Discovered in a Livejournal

Well, Twelfth Night has definitely been and gone, and it's time to put Discovered in the Yuletide Spirit away. On the bright side, I know I've still got loads of reading and commenting to catch up on - and if you click on the link for each day on the calendar below, it will take you to that person's post, to make it a bit easier for anyone else too.

Thank you so much to everyone who took part, and helped make it a fab December/January thing! It's a bit of a wee Christmas miracle that we're still going, now that lj's so quiet, but I love that we are - and here's to the 2020 Solstice/Christmas/Winter/Lots-of-Lights challenge - it will be the fifteenth one! *g*

The posts will of course stay here in discoveredinalj, easily found via the Challenge Banners on the User Info page, and also via the tags, by author/poster, as an archive, but if you haven't already do archive them somewhere else too, so we know they're always safe!

Cheers, everyone! *clinks one last snowball to Discovered in the Yuletide Spirit*

1st Glenfiddich	2nd Lambrusco	3rd Advocaat	4th Whisky Mac	5th Lager
6th Snowball	7th Spritzer	8th Cold Duck	9th Harvey Wallbanger	10th Vodka and Orange
11th Rum and Black	12th Bitter	13th Gin and Tonic	14th Babycham	15th Blue Nun
16th White Russian	17th Champagne	18th Pint of Best	19th Johnny Walker	20th Martini
21st Guiness	22nd Campari	23rd Pina Colada	24th Cuba Libre	25th Happy Christmas Day!
26th Pink Gin	27th Mateus Rose	28th Cinzano and Lemonade	29th Black Tower	30th Cherry B
31st Snakebite				1st Pernod and Black
2nd Dubonnet	3rd Cider	4th Malibu and Pineapple	5th Teachers	6th Bacardi and Coke

Happy New Year everyone! A few people will have read this story already this Christmas, so I hope this doesn't feel too much like cheating, but hopefully I'll make another post later today too. For now...

No Such Thing as Father Christmas
by Slantedlight

Doyle didn’t believe in Christmas. He’d stopped believing a long time ago, sometime around eight years old, when his dad had beat up his mum that last time on Christmas Eve and gone out to get drunk. When his mum had called social services to come and get her son, because she was scared that things would get worse when her husband came home again. When she’d tried to tell him that of course Father Christmas would find him, and had still been trying to hide the bar of chocolate that had caused that night’s problem in the first place. He’d seen her slip it to the woman with the red scarf and the tired eyes, while the man was talking to him about what was going to happen. His mum hadn’t come with him, she’d chosen her husband. He hadn’t believed in Father Christmas then, and he wasn’t about to change his mind now.

( His lighter was a hard presence in... )

It's that time of year again, and this year's December/January/Winter/Christmas/Solstice/Bacchanalia/Let-There-Be-Light type Pros festival is...
It's actually a little bit past that time - I hope it's not too much on the last minute for people to sign up, especially as we're getting ever-fewer.

If you'd like to participate in our Pros December-Christmas-Winter-Solstice-festival-of-light-of-all-kinds challenge (please do!), then you simply need to choose a free date from the calendar and let me know in the comments. That day is then yours to post something Pros-y and somehow seasonal to the comm. It doesn't have to be Christmas-y, it could just be winter-ish, or it could be related to another celebration or festival - perhaps you prefer Hanukkah, or Bodie Bodhi Day, or to celebrate the long summer (cos you're in the southern half of the world...) Your post might be inspired by the prompt on the calendar day you choose - or not. It might even be completely anti-Christmas (although a passing reference to fit into the challenge would be nice), and just be a present offered to any Pros fans passing through the com. You can also post as often as you like on that day - just once, half a dozen times, every hour on the hour - it's entirely yours to be as Pros-y as you'd like to be.

The hope is that people will receive something Pros in their flist (or by visiting the comm) every day leading up to Christmas, and even through and to the New Year.

It doesn't have to be fic that's posted, of course - although that's always brilliant, obviously - it could be art, or icons or other graphics, or it could be something completely different. Your own Pros trivia quiz? Doyle's letter to Santa? Betty's Christmas card list? Start a discussion about why Cowley adores winter and the lads hate it? Make up a Pros wordsearch puzzle, or colouring-in page! Post that scan you have of a pic no one else would see otherwise! Anything connected to our lads and CI5 is welcome. *g*

As ever, I'm happy to post for you, if you'd rather not do it yourself for any reason (such as Christmas being a hugely busy time for many people!), or if you don't have a livejournal - just drop me an email to my email on the User Info page. If you'd like to offer "extra content" that can be slotted into days nobody has claimed, or if someone has a disaster and can't fill their day after all, that would be greatly appreciated as well!

Please sign up as soon as possible (so that I can organise for whatever days appear to be empty etc.) but feel free to sign up any time the comm is running – if you're suddenly inspired on 16th December to post on the 17th, and it's still an empty day, then comment below and go for it (let me know though, because I will have tried to arrange extra content for that day!)

If you'd like more than one day then that's almost certainly do-able these days - but I'll give you one to start with, let everyone else have a chance at the most popular days, and then allocate second (third, fourth... *g*) dates.

To sign up, please comment below with the date/s you would like to post or have your work/creation posted. I will then snag the icon you've used (please make it a Pros one, and not an animated one, otherwise the calendar makes me dizzy... *g*) to block off those day/s for you on the calendar. Then all you need to do is post on that day! The icons on the calendar will then also become links to your post.

Please use GMT (lads' time) when you post, and post between midnight and midnight lads' time on your day - this is just because, with people all over the world posting, times and posts can get tangled otherwise. Someone posting late can end up crossing over with someone posting early - and it's happened before! This time converter is helpful if you're not sure.

If you'd like to see how it's worked in previous years, you can find links to all the comm challenges on the user info page (all up to date now!) - simply click on the banner and you will be taken to all the entries with the challenge tag. If you find the challenge calendar, you'll be able to click on any day to see what was posted. *g* And there are twelve other Christmas/Solstice/Winter challenges to explore and be inspired by!

If I've missed out anything vital, or you have any questions, the do let me know in the comments - and otherwise, sign-ups are open, for the lucky thirteenth Pros Christmas/Solstice/Winter discoveredinalj challenge!

1st Glenfiddich	2nd Lambrusco	3rd Advocaat	4th Whisky Mac	5th Lager
6th Snowball	7th Spritzer	8th Cold Duck	9th Harvey Wallbanger	10th Vodka and Orange
11th Rum and Black	12th Bitter	13th Gin and Tonic	14th Babycham	15th Blue Nun
16th White Russian	17th Champagne	18th Pint of Best	19th Johnny Walker	20th Martini
21st Guiness	22nd Campari	23rd Pina Colada	24th Cuba Libre	25th Happy Christmas Day!
26th Pink Gin	27th Mateus Rose	28th Cinzano and Lemonade	29th Black Tower	30th Cherry B
31st Snakebite				1st Pernod and Black
2nd Dubonnet	3rd Cider	4th Malibu and Pineapple	5th Teachers	6th Bacardi and Coke

(And finally - sorry about the pink font, but it's taken me ages to get this far, and I can't face finding a better colour for it now! It'll be covered up by everyone's icons soon, I hope! *g*)