No, I still haven’t managed to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special! We’re waiting for the ABC screening tonight. Oh, iView, where are you when we need you? In the mean time, to keep the Christmas flag flying until the main event appears on our TV…

Angriest on the best Christmas TV episodes.

Australian Women Writers on 12 Book Blogs of Christmas

Tor.com reviews Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas

Nicola Griffith on the art of blowing up Christmas

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I got a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas! I can’t stop grinning at it, especially as my honey managed to make me think it was an impossible dream – they’re only letting them into Australia two at a time or so. But it is MINE and so pretty. Have already been stocking up on books from Wizards Tower, Project Gutenberg and even (gasp) the Amazon store. And I’ve already read a whole novel on it (peeking at the ‘how many minutes to the end of this book’ feature the whole time) – the extraordinary, raw and compelling ‘WWII heroines’ novel Code Name: Verity by Elizabeth Wein which had me sobbing buckets over the leftover roast potatoes this morning.

In other news, the Very Grown Up Raeli received an iPod Touch and some snazzy yellow headphones which means she can play Angry Birds AND listen to Ood Cast music without begging for my phone, and also that little Jem can mainline her way through her Christmas DVDs without fighting with her sister for control of the remote.

But this was a Christmas of books, from extended family as well as each other (and of course, Santa). Let’s take a look at a sample of the dead tree hoard:

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Jem has *got* Christmas this year. She knows it’s coming, she’s singing the songs, and she refuses to put up with any guff about how many decorations on the tree are handmade by her big sister, thus is claiming that she is personally responsible for anything with a ribbon on it.

Did I mention singing songs?

This is her version of a certain Christmas classic:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eight maids a milking
Seven swans a swimming
FIVE GOLD RINGS
Four calling birds
Three fresh hens
Two turtle dogs
And a partridge in a pear tree!

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A home-made Adipose from Glammer to Raeli

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via Tumblr, art by Mike Maihack

OK this is my favourite news article of the week – a Womble performer traumatised a nation (well, the six year old portion of the nation) when he accidentally removed his head during a live webfeed. Now, my first reaction was basically that it’s awesome that the Wombles are a THING again for today’s kiddies. As a mother of a six year old myself (who broke my heart with her reaction to finding out about the Santa thing last year)… seriously?

“Parents from around the UK said the ‘damage had already been done’ and that they had been forced to come up with ‘all kinds of explanations’ about why there was a human inside a Womble.”

HOW MANY KINDS OF EXPLANATION ARE THERE?

Elsewhere in the world, Aqueduct Press continue their marvellous blog series of posts about the Best Reading, Listening, Viewing, etc. in 2011. I like especially that the contributors are asked to talk about what they enjoyed, but not limit themselves to work published this calendar year. And I was honoured to be asked to talk about my own favourite things of 2011. I forgot lots of things, of course, but that’s what my own blog is for!

Also, Brit Mandelo of Tor.com blogs about her new reprint anthology, Beyond Binary, which includes a story by MEEEEE as well as a whole bunch of more famous and wonderful writers. Hooray for genderqueer SF being talked about!

Nnedi Okorafor blogs powerfully about her discomfort in discovering, in the wake of her marvellous World Fantasy win for Best Novel, that the trophy depicts the head of a very racist, unpleasant person. Ie. H.P. Lovecraft. Which has led to all kinds of conversations across Twitter and other forums about, you know, what kind of alternative trophy could better represent excellence in fantasy fiction, or the history of fantasy literature. I suspect TRADITION is going to win out on this one, or at least a combination of tradition and resistance to change, which are not entirely the same things, but personally I can think of a whole bunch of other unpleasant heads which could take his place. Like Medusa!

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I always think of Connie Willis at Christmas time. One of my favourite of her books is a collection of short fiction, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, many of which were written for Asimov’s December issues over a decade or so. The title story feels like quintessential Willis short stories, because it is a romantic comedy with speculative elements, and includes references classic pop culture of some kind. In this case, it is a debate between which Christmas film is superior, Miracle on 42nd Street (the original) or It’s a Wonderful Life. At the time I first read this story, I hadn’t seen either film. They occasionally screen in Australia, more often now than when I was growing up, but they’re not as pervasive as they apparently are in the US at this time of year!

I went out and watched both movies, as I usually do when Connie Willis structures a story around a piece of Classic Hollywood. They’re both very good movies. But neither of them, for me, has a patch on the personal resonance of, say, Bernard and the Genie, which I adore beyond all reason, or even the resonance of “Miracle” itself.

It’s all personal, though. Christmas cultural texts come from our childhood, from happy moments in our lives, or they just happen like lightning – like anything else that becomes a new, instant favourite. But really, I didn’t start thinking about Christmas texts until I read “Miracle.” So it’s rather meta that, at Christmas time, I start getting the urge to re-read that story.

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Well, Tumblr and Nanowrimo are joint culprits, I think. I’m about 500 posts behind on my blog reading for the week, so no Friday links today!

Instead, I give you FESTIVE FRIDAY LINKS IN PICTURES!

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So I finished Nanowrimo and ‘won’ in that I completed 50,000 words of novel this month (though I think it doesn’t technically count as a win because I wrote them on two different novels, too bad, I’m counting it). I didn’t do much ELSE this month, of course, but I also was glad to feel that I didn’t completely neglect my house, children, reading obligations, etc. It’s almost like I’m getting the hang of this novel thing. Only the first week was teeth-grindingly hard.

Which of course has made me raise the bar of expectations as to how many words I can put on the plate when I am officially writing a novel – the old 1000 words 5 times a week is starting to look somewhat shabby. Still… no use thinking about that now, I have months and months before I can be actively writing new words every day again. Though the collaborative novel I am writing with the magnificent Kate will continue on and off over the next month or two I guess… at least I get whole days when I am not actively supposed to be working on it!

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