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in_a_peartree2019-12-05 09:47 am
partridgemod) wrote in in_a_peartree2019-12-05 09:47 am
bruttimabuoni's Tree
This is the Tree for bruttimabuoni! Below are the requested Pears it can be decorated with (beginning 24 December).
Username: bruttimabuoni
AO3 Username: brutti_ma_buoni
Request 1: I adore other people's festive traditions. Please tell me something you're happy to share, something you like to do/read/make/watch that makes it feel like YOUR holiday?
Request 2: Any kind of artwork for a Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane historical documentation AU I wrote for Yuletide last year (https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110754) - it's set in the 14th century, with travel, documents, and collars for milady. Needn't be about the characters, I'd be just as happy with a picspam of especially exciting medieval records...
Request 3: A nice fresh limerick, on any holiday theme you like. (Bonus for the Buffyverse, though I'm long out of fandom these days.)
Request 4: A drabble or other short fic/cover art/other artlet inspired by the brilliant idea of the Invisible Ficathon (https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Invisible_Ficathon_2014/profile) - stories or art about fictional works that never existed independently of their canon. To quote the profile "Think The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore by Rita Skeeter; The Itchy and Scratchy Show; ... Well, that about wraps it up for God by Oolon Colluphid."
Request 5: A rec of the book you have read in the last year, or the show/film you have watched, that has stuck with you most. I'm in need of some new fandoms, or reading material.
Additional Information: I'm easy to please, and delighted by the concept of this!
bruttimabuoni! Below are the requested Pears it can be decorated with (beginning 24 December). Username: bruttimabuoni
AO3 Username: brutti_ma_buoni
Request 1: I adore other people's festive traditions. Please tell me something you're happy to share, something you like to do/read/make/watch that makes it feel like YOUR holiday?
Request 2: Any kind of artwork for a Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane historical documentation AU I wrote for Yuletide last year (https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110754) - it's set in the 14th century, with travel, documents, and collars for milady. Needn't be about the characters, I'd be just as happy with a picspam of especially exciting medieval records...
Request 3: A nice fresh limerick, on any holiday theme you like. (Bonus for the Buffyverse, though I'm long out of fandom these days.)
Request 4: A drabble or other short fic/cover art/other artlet inspired by the brilliant idea of the Invisible Ficathon (https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Invisible_Ficathon_2014/profile) - stories or art about fictional works that never existed independently of their canon. To quote the profile "Think The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore by Rita Skeeter; The Itchy and Scratchy Show; ... Well, that about wraps it up for God by Oolon Colluphid."
Request 5: A rec of the book you have read in the last year, or the show/film you have watched, that has stuck with you most. I'm in need of some new fandoms, or reading material.
Additional Information: I'm easy to please, and delighted by the concept of this!
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The show is available on US Netflix (mostly, and I've seen the rest in English dub on YouTube), but be advised Netflix currently says there are four seasons up when there are two and a half (S2 got and S3 is getting uploaded half a season at a time) and files the Christmas special as a whole different show, and because the first season is supposed to be watchable in any order (it's not) and the third season got aired all out of production code order (which is supposed to be chronological order) and Netflix decided to break up the S2 two-parter for funsies or something, Netflix order is wrong. Problem is we don't know what order is right, either: here's my go at it.
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Book Rec
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Re: Book Rec
Frohe Weihnachten!
(Anonymous) 2019-12-24 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)I'm from Germany and after a quick peek at your journal I suspect you might be familiar with German holiday traditions in general but just in case, here's a quick summary of the more common German Christmas traditions.
In Germany Christmas is traditionally very much a family affair. The main celebration is on Christmas Eve but we get two public holidays on the 25th and 26th as well that are often used to visit extended family.
The celebration starts around nightfall on the 24th, often with the ringing of a little bell. Before the actual gift giving, the family often sings traditional Christmas carols beneath the tree before the gifts are handed out. Traditional Christmas dinner is potato salad, more fancy dishes will be served on the 25th and 26th and are likely to include some kind of roast. I think roast goose is somewhat popular but it's not set like the potato salad on Christmas Eve. Families who like to go to church service will do so either in the afternoon, especially when there are kids involved, or late in the evening but this is a rather secular society, so many people don't attend church at all.
That being said, my own Christmas deviates quite a bit from that. I live on my own and I like it best when I don't have any family obligations on Christmas but can spend the time alone.
The morning of the 24th usually means last minute grocery shopping for the fresh food, especially since shops close around noon, 2pm at the latest, on the 24th and won't reopen before the 27th (or even 28th if 27th is a Sunday). You might be familiar with that as well.
In the years that I bother with a tree, I will decorate it after the grocery shopping sometime between noon and early afternoon. After that I like to take a long soak in the bathtub.
If I have bothered with a tree, I will light it up around nightfall and I might listen to some Christmas music for a while. There will be some phone calls to my siblings eventually and I keep up with a family tradition for dinner that is somewhat atypical.
In my family growing up we had the typical potato salad while I was a young kid but eventually switched to gravlax, creamed horseradish, lingonberry sauce, toast and sparkling wine for Christmas dinner. I think this tradition formed because a friend of my father always giving him a family serving of either gravlax or smoked salmon as a gift and another friend opting for sparkling wine as a gift. This was hugely popular in our family and so it stuck. The friends were probably happy not to wrack their brains for gift ideas, thus a family tradition was born. It's very tasty, a bit fancy and doesn't require much work, so it's an ideal meal for the occasion. My siblings have formed their own food traditions later in life, none of them going with the typical potato salad, but I have stuck with the gravlax for Christmas dinner.
After dinner, it's movie time. My favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard. Sometimes I will watch Die Harder as well on Christmas Eve, or I will continue with the series the following days. After that, it's internet time, mostly spent in fandom places. I might have gotten some Christmas e-Mails from friends that I will answer, though those are usually on the 25th. In the time leading up to Christmas, I also like to write Christmas cards to send out to family and friends, some fandom friends included. I write them by hand and they are often small letters, about ten of them each year.
The 25th is my lazy day. I like to sleep in, watch some movies, read Yuletide fics, possibly go for a walk if the weather is nice, and eat lots of Christmas cookies plus some 'real' food.
There are many years when I'm doing on-call duty for my job on the holidays and in these years my Christmas time might be interrupted by work. My work also often involves travel which means I might already spend a couple of hours on a train on the 26th, otherwise that is another lazy day for me. Usually, despite making sure I have my own definition of a good time, I'm just glad once the holidays are over.
As for recs, what stood out for me the most this year was some really old stuff. I dug out some old DVDs.
Season 1 of the X-Files was even shippier than I remembered and Scully was so sweet. I always liked her but I think I appreciated her more this time than I did back in the day.
If you are familiar with Germany, you might have heard of the TV series Die Cleveren. I always thought it was a rip-off from Criminal Minds but apparently the series is about ten years older than that. It was never released in English and I'm not sure if it's available online. I have all 6 seasons on DVD and have rewatched the first three of them so far. The series holds up really well and I enjoy it a lot despite not usually being a big fan of German TV. If you should ever come across it, I can definitely recommend giving it a try.
I also watched the Batman movie series from the 90s in a collection box set that I acquired only this summer. I don't think I saw all 4 movies back then and I'm not really into all the superhero stuff but I felt nicely entertained. Funnily enough, I liked Batman & Robin best, which was the movie that tanked and everybody found awful but I think it's hilarious – the time that's passed between the movie release and today probably helps. If you can catch a rerun somewhere, definitely give it a try, you might have a fun time.
In the category of 'hilarious old stuff' I also read one of the books by Erich von Däniken written in the 70s or 80s that I had inherited from a deceased relative a couple of years ago among other books. I actually don't remember the title and I couldn't take any of it seriously but it was really entertaining.
I don't think I have recs for any newer stuff, though, sorry.
Two gorgeous medieval documents that are not directly related to your 2nd request but that you might enjoy nevertheless are the Codex Aureus Spirensis and the Gutenberg Bible.
The Codex has many amazing pictures. I could only find a preview online that might give you an idea here but the gallery has about 20 pics or so in color:
https://www.ziereisfacsimiles.com/codex-aureus-escurialensis
There's also a rather large document of more than 500 pages that seems to have black-and-white versions of some of the pics from the Codex and a lot of text in German. I found it a bit disappointing but if you're interested in having a look, here's the link:
http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a138202+0001+0001.pdf
While looking for an online version of the Codex Aureus Spirensis I also found this link that has a fully digitized version of a book called Codex Aureus Epternacensis. I had not heard about it before but clicking through only some of the almost 300 pages it seems amazing:
https://www.gnm.de/fileadmin/redakteure/Sammlungen/swf/codex/
The fully digitized version of the Gutenberg Bible can be found here:
http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/eframes/index.htm
If you check it out, please also take a look at the pretty model book under the same link.
Last not least I apologize for posting anon but I ditched all my accounts several years ago and I don't want to sign up anywhere yet again for various reasons. I hope I could brighten up your holiday experience with my pear for your tree nevertheless.
Have a happy holiday season and Frohe Weihnachten!
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(Anonymous) 2019-12-25 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)I really appreciate that you replied to my pear despite posting anon. I'm aware that's a courtesy not to be taken for granted. So, thank you. I hope you receive some more pears for your tree.
Festive tradition for Request 1
Every Christmas Day, my maternal family sings 'The Twelve Days of Christmas,' while one family member holds up a tea towel. The tea towel is the crucial component for this tradition, and I was actually able to find, selling on eBay, an image of the exact tea towel in question.
This tradition began in a rather silly way, as most family traditions do: my sister, cousins and I, aged between 4-8 years old, were rushing around chaotically, hyped up on sugar, presents, and the general excess and hysteria that is Christmas afternoon for small children. The meal had been eaten, all presents had been distributed, but the festivities were still in full swing. Although my grandparents' house was large and sprawling, we must have been making enough of a racket to be heard from the other side of the house.
My grandmother had, for whatever reason, been given one of the tea towels as seen in the link above. Out of the kind of desperation that only someone who was the oldest of five extremely talkative siblings, had raised four extremely loquacious daughters to adulthood, and was now matriarch of a growing brood of extremely loud, unstoppable granddaughters (and one very quiet grandson) could understand, she hit on the idea of holding the tea towel aloft, and getting us kids to sing all the verses of the song. It certainly didn't quiet us down, but it was calming. The noise drew various aunts down to our end of the house, the song was repeated many times, and by the time Christmas rolled around the following year it had morphed into a 'tradition' to sing it around the dining table after the meal.
We're still singing it twenty-seven years later. The original tea towel deteriorated, and for some years all we had were colour photocopies made by one of my aunts, kept in plastic sleeve folders and brought out at Christmas. Then that same aunt managed to track down a new tea towel online. Confused boyfriends and husbands (my maternal family is almost entirely women, and although not all of us are straight, we have, thus far, all seemed to end up with male partners) were inducted into this ritual. My cousin — one of the original group of children clustered around my grandmother when the whole tradition began — taught her Korean husband all the words before he first joined our family for Christmas, and now their children sing the song in videos recorded in Korea, where they now live. The first year I moved to the UK, and celebrated Christmas with unfamiliar cousins of my father's, the whole family Skyped with me from their Christmas festivities, singing the song.
It has been many years since I've celebrated Christmas with my family (by which I mean that racuous, loud, all-talking-at-once crowd of maternal relatives), and my grandmother who invented the tradition is no longer with us. But that song, and that ridiculous tea towel, will always be Christmas for me: not presents, not even the meal (no matter how much my family and I love food, and cooking, and eating), but rather that sense of being part of that multigenerational horde of self-deprecating, uncompromising, loud, emotional women (and the quiet men who love them), who gave me my voice, and taught me to listen, singing together.
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I apologise for the anachronisms! I'm afraid I can't tell you where the couple on the left come from -- I found them on a fashion history website -- but they are roughly of the right period; the couple in bed came from a historical fiction blog. Christine de Pizan is unfortunately wearing a headdress to lecture. The lovely lettering at the bottom is from Le Palmer's encyclopedia, c.1370. The Cranach is more than a century too late but, when I read about Milady's collars, his paintings were the first thing I thought of (though Googling them led me to an art website with a rather disturbing rape victim category).
Oh, and the typeface is called 'Charlemagne'!
But I hope you like it!
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And this is wonderful. Thank you for such a thoughtful response to the prompt, and for the citations! I love some of the images you've picked up. That couple in bed together are completely new to me, I've never seen a scene like it. And yes, sexy Cranach ladies are very much of a piece with my mental image too. There were definitely 15th century nudes which are now lost (Jan van Eyck painted some, they are in inventories), so why not some intrepid earlier artist?
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I tried to write a festive Buffy limerick, and err, I can only apologise :D
There once was a Christmassy Scooby gang
A spooky tree ornament they did hang
It released an evil ghost
But they smashed the bauble host
And the rest of Christmas went off with a bang!
I do have a rec for my favourite thing I've watched this year - it's a sung-through musical called Falsettos and I cannot tell you how much I am in love with it ♥ It's set in the late 1970s/early 1980s, about a guy called Marvin who leaves his wife and son for his male lover, and the way that they try and retain some form of being a family. It's funny, hot, heartbreaking, and beautiful. The 2016 Broadway revival got filmed for PBS, you can usually find it on youtube if you search 'falsettos full musical'
or you can PM someone who likes it for a higher quality copy tra la laI hope you like it if you check it out! Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGnRtx_LQlwBook Rec
Re: Book Rec