The Friday Five: Christmas questions...

From thefridayfive:

1. What is your fave thing about Christmas?


People smile.

Really, I can hardly choose just one thing as a favourite. I like Christmas conceptually, not as a Christian holiday, but as a celebration of life. I love it that its best symbol is a tree, or lights like stars. I love it that people decorate their houses with lights. I love Christmas cards and letters, including electronic ones. I love the idea of singing angels, and giving gifts, and people getting together with turkey and cranberry sauce and plum pudding. I love stories set a Christmas - Dickens, fanfic, O. Henry, all of it.

When I was a child, my favourite thing about Christmas was a candy my mother used to make called Maple Cream. I have her recipe, but I have never been able to reproduce it.

To be even-handed here, there are a few things I don't like about Christmas. I don't like Jingle Bells and Winter Wonderland playing ad inifinitum in muzak in the shopping malls. I don't like people complaining about materialism at Christmas (but thinking it's okay the rest of the year), or arguing about whether to say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas". Most of all, I don't like incredibly ugly 8' inflatable plastic Santas and snowmen that turn up on some people's snowy front yards. Have they no shame?


2. Did you believe in Santa Clause? If so, what was the best gift from him?


I don't remember ever believing in Santa Clause, but I loved the stories about him, and leaving milk and cookies for the reindeer. Santa obviously didn't care whether I believed in him or not, because he came to my house anyway.

His best gift? I was three. Looking out from the top of my Christmas stocking - hung that year on the outside of my bedroom door, I don't recall why - was a soft little brown teddy bear named Brownie. Brownie stayed with me for a very long time. For most of that time he had a little rip in his neck, but it made me love him all the more.


3. Do you have a Christmas Tree? Ribbon, Angel, Star or ______ on Top?


This year, no tree: I decorated the harp instead, with gold beads and red ornaments and put a burgundy-robed angel on top of the post where a dragon usually stands. (The dragon is actually still there, under the angel's skirts. There is probably deep symbolism there somewhere.)


4. Best stocking stuffer you got?


Brownie. See above.


5. Wishing for a White Christmas?


Well, of course. It would take a lot of rain and warm temperatures to wash away all the snow we have now. Heaps and heaps. It's hard to get around in it, but it's pretty, and puts a person in a Christmas sort of mood.

Fannish 5:

From fannish5: What were your five favorite things about your fandom(s) in 2007? Though certain fandoms will always be dear to me - like X-Men, Francis Crawford of Lymond, the Bujold novels, and live theatre - what stood out in 2007 was Torchwood and Doctor Who as my current most-loved fandoms. Is that one fandom, or two? Could be either. They overlap. My greatest love is Doctor/Jack slash, and that had an iffy situation this year. The porblem with canonical slash pairings - the writers of the show interfere with their own continuity and changes to the relationship. The nerve! But this isn't entirely a bad thing: it seems to have kept my creative interest fresh.

Favourite things about my fandom in 2007:

1. Other fans. Seriously. All of you. With special thanks to a few people like rosiespark, nina_ds, kikibug13, isagel, myfavouriteplum, chatona, and - well, heck, everyone who talked to me, who were such fun to discuss things with, from the moral/cognitive confusion I felt on "The Last of the Time Lords" to the cuteness of Captain Jack's smile. It was fun when you agreed with me and it was fun when you didn't. And then there were all of you who made gorgeous icons and shared them, and wrote wonderful stories and let me read them, and who commented on my stories, and issued me challenges, and who sent me links to (or copies of) great shows with the likes of Eccleston and Tennant and Barrowman in them, or who sent me clippings from the UK (extra special thanks to silverwhistle on that one), and otherwise helped me to enjoy my fandom in this wonderful playground that is LJ.



2. Video parties: I love inviting people over to see my fannish shows. We eat and talk and watch and talk and eat and watch and quibble. I especially thank people like josanpq and lmondegreen for being so appreciative of the Torchwood episode "Captain Jack Harkness". It's been great fun to watch Doctor Who and Torchwood with maaseru and maaboroshi, who aren't fans, but who are indulgent of my whims and who make interesting comments; and with commodorified and auriaephiala, who are simply lovely people and fun to watch things with. I wish I had infinite time and energy to do this sort of thing more often - !



3. The BBC. I gripe about some of their idiocies - not letting Canadians see the Torchwood website? keeping the starting date of series two secret? messing with my mind? - but they have wonderful online stuff for us, and they make lovely shows, and I'm revelling in it. I love it that they make "Confidentials" and "Declassifieds" so we can see Tennant and Barrowman clowning around like fanboys. I love it that they license action figures, and that there are published books, and that their DVD sets have the best, most artistic packaging I've seen.



4. Russell T. Davies. Sometimes he drives me mad and sometimes I adore him, and I am eternally grateful for his revival of Doctor Who and his creation of Torchwood - yes, I know he didn't do it singlehanded, but if he hadn't done what he did, I wouldn't be watching and enjoying this delightful, historically rich, infinitely enchanting and complicated fandom. An extra tip of the hat also to my favourite Doctor Who writer, Steven Moffat, and my favourite Torchwood writer, Catherine Treganna.



5. John Barrowman, the man who never sleeps and who never ceases to entertain. "You can sleep when you're dead," his mother told him, and he took it to heart. When he isn't filming Torchwood or Doctor Who he's on a variety of British radio shows, game shows, interview shows, cooking shows, kid's shows, and reality TV. And when he isn't doing that, he's doing print interviews and photoshoots and reading audiobooks and writing his autobiography (with his sister). And when he isn't doing that he's supporting good causes like Gay Pride and animal welfare. I've never known a star to be so accessible - and that means, accessible to me, in a foreign country and another hemisphere. I'm loving it.