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Gifts!!! Demand them now!!
Dec. 15th, 2011 09:29 pmChanukah is nearly here. Only five days to go.
This year, my local friends get the strange and unassuming and possibly quite evil in their gift packages (but only those I see during the period* and only while those gift packages last* and only if I remember*).
For everyone else there are real presents. It's not going to be first-in-best-dressed this year, either. I'm going to list all the presents here, tonight. Now, in fact (see below).
On my first night of revelry, after the candles are lit, I shall draw names from a series of very sparkly sorting hats. I have three very sparkly sorting hats, one green, one black, and one purple. Anyone who wants one and can personally collect it may have a hat for their very own, but not until after the drawing.
All you have to do is answer this post and tell me what you want. You might just name the items that interest you, a cold and heartless list, but if you can convince me that you really, really want something then we get find out if my very sparkly sorting hats take this kind of thing into account. In other words, I wouldn't mind knowing why you want what you want. It is not crucial**.
You don't have to know me terribly well to want a gift. If you don't know me in any way, shape or form, however, I suggest you introduce yourself because I may be emailing or posting something to you and this would be quite wrong if we didn't know each other at all.
Present #1 (several of them!): small postcards with a latke recipe on them. Not the same latke recipe as on Sophie Masson's blog. I don't use any of these recipes when I actually cook - I just grab the ingredients and go for it. I should possibly not have admitted this... Handwritten message optional.
Present #2 (several of them!): large postcards with a recipe from the Conflux cookbook. Friends in the UK might already have this. Handwritten message optional.
Present #3: A copy of George Gissing's New Grub Street***.
Present #4: A copy of Sartor Resartus (Carlyle) that is old, battered and very undated***.
Present #5: My special retelling of the Chanukah story, on this very blog (I did it one year and will only tell it again - even if I update it and add more and worse jokes - if someone really wants it).
Present #6 (several of these!): A near-random short story in your email. By near-random I mean something of mine that has been respectably published but is not readily available anymore.
Present #7 (one copy only): "Once and Future: Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature" - the Arthurian Association of Australia's first volume of occasional papers, edited by me, now very scarce (but Felicity Pulman found some in hiding and gave me three, so I offer one as a present and the rest are mine, all mine).
Present #8 (the big one - how many copies are to be decided): pdfs of Life through Cellophane, for your summer/winter/interseasonal reading. This present was brought to you by Eneit Press, who kindly agreed to let me use the review pdf.
Eight presents. Enough for everyone (I hope).
You can put yourself down for as many presents as you want. I'll make up my mind as to how many you get and what you get with the help of my very sparkly sorting hats (obviously to be worn by very sparkly vampires) on the first night of Chanukah. If anyone wants to turn up and make a ceremony of it, food and dredels and choc coins and candles can be arranged. If no-one turns up, then I get all the choc coins, but you still get your gifts.
Gifts open to anyone living anywhere Australia Post delivers (whether or not I've given you presents recently or you plan to receive presents from me in the near future), but my sorting hats tend to show a bias towards Australian addresses for heavy items and non-Australian addresses for items that can be delivered electronically. It's just a bias, though - if only one person wants a book, then that person gets it, even if they live in Iceland (though what anyone in Iceland would want with Sartor Resartus...)
And that's it for my Chanukah presents. If you want any, you might want to reply to this post. Don't email - just reply here. You have until first candle, first night, Australian Eastern Summer Time****.
*I'm enjoying seeing how many caveats I can fit into a single paragraph.
**Except to the very sparkly sorting hats, who thrive on enthusiasm and love.
***My work experience students discovered these duplicates in my library. I'm palming off my excess second-hand books onto innocent members of the public. I rather suspect it's not me doing this at all, but the Evil Gillian.
****This is mainly to confuse any friends who don't know what Chanukah is or when it starts. Since I'm ending the year in a grand state of confusion, I thought I could share this state. Speaking of which*****
*****The system of footnoting was quite intentional.
This year, my local friends get the strange and unassuming and possibly quite evil in their gift packages (but only those I see during the period* and only while those gift packages last* and only if I remember*).
For everyone else there are real presents. It's not going to be first-in-best-dressed this year, either. I'm going to list all the presents here, tonight. Now, in fact (see below).
On my first night of revelry, after the candles are lit, I shall draw names from a series of very sparkly sorting hats. I have three very sparkly sorting hats, one green, one black, and one purple. Anyone who wants one and can personally collect it may have a hat for their very own, but not until after the drawing.
All you have to do is answer this post and tell me what you want. You might just name the items that interest you, a cold and heartless list, but if you can convince me that you really, really want something then we get find out if my very sparkly sorting hats take this kind of thing into account. In other words, I wouldn't mind knowing why you want what you want. It is not crucial**.
You don't have to know me terribly well to want a gift. If you don't know me in any way, shape or form, however, I suggest you introduce yourself because I may be emailing or posting something to you and this would be quite wrong if we didn't know each other at all.
Present #1 (several of them!): small postcards with a latke recipe on them. Not the same latke recipe as on Sophie Masson's blog. I don't use any of these recipes when I actually cook - I just grab the ingredients and go for it. I should possibly not have admitted this... Handwritten message optional.
Present #2 (several of them!): large postcards with a recipe from the Conflux cookbook. Friends in the UK might already have this. Handwritten message optional.
Present #3: A copy of George Gissing's New Grub Street***.
Present #4: A copy of Sartor Resartus (Carlyle) that is old, battered and very undated***.
Present #5: My special retelling of the Chanukah story, on this very blog (I did it one year and will only tell it again - even if I update it and add more and worse jokes - if someone really wants it).
Present #6 (several of these!): A near-random short story in your email. By near-random I mean something of mine that has been respectably published but is not readily available anymore.
Present #7 (one copy only): "Once and Future: Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature" - the Arthurian Association of Australia's first volume of occasional papers, edited by me, now very scarce (but Felicity Pulman found some in hiding and gave me three, so I offer one as a present and the rest are mine, all mine).
Present #8 (the big one - how many copies are to be decided): pdfs of Life through Cellophane, for your summer/winter/interseasonal reading. This present was brought to you by Eneit Press, who kindly agreed to let me use the review pdf.
Eight presents. Enough for everyone (I hope).
You can put yourself down for as many presents as you want. I'll make up my mind as to how many you get and what you get with the help of my very sparkly sorting hats (obviously to be worn by very sparkly vampires) on the first night of Chanukah. If anyone wants to turn up and make a ceremony of it, food and dredels and choc coins and candles can be arranged. If no-one turns up, then I get all the choc coins, but you still get your gifts.
Gifts open to anyone living anywhere Australia Post delivers (whether or not I've given you presents recently or you plan to receive presents from me in the near future), but my sorting hats tend to show a bias towards Australian addresses for heavy items and non-Australian addresses for items that can be delivered electronically. It's just a bias, though - if only one person wants a book, then that person gets it, even if they live in Iceland (though what anyone in Iceland would want with Sartor Resartus...)
And that's it for my Chanukah presents. If you want any, you might want to reply to this post. Don't email - just reply here. You have until first candle, first night, Australian Eastern Summer Time****.
*I'm enjoying seeing how many caveats I can fit into a single paragraph.
**Except to the very sparkly sorting hats, who thrive on enthusiasm and love.
***My work experience students discovered these duplicates in my library. I'm palming off my excess second-hand books onto innocent members of the public. I rather suspect it's not me doing this at all, but the Evil Gillian.
****This is mainly to confuse any friends who don't know what Chanukah is or when it starts. Since I'm ending the year in a grand state of confusion, I thought I could share this state. Speaking of which*****
*****The system of footnoting was quite intentional.