'Tis the Season to be Late?

[gilpin25]

We got the first of the Round Robin letters in a Christmas card this morning, and I'm waiting for my mild-mannered husband to turn into someone highly dangerous, who must be approached with caution. And only if you're bringing in the dinner.

These are the letters you get from people you don't see from one year to another, but who send you a printed sheet of their accomplishments activities during the year. Usually with an incredibly flattering and air-brushed photo that the Royal Family would envy. Snarkiness aside, most of these are interesting, but there's a few that set your teeth on edge. These particular people are friends of my parents, I haven't seen them since our Wedding so we're talking years here, but they still think we'd like to know that daughter Tabitha will be reading Politics at Cambridge, son Gerald is spending three years in Hong Kong earning fabulous sums of money thanks to a promotion, and now that all the kids have flown the wealthy nest, the parents have invested in a sixty foot ocean liner to give them an interesting new hobby.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but only just in some cases. I'm bracing myself for the one from our friends in New Zealand, who emigrated a couple of years ago, and seem to own more of the country now than Peter Jackson. It takes quite a lot to get my husband annoyed (just me, normally), but these letters drive him nuts. Last year he wanted me to compose one to send back which claimed that he'd climbed Everest on an afternoon off, and I'd won six Booker prizes in a row... ;

Which sort of brings me onto my Advent Fic. I'm just about on schedule for finishing 24.12.06, have written about 3500 words, have no idea what the genre is as I've included at least four and, in a shocking new move for me, I've given Harry a line to say. But I'm thinking of chopping it. And I've looked at some of those excellent angsty and short ones already posted and think perhaps I should be chopping a lot more. Anyone else writing long fics or is it the season to be brief so you can wisely wrap presents?

Comments

[jdbracknell.livejournal.com]

LOL.

"Sirius continues to disappoint, failing to live up to his breeding and potential.... Still, poison ivy in the garden's shooting up nicely."

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

I was just trying to work out something along the lines of, "And according to that miserable house-elf, Kreacher, Sirius scandalises Walburga's portrait by setting up housekeeping half-blood werewolf and occasionally the mutant spawn of Andromeda Tonks."

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

"Some monstrosity known as metamorfic_moon was created to focus on that Sex-God Werewolf and that Mutant Tart Metamorphmagus. It is an affront to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and must be obliterated with house elf slash.

Lucius is finding prison life quite invigorating."

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

"Lucius is finding prison life quite invigorating. He writes that he would like to hire a Dementor to be his personal fashion advisor. Apparently they have recommended something black and floaty for him."

[jdbracknell.livejournal.com]

LOL.

"One suspects, of course, that they say the same thing to everyone."

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

"If only they would advise the costumers for the Harry Potter and the Glorious Victory of the Death Eaters film due out next summer."