Santa Claus
North Pole

Dear Santa,

Here is a list of what I would like for Christmas.

Please note that it’s very short. I’ve had a few good years, relatively speaking, and while the economy seems dire, I’ll probably hang onto my house since it isn’t on one of those crazy ARMs.

As for bigger things in life, I figure I can make those on my own more or less, although if you have any spare good luck that isn’t better spent elsewhere, I wouldn’t mind.

There are things people generally ask for, like World Peace and Please Don’t Let the Economy Break, but those are probably in our hands, and not in yours.

So here’s what I really want for Christmas:

deep-crust triple cheese mushroom sausage pizza
snow shovel
leather gloves
ETA: 9V and D batteries, 8ct packs

I’m kind of snowed in (again) and the electricity is really kind of unreliable, and I don’t think these are something normally found in the magic Christmas sack of holding. But if you could pick them up somewhere and fly them in, I would be grateful.

Sincerely,
A. Jericho

P.S. Hopefully reindeer like sunflower seeds, because that’s all I have for possibly ruminant food that doesn’t need heating.

P.S.S. Also, the rice milk is a change from last year, but the Oreos are a standard.

All Seated on the Ground
by Connie Willis
SITE: Original • Kindle-friendly ((The Kindle-friendly version is NOT hosted on my site; this is a CGI script that filters the more annoying framing HTML from the story text. You can still save the filtered HTML and convert it for your Kindle (with some help from Amazon). And remember: don’t distribute this thing.))

A Hugo Award nominee for best novella, this is a warm Christmas romance involving alien contact (and the most disapproving aliens ever) delivered with the charming humor that’s just the Connie Willis touch.

Also available is a shorter novelette, Just Like the Ones We Used to Know (Original, Kindle-friendly), which is even warmer and cozier.

No one does Christmas and Science Fiction better (and more often) than Willis. You can also buy her anthology, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, although it’s not yet available for the Kindle.

S?’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

The Stupidest Angel
by Christoper Moore
Kindle Edition • Paperback • Fictionwise

This Christmas story is not like the others
This book has a flavor all its own
If you want a Christmas tale that is like no other
I suggest that you take this one home

The angel Raziel has discovered a child with a Christmas wish: to bring Santa Claus back to life. Awwww. If only this all wasn’t a misunderstanding on the lines of “I saw mommy killing Santa Claus”.

Christopher Moore: man is funny. His stories have a lot of heart without falling into the saccharine stage, which is perfect for Christmas stories. And he can poke fun at things without sounding just a wee bit bitter, also perfect for Christmas stories.

For a year or so now, apart from Terry Pratchett, Moore’s probably the only man that can get me to read about vampires without throwing up a little in my mouth. ((You’d think that Jim Butcher would be here, too, but while I persist in reading the Harry Dresden series because of the supreme addiction factor, I still do throw up a little bit every time I read about his vampires. Good thing they occur only spasmodically.)) Check out You Suck, and I’m also waiting patiently for Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story to show up on the Kindle.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

Christmas Games
by David Langford
Kindle Store • Fictionwise

This story could have happened in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 8 as an illustrative “this is why holodecks should not be on starships” scenario. Star ship staffers take a yearly Christmas VR trip where they roleplay a murder story—the same one, apparently, every year, like clockwork—except this time the detective’s died from an aneurysm, and the program has decided to take everybody hostage.

One of those “lie back and think of Monty Python” stories, and if you think I’m mixing my metaphors, that’s exactly what it’s like.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

Christmas Season
by Jay Lake
Strange Horizons: Original • Kindle-friendly ((The Kindle-friendly version is NOT hosted on my site; this is a CGI script that filters the more annoying framing HTML from the story text. You can still save the filtered HTML and convert it for your Kindle (with some help from Amazon). And remember: don’t distribute this thing.))

How many versions of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” have you heard of late? Your enjoyment may very proportionally with this little short-short from Jay Lake.

S&part’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

In the Late December
by Greg van Eekhout
Strange Horizons: Original • Kindle-friendly ((The Kindle-friendly version is NOT hosted on my site; this is a CGI script that filters the more annoying framing HTML from the story text. You can still save the filtered HTML and convert it for your Kindle (with some help from Amazon). And remember: don’t distribute this thing.))

And even unto the heat-death of the Universe, Santa perseveres.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

The Best Christmas Ever
by James Patrick Kelly
SciFiction: Original • Kindle-friendly ((The Kindle-friendly version is NOT hosted on my site; this is a CGI script that filters the more annoying framing HTML from the story text. You can still save the filtered HTML and convert it for your Kindle (with some help from Amazon). And remember: don’t distribute this thing.))

He’s the last human on Earth. Ever since the next-door neighbor died.

Aunty Em and all her fellow biops are going to have a hell of a time cheering him up.

A story full of surprising holiday cheer that would warm the cockles of Professor Redlow ((See Kindle Advent Calendar: Day 16.)) without the spiritual psychological analysis of A Christmas Carol.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

Hogfather
by Terry Pratchett
Kindle Edition • Paperback • Hardcover

Many people remember Neil Gaiman as the mythopoeic author, but that’s a well that Terry Pratchett also dabbles in from time to time. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Hogfather, an exploration of the myth of Santa Claus through the veil of medieval-SF fantasy Discworld.

The Discworld version of Santa Claus is the Hogfather, a jolly old man who retains more close ties to his roots than real world adults might be comfortable with ((I don’t think real world children would have a problem. Remember the Brothers Grim.)), for this man has both a belly like a bowl full of jelly, but also tusks and dark eyes. Regardless, he brings children toys every year in a sled pulled by six boars.

And someone has murdered the fat man. And the world is going to end.

What better time for Susan Sto Helit, the granddaughter of Discworld superstar Death, to step in?

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Kindle/Mobipocket • Epub

The sole Christmas story in the Sherlock Holmes canon. With several illustrations by Sidney Paget and some notes on the ending of the story, with a summary of the adaptations of the Granada TV series and the BBC Radio series.

It’s little, it’s cute, and it let me test out some epub scripts to ease creation, and they did so considerably (although I’ll need to knock on them some more). And yes, just like Wodehouse, Sherlock Holmes automatically gets a bye here as FSF. You have to admit that a world in which Holmes would get away with the shenanigans in Silver Blaze is surely a fantasy world.

By the way, if you’re in the mood to pay $200+ dollars for a full-remastered version of the entire Granada TV series, please check out Amazon.com. It’s … well, it’s not the Complete Sherlock Holmes Radio Collection, but Jeremy Brett is a pretty, pretty man.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

Wormhole Magic
by Marianne Plumridge
infinityplus: Original • Kindle-friendly ((The Kindle-friendly version is NOT hosted on my site; this is a CGI script that filters the more annoying framing HTML from the story text. You can still save the filtered HTML and convert it for your Kindle (with some help from Amazon). And remember: don’t distribute this thing.))

Santa Claus is one of those super-myths: a folklore so powerful that he makes it into Coca-cola ads, prime-time TV, and the hearts of children and adults everywhere. Even the denial of Santa Claus is an acknowledgement of the jolly old man. Who can forget the belly like jelly, the reindeer, the elves at the North Pole, the toys?

But we’ve forgotten. Or at least, the we in 3604 have forgotten.

A warm science fiction Christmas story about rediscovering Santa Claus in the far future.

And please notify all future descendants that they should hang on to all their “Earth” things.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.