-calendary things that disappear overnight.

Cheers!!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

We've always tried to organise discoveredinalj so that people can find the stories and challenge responses years later - it's just a shame the external archiving, which was always something of a back-up, is no longer working. Ah well...

Yeay for catching up, though - I've some to do myself, there just isn't enough time! *g*

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I saw every day! Woohoo! I was sometimes a day late but I did it! Yay! Fabulous job, all. Thanks to everybody who participated and to our gracious host for inviting us.

My day, January lst, was when LJ was acting up. I do hope that some folks wander over to watch the vid and let me know what they think.

Cheers!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Every day is impressive, especially with the lj problems around new year - well done, you!

I have to get back to your post myself - I managed to get in and download your vid at the time, but not back to comment!

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

I know this year was a trial for all of us here but we made it. LJ is back! The Pros love lives on. LOL!

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

I think I saw every day - there was that period when opening cuts, and commenting, was difficult if not impossible (but I scrolled back for sc_fossil's vid). The clickable calendar makes it all so easy to go back! Thank you so much! You put an amazing amount of work into these things!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You did better than I managed then - well done! Glad you like the calendar too - I'm glad I pointed it out again as well, cos we've always done one, but I don't think anyone's ever commented to say they used it before. Makes the effort worth it... *g*

And thank you!

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for all the massive amount of organising and sorting and making-possible (and aiding-and-abetting *g*) that you have done. I love being able to have all the Calendar creations in one place!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It is nice being able to dot about here and there on the calendar and find the posts, isn't it... actually it makes me wonder if it might be worth putting the calendars all up on one page at palelyloitering... though they are all there via the User Info page.. *g*

And you're welcome - and thank you! *g*

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

It all looks so pretty!

Considering LJ was being so cranky, didn't we do well! Everyone was brilliant, gritting their teeth and posting in the end. I think I managed to see everything, but I couldn't always get in to comment, which was a pain... and reminds me I've got comments on my day I haven't got back to yet because it got too hard.

Thank you for all the organising - and for sorting this last post out so fabulously. Can't wait for the next one now!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It does look pretty, doesn't it! *g*

And heee for waiting for the next one - I've just been thinking about the emptiness that is January...

[lillianorchid.livejournal.com]

Thank you for organising everything and putting together the calendar! This challenge was so enjoyable and I loved joining in. :) I was going through the older challenges before this one to see the sorts of things people were posting and found the calendars to be very useful. :D

Thanks also to everyone who Contributed and made my Flist look lovely during Christmas and New Year's. :D

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome, and I'm so glad people are looking at the older challenges! When Circuit and Hatstand stopped archiving, we lost two of our best Pros resources, and even Lj is only ephemeral when people delete their accounts and posts and comments and so on...

Yeay gorgeous Pros-y flists! *g*

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

Thanks for being Ms. Organized and putting this together!

I've read through some, but I can always go through again and easily find the others.

You, ma'am, win the Internets for this. ;-)

Better yet: you Make Doyle Smile.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Heeee! *smooths Organised Hat...hugs internets*

*eyes Doyle*

*vbg*

Thank you!

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

Two very dummy questions: what are the tags written in every iconic picture in the calendar? I noticed them for the first time (my sight is getting worse and worse). And why three empty slots (lack of contribs?)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The writing on each icon in the calendar is actually the date (of course!) and a prompt for that date, for the post-er to use if they wish. Some people did, some people didn't. They change each year, depending on the challenge - this year they were all toys that you might find in a Christmas cracker.

The three empty spaces aren't empty spaces at all, and definitely aren't due to lack of contributions - every single day of the calendar was filled with a volunteer! The calendar runs from the 1st of December to the 6th January (Epiphany/twelfth day of Christmas) which is 37 days, but we had to make the table 5 x 8 (40) squares to fit that many days in - so there were three squares "left over". We left them between the end of the old year and the start of the new just because that seemed the right place to put them! Waaaay back on our first Winter/Solstice/Christmas/etc challenge (http://discoveredinalj.livejournal.com/tag/mistletoe) we had enough extra contributions to add 3 more days to the calendar, so we squooshed them along and had all the squares filled, but that's the only time that's happened... so far. *g*

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

That seems quite obvious when explained. My sight is very low indeed. I'm glad I didn't notice the prompt for I wouldn't have found anything to make with it. Again thanks for all the big work going with the challenge.