A home-made Adipose from Glammer to Raeli

And home-made cybermats!

I could say that we didn’t give Jemima the pirate hat because of Amy Pond… but it would be a lie.

Shortbread daleks! All now eaten.

And… well, yes. A fraction of the Doctor Whoness that invaded our household this year, as every member of the family received something along those lines. Things. Somethings. Many things.

This is not all the things.

I regret nothing.

via Tumblr, art by Mike Maihack

“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!

Sarah Rees Brennan continues to point out the horrible double standard we have in our culture when it comes to talking about female fictional characters, as opposed to male characters, and the extra levels of perfection (BUT NOT TOO PERFECT) that fictional women are supposed to attain.

Meanwhile, a chap explains male privilege to other chaps. I always enjoy a good explanation of such things, that can be widely linked to, and makes a postitive contribution to the conversation. A part of me though is always a little bit sad, knowing that women have been patiently (and sometimes less than patiently) explaining things rather a lot longer, and it often seems like the message is more heartily supported and embraced when it comes in a male voice. Sigh.

Speaking of men fighting the feminist fight (and don’t think I’m not grateful, cos I’m busy baking shortbread and wrapping Christmas presents, yo no this is not sarcasm, I am actually too busy being barefoot & domestic to deal with internet feminism right now) Mondy has been talking about the latest Gardner Dozois Best of Science Fiction anthology, and the importance of looking at gender breakdowns. I’m linking to his blog because that’s how I take my internet these days (livejournal, I do not miss you and your nested comments of rage) but apparently there’s a whole lot of something-something going on in the comments of said LJ, which I think is under the name mondyboy. My Christmas present to myself this year is not reading said comments. LIFE IS WONDERFUL AND I AM ON HOLIDAY.

Meanwhile, DC Women Kicking Ass, a fabulous Tumblr, is talking about the failure of mainstream comics to market effectively to women, when they have actual properties women who don’t necessarily hang out in comic shops (WHO KNEW?) might be interested in.

Another of my pet topics, that of gendered toys, made the news this week with the announcement that Hamleys, the iconic toy store in London, is getting rid of its ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ floors. This comes after an ongoing Twitter campaign complaining about them, though they claim it is a coincidence that they made the decision. At a time when the gender divide of toys is getting worse and worse, it’s nice to see such a positive step. Having been raging about Lego excluding girls from their main range of toys for years, I’m now discovering the wonderful world of action figures thanks to Raeli’s action figure obsession. And once again, it turns out, the representation of female characters in comics and superhero movies turns out to be a hell of a lot better than what happens in the toy industry. Damn it.

(after feeling guilty for realising that it didn’t occur to me until recently to buy my Doctor Who fangirl daughter a sonic screwdriver, purely because she’s a girl, I had a revelation this week that I have also never been able to bring myself to buy her a toy oven/kitchen set BECAUSE SHE’S A GIRL, even though she adores such toys when she plays with them elsewhere. She’ll live, I reckon.)

Some baking goodness, because linking is easier than actually baking. My friend Iz who is currently building a Moomin House out of gingerbread sent me a Finnish gingerbread recipe which comes with images and instructions that have been enabling her in this wild endeavour. And elsewhere on the internet, keeping in mind that I have to figure out what kind of Doctor Who birthday cake I am going to produce a certain little girl in January, I found this brilliant design for a Dalek Smash Cake, which can be taken apart to discover the jelly mutant dalek inside.

Finally, my favourite Christmas post of the week is by Neil Gaiman, who talks about his Jewish childhood and the desirability of Christmas trees. As a non-Christian, lapsed pagan who is big on traditions being flexible, the Christmas tree is probably the most powerful image of what the festival means to me, and I love hearing about other people’s emotional attachment to it.

I can’t express enough how awesome it was to have two little girls decorating the tree with us this year, and that Jemima is now old enough to hang decorations without automatically gnawing on the tree branches, or stealing plastic-wrapped candy canes to see how many she can fit in her mouth. Also, that Raeli has now heard my stories behind every collected-while-travelling Christmas decoration so many times that she can recite them herself, and she has her own collection of decorations and stories from daycare, kinder and prep, thanks to the crafty factory that kicks into gear in schools across the country at this time of year.

Did you know that the Wombles were aiming for the Christmas No. 1 single this year in the UK? DID YOU?

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.

In my teens, Christmas became a form of rebellion. My Mum had been putting on Christmas festivities for me for my whole childhood and frankly, she was done. Stockings, tree, meh. It wasn’t really her thing at all. So I took over. I filled the damn stockings and decorated the tree, and while I never went to far as roasting a beast (we weren’t really roast kinds of people, the two of us preferring cold seafood picnics on the day) I took on a lot of the energy and work of making Christmas feel Christmassy (the work which now I perform as a mum of small children) because the alternative was not having it at all.

I had a much-worn VHS of Christmas UK shows that I watched over each year while wrapping presents and doing all that festive stuff. I barely remember now what was on it – Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, yes, and a pretendy family video by Smith and Jones, and a Lenny Henry Christmas special, I think. That sort of thing. A bunch of things that had all been on at the same time one year and were now preserved in video tape amber. We probably still have the tape somewhere, but I no longer have a working video (SAD) and a lot of those old tapes are pretty stretched and crackly now.

Then there was Bernard and the Genie. Which, to my dismay, I have still not managed to get hold of on DVD. I must hunt it down. It really is my favourite Christmas movie of all time, and I hope desperately that it holds up. It has Lenny Henry in it, right? And Alan Cummings? And Rowan Atkinson? It holds up, right? (already my inner Galactic Suburbanite is pointing out the minor role of women in the movie, damn it)

Maybe I’d better not watch it again. But… I always think of it when I hear that supermarket favourite, “It’ll be lonely this Christmas.” Also whenever I see pictures of Bob Geldof, because this movie was the first time I ever became aware of his existence. Him and Gary Lineker. True story.

What other Christmas texts resonate with me? More versions of A Christmas Carol, actually. I enjoy the Muppets one, though it’s not a patch on Blackadder. I read the actual book about eight years ago, and was surprised at how good it was, all sleek tight prose and clever bits. Dickens had one good story in him, as far as I’m concerned, and it was this one – a near-perfect structure, and it’s hardly surprising that new, different versions get told over and over again.

(Did I mention, though? Blackadder did it better)

Old movies generally, too. I associate High Society with Christmas because I first saw it (thanks to John Hinde) on Boxing Day. Also I have an annual tradition of noticing that one of the handful of Fred Astaire movies I’ve never seen is scheduled on TV, being delighted, and then missing it entirely. Not all traditions are about what you actually do…

Then there’s the Doctor Who Christmas Specials, which feels like a tradition that has been with us forever, but it really hasn’t. I’m pretty sure last year was the first time that Australia actually got the special on terrestrial TV at Christmas (which for us means Boxing Day, thanks to living in the future), and back in 1996 when David Tennant’s Doctor rang in the tradition, we had to wait something like 4-6 months. That was before I learned how to magically view things that weren’t technically on the telly yet, too! Didn’t figure that one out until… The Next Doctor, maybe? So Doctor Who Christmas Specials weren’t actually a Christmas thing for our family until recently. I am rather chuffed about them now, though. Even if, away from the festivities, they’re rarely as good as an everyday episode. They are CERTAINLY MORE CHRISTMASSY.

It may also be why last year’s Doctor Who Christmas special is my favourite so far. And not because it’s yet another version of A Christmas Carol…

The British tradition of Christmas specials is one that doesn’t quite work in Australia. We try our best, but generally if we do get Christmas TV it’s from a year or two ago. A few of the light entertainment shows do a half-hearted stab at the holiday, but mostly this is the period when our actors all fly to Britain to do panto, and there’s nothing new on the TV at all apart from cricket, so the idea of having event TV scheduled now pretty much baffles us. Having said that, I’m not sure what I’m more excited about this year – Doctor Who or Downton Abbey. Or MAYBE BOTH.

There’s the EastEnders Christmas special, too, which I don’t watch, because the ABC deprived Australians of EastEnders somewhere around the late 80′s. But I got addicted again back in 2002 and followed the damn show through episode synopses for about 5 years afterwards, and I even now I do enjoy hearing about the EastEnders Christmas Doom of Kitchen Sink DOOM every year, in the Guardian.

Hogfather isn’t my favourite Pratchett novel or even my favourite Susan novel but oh, it’s Christmassy! I’ve read that at Christmas a few times. Back when I actually had leisure time at Christmas, HA. These days even getting around to rereading one Connie Willis short story will be a stretch… I have picked up the DVD of the movie, though, and will finally get around to watching it.

There is a clutch of cultural artefacts that remind me deeply of that Christmas we were in London, and had been travelling for five weeks, and couldn’t take it any more, and just bought BOOKS, PRECIOUS BOOKS, even though they were far too heavy. The Last Hero, then, is a Pratchett book of greater holiday significance to me than Hogfather, as is The Lord of the Rings, both book and the first film. Likewise the first Harry Potter film, in which Christmas is the best bit (there is this argument actually for nearly every Harry Potter book or film ever. Christmas is ALWAYS the best bit, because of the jumpers.)

The Futurama Xmas episodes are fun, though we accidentally put one on the other week after decorating the Christmas Tree, only for it to freak out Jem completely. Then I realised that might be her first remembered encounter with a pop culture Santa. OOOOPS. Maybe should have gone with one of the Buffy Christmas episodes instead…

Wow, there’s a lot more of this than I thought.

This year, if I choose to embrace one Christmas cultural text, I think it’s going to be from Big Finish land. Last year I listened to Relative Dimensions, a lovely (if not overly HAPPY) audio play featuring the Eighth Doctor, Lucie, Susan and Alex, and I plan to do so again. Listening to audio, after all, can be done WHILE wrapping presents instead of, well, instead of.

So, those of you who celebrate Christmas, what are your favourite bits of Christmas pop culture? What books, movies, short stories, music, TV specials, etc. do you like to embrace at this time of year, either alone or with your family? Which ones drive you up the wall? If you don’t celebrate Christmas at all (or if like many you celebrate it but don’t actually LIKE it) then are there any other times of year when you embark upon ritual reading, or watching, or listening?

Instead, I give you FESTIVE FRIDAY LINKS IN PICTURES!

And for those of you who aren’t feeling remotely festive yet, and are missing the usual rounds of gender/feminist commentary you might find in a Friday links post, there’s always this:

Because sometimes superhero butts really do say it all.

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!

So I wrote 40,000 words of weird Shakespeare necromancy novel, to the point where I think I know the plot and the shape of the series, which is exciting, even if the chances are I won’t get to finish it any time soon (at least, if the Nancy series takes off, this one will have to wait, which will be GOOD NEWS).

The holidays are racing fast towards us, and I realised today why it is I try to arrange things so I have hardly any writing work to do in December – school only has a few weeks to go and it’s all assemblies and haircuts and homework and Christmas preparation and extra social engagements and general domesticity taking over, and I totally have to let it do so otherwise my head will explode.

Mind you, my ‘summer holiday’ is also going to consist of critiquing a bunch of manuscripts for ROR, a sekrit editing project, an extra mini-sekrit writing project (just for fun), and you know, I did half think I should be writing some short stories pretty soon. Plus super mighty Tiptree reading. So… there’s that.

Also I have to be prepared for the fact that at some point the part of my brain that I like to call the Gingerbread Zone is about to go ‘ping’ at any moment, and whip me into a frenzy of baking, decorating and menu preparation. Because it does that. One has to allow for these things. If you’re going to occasionally go into berzerker mode where pre-soaking dried fruit in brandy or melting icecream in order to refreeze it in interesting shapes makes ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD then you’ve got to plan your schedule around those times when the ginger-nutmeg haze comes down and there are sudden gaps in your memory…

Yep, that’s right, it’s beginning to look a lot like (NO, DON’T SAY IT, NOT ALLOWED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE COMING SEASON UNTIL IT’S DECEMBER)

Oh, wait.

December is tomoooooorrrrrow!

Ingredients:
500g or so of turkey mince
Leftover roast vegetables
Leftover stuffing
Leftover fresh herbs from Christmas cooking
Two thick slices each of cold turkey & ham, diced roughly
1 small carton chicken stock
Half a handful of plain flour.
2 sheets frozen puff pastry

Brown mince in frying pan with a dollop of olive oil. Chop leftover vegies roughly and mix into the mince along with leftover stuffing, fresh herbs, and meat. Pour stock over the top and let it all bubble away nicely for some time, sprinkling the flour over the top and stirring through to thicken the sauce. Pour all contents into a baking dish and make a lattice on top of pastry strips.

Bake in oven at about 170º (fan forced) or 180º (normal) for half an hourish or until pastry is brown and crackly.  Serve with steamed greens & yesterday’s gravy.

Cue mass hilarity all around.

Once we had rectified that mistake, Raeli and I had brunch at the local cafe and then went down to Meredith’s Orchard to stock up on fruit and vegies for the Christmas weekend. Got a good deal on raspberries, picked today! Back home to rehabilitate her dolls house in return for putting away or chucking away a whole lot of old toys. And then it was icecream concoction construction (or possibly deconstruction). Using silicon cupcake cases & chocolate mould trays, we made vanilla penguins, turkish delight hearts, and mince pies, all by stirring interesting things into icecream. I also made the outside layer of the icecream pudding (Christmas Bombe!). I was going to have a Turkish Delight core but now I’m thinking raspberry-doctored vanilla.

Sadly I think the creativity overstretched practicality. The results were delicious but messy, and I don’t think the freezer is cold enough for the icecreams in the moulds to harden properly. The best results were the mince pies: brandied fruit stirred into vanilla icecream and scooped into star-shaped silicon cases to serve.

Oh, and I whipped up a lasagne too Though I managed to split the bechamel sauce like a bad hollandaise, leading to huge amounts of delicious but strangely lumpy cheeseness over the dish. Turns out that an extra large fruitcake pan is actually excellent for making lasagne in. Once again, messy but tasty. (actually that pretty much sums up most of what emerges from my kitchen)

Raeli and I alternated between bonding beautifully and grouching at each other, largely because her vocabulary seems to have reduced sharply to ‘BUT MUUUUUUM’ which drives me wild with irritation, especially when she follows up ‘don’t say that to me again’ with “BUUUUUT MUUUUUUUUUM.” There were times when I thought my head would explode!

She’s still only five, right? Not fifteen?

Tomorrow’s plan is to make it to Pilates for the first time in a month (a succession of disasters and babysitting letdowns have prevented me), to pick up a few groceries (no big pre-Christmas shop for me, I can’t face the queues), check the postbox and then come HOME and pretty much stay here until the holiday hits. Still need to finish the Christmas Bombe, bake a gingerbread cake, and probably make christmas muffins with Raeli because she desperately wants to.

Sigh. Baking with children is fun, but takes FIVE TIMES LONGER.

I should really wrap presents.

Kind of sleepy, actually.

(I think my favourite bit about this one is OMG Arthur Darville can play the piano)

I have a jar of dried fruit marinating in rather a lot of brandy, ready to be turned into a cake this week.  Should I worry that most recipes say to soak the fruit in rum or brandy overnight?  My jar has been going since November!

My other baking plans for the season are icecream centric – I want to make a frozen pudding bombe and some moulded icecream “mince tarts.”  Ironically with all my icecreamy plans, the weather this week has been cooler than we’re used to in December.  Good baking weather, not so good for melting icecream.  Still, not complaining over here!

An exciting box arrived from Sweden this week, courtesy of Kaia the Swedish Writing Fairy, and we decided to make a bit of a thing of opening it on the evening after Raeli’s last day of term.  We could have waited until Christmas, of course, but where’s the fun in that?

There were many awesome things inside the box, including chocolate (Europeans put the most exciting things in chocolate!  This time it was raspberry & blackberry, though I still haven’t gotten over last year’s blueberry Lindt), some Champions League goodies, hand-knitted baby socks and picture books with handwritten English translations by you-know-who!

Honestly, opening this box I felt like Katy Carr at school about to unearth a precious tin of Debby’s jumbles. The box *itself* has now been played with so hard it is lying in bits on the living room floor.

By far the crowning glory were the two knitted Jemima-from-Play-School dolls – one classic, with pigtails and yellow overalls, for little Jemcakes, and one with bobbed hair and maroon overalls for big sister Raeli.  There were also extra changes of clothes – sunshine overalls in the same orange yarn as Jem’s beloved jacket which she has only recently grown out of, and a white jumper.  The dolls were cooed over, towed from one end of the room to the other, and dressed and redressed in various outfits and combinations.

Both girls LOVED having matching dolls, and I swear they have played together more in the last couple of days than in the months leading up to it.  Despite the more-than-four years between them, there is something about having matching toys that has just brought them together.  Jemima Classic got to keep her name, but Raeli-Jemima has been named Josie.  The two dolls are cousins, apparently, and Raeli refers to them as the JJs. There is an elaborate backstory which I have only kept half an ear on, but I have no doubt that these two are going to be well played with over the next few years. Luckily they’re sturdy as well as cute.

JJ Junior apparently is very fond of my new library chair, which was intended to be my mother’s day and birthday present six months ago, but due to various delays at the warehouse, shipping, etc., has turned up as an early Christmas present too.  It is extremely comfortable.