Write Every Day: Day #24

[auroracloud]

Merry Christmas / holiday of choice to everyone! I am bravely holding on despite our abysmal weather and the onslaught of depressing Finnish Christmas carols on the radio (seriously, WTF, I just don't get it, what's wrong with our people? why do carols have to be super-depressing?). The Christmas tree is pretty, there are lights, I've already had the traditional rice porridge and am now waiting for the Christmas dinner. I expect to get quite stuffed.

Today's writing

I finished all my Yuletide edits! Unless it occurs to me to improve the summary or the tags, I don't plan to touch it anymore before the reveals. About time! I also wrote a little more on the fic I began two nights ago, but I don't currently believe I'll manage to finish it as a treat. No matter, I'll finish it later and post it whenever it's done.

Tally

Day #1: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #2: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #3: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #4: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, trobadora, ysilme
Day #5: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, trobadora, ysilme
Day #6: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, trobadora, ysilme
Day #7: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #8: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #9: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #10: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #11: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #12: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #13: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #14: auroracloud,cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #15: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #16: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, trobadora, ysilme
Day #17: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, miss_morland, esteliel, trobadora, ysilme
Day #18: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, trobadora, ysilme
Day #19: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland trobadora, ysilme
Day #20: auroracloud, avon,cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland trobadora, ysilme
Day #21: auroracloud, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #22: auroracloud, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #23: auroracloud, esteliel, cornerofmadness, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme

Comments

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Hee, I've no idea how much information you can find on that subject in English, though I'm getting tempted to translate their lyrics to show everyone how weird they are. :-P There's just so many that are weirdly depressing. Mother/father/both/grandmother/brother/beloved/someone else is dead and mourned, or someone's alone on Christmas, or the song consists of three verses of berating everyone for how their Christmas celebrations aren't religious enough (that one also contains the memorably traumatizing line about "the child [baby Jesus] drowns in the snow and is forgotten"), or a poor little bird is in a cage and miserable (well, at least the song is pretty and the next two verses are less depressing), or there's a general idea of "enjoy it while you can because soon life will be over or at least you'll be completely miserable". There are some nice ones that actually have that whole "hope and joy" idea, and of course many about Santa Claus for kids, but the number of those downer carols is a bit inexplicable for me. Most of my favourite carols are foreign. :-P

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked yet but wow, thanks for the translations. That is something else.

Is there a Finnish holiday character ala Santa Claus (or Krampus or my ancestors La Befana)?

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't it... Like I said, there are nicer ones, too, but the number of depressing ones baffles me.

We have Santa Claus, basically. There's an older character from our folklore that used to be a fairly different but has basically combined with the more international Santa Claus in the recent times. His Finnish name still comes from the old folklore - Joulupukki, which happens to mean Yule Goat. :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

We have a few ourselves (the one about the stupid red shoes the girl is buying for her dying mother).

The Yule Goat explains a lot of older Christmas art.

Hope you had a nice holiday.

[doctor-jehane.livejournal.com]

butting in to say, OMG, that is seriously dark crap (the drowned baby Jesus, wtf?!). For Christmas, no less! Is this a genre with a long tradition, or a more recent emo fad?

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

I probably should have added it's metaphorical in the context. :-P The problem is, they often expect children to sing that song, so children don't necessarily realise it's a metaphor. I think I did, because I don't remember being very traumatized by that, but I hated the song being a huge guilt-trip. That one is one of the classics from at least a century ago, as are some of the others I mentioned, but many newer ones are depressing, too. They seem to have this fad of killing everyone off and then have the singer mourn them. :-P

Like I said, there are nice ones, too, but somehow what I heard this year seemed to only catch the depressing ones.