Drabble Days prompts - finally!!!!
With deepest apologies for how late this is, here are our 2023 Drabble Days prompts! Much thanks to magician114 & pattrose for brainstorming/researching these yesterday -- we've got a few new ones in here & a few old favs that I just love so much I want to do them again even though we just did one last year. :-)
Several of them are inspired by 'national ___ day' occurrences, and correspond to the occurence in 2023 -- I doubt any of those 'days' were in place during the run of the show so don't really fit into the canon timeline, but I think it's fun to have that modern connection to the prompt!
I probably won't be able to get the collections set up on AO3 for a bit, so just hold on to the treasures that I'm sure you'll all jump to creating right away. ;-) If you need a refresher about how it all works, check out the Profile from last year's first Drabble Day here.
(LJ-)cutting to the chase for the prompts:
You Post By
I Reveal On
Prompt/Notes
01 Dec
02 Dec
popcorn - in honor of 'Business of Popping Corn Day' - popcorn is a classically frustrating tree-trimming material (biodegradable for outdoor trimming!), but it can be worked into any number of other seasonal scenarios, from munching popcorn while watching a classic holiday film to giving a tin of fancy popcorn at a gift exchange to, well, you tell me! :-)
03 Dec
04 Dec
Tree Dressing Day - note that this is *not* about decorating Christmas trees, but about "Tree dressing, in the first week of December, [that] is based on many old customs from all over the world and at different times of the year." I'd never heard of this, but it was formally begun in 1990, so I bet Blair and/or Naomi know. :-) I don't like to link to organizations here, but the piece (from which I'm quoting) at commonground dot org dot uk slash tree-dressing-day is fascinating! I think you guys can handle it, but if you need to go not quite so far as Tree Dressing Day, you could do anything having to do with "celebrat[ing] the leafy friends we all have in common" -- bonus points for "reflect[ing] on the social and cultural history of [a] local area, and the role trees have played in shaping this story." :-)
05 Dec
06 Dec
St Nicholas Day and/or St Nicholas Eve - last year I said "there are so many interesting traditions and tales here, I bet you can find something we haven't done 300 times already! ;-)" - still true! But if you can't swing it, you can just go with any St Nicholas/St Nick reference, since yeah, we've done it a lot. :-)
07 Dec
08 Dec
Hanukkah - the holiday begins on the 7th this year, so the 8th is the first full day of Hanukkah. (Especially given that Blair is canonically Jewish, Hanukkah is more than appropriate to appear in any Drabble Day offering, but it's a must-have for this Day.)
10 Dec
11 Dec
UNICEF ([Birth]Day) or helping children - officially "born" on 11 December 1946 as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF has been working to meet the needs of children around the world for more than 75 years. If your muse doesn't want to give UNICEF an explicit shout-out, feel free to do anything in keeping with the goals of UNICEF to "to save children's lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfil their potential." (A free day for art.)
12 Dec
13 Dec
cocoa - in honor of National Cocoa Day, and because I love it :-), today's prompt is that potentially yummy, sometimes really crappy beverage (which actually has featured in a surprising number of slash fics & M/M novels that I have read :-)).
14 Dec
15 Dec
(ugly) sweater - in a combination of honor of National Ugly Sweater Day & my personal annoyance about stores only wanting to sell ugly holiday sweaters and not fun or pretty holiday sweaters :-), we're going with 'sweater' as the basic prompt, with a parenthetical 'ugly.' I figured 'sweater' was more generic if your muse is as uninterested in ugly sweaters as I am, but I have to admit that 'ugly sweater' could be more fun in a drabble or art. :-)
17 Dec
18 Dec
elf - another fun one that's a personal favorite -- yes, we've done it a lot of times; no, I don't care. :-)
19 Dec
20 Dec
caroling -- in honor of 'Go Caroling Day'! I think there's a lot of fun potential here, and now I kind of want to find a caroling opportunity on the 20th... :-)
21 Dec
22 Dec
Solstice - I'll be revealing these about 93 minutes after the official moment of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere (03:27 GMT 22nd Dec), in the midst of the Longest Night.
Along with Hanukkah & Christmas Eve, this is a staple each year, but there are many ways to approach it!
23 Dec
24 Dec
Christmas Eve - you know the spiel by now!
Several of them are inspired by 'national ___ day' occurrences, and correspond to the occurence in 2023 -- I doubt any of those 'days' were in place during the run of the show so don't really fit into the canon timeline, but I think it's fun to have that modern connection to the prompt!
I probably won't be able to get the collections set up on AO3 for a bit, so just hold on to the treasures that I'm sure you'll all jump to creating right away. ;-) If you need a refresher about how it all works, check out the Profile from last year's first Drabble Day here.
(LJ-)cutting to the chase for the prompts:
You Post By
I Reveal On
Prompt/Notes
01 Dec
02 Dec
popcorn - in honor of 'Business of Popping Corn Day' - popcorn is a classically frustrating tree-trimming material (biodegradable for outdoor trimming!), but it can be worked into any number of other seasonal scenarios, from munching popcorn while watching a classic holiday film to giving a tin of fancy popcorn at a gift exchange to, well, you tell me! :-)
03 Dec
04 Dec
Tree Dressing Day - note that this is *not* about decorating Christmas trees, but about "Tree dressing, in the first week of December, [that] is based on many old customs from all over the world and at different times of the year." I'd never heard of this, but it was formally begun in 1990, so I bet Blair and/or Naomi know. :-) I don't like to link to organizations here, but the piece (from which I'm quoting) at commonground dot org dot uk slash tree-dressing-day is fascinating! I think you guys can handle it, but if you need to go not quite so far as Tree Dressing Day, you could do anything having to do with "celebrat[ing] the leafy friends we all have in common" -- bonus points for "reflect[ing] on the social and cultural history of [a] local area, and the role trees have played in shaping this story." :-)
05 Dec
06 Dec
St Nicholas Day and/or St Nicholas Eve - last year I said "there are so many interesting traditions and tales here, I bet you can find something we haven't done 300 times already! ;-)" - still true! But if you can't swing it, you can just go with any St Nicholas/St Nick reference, since yeah, we've done it a lot. :-)
07 Dec
08 Dec
Hanukkah - the holiday begins on the 7th this year, so the 8th is the first full day of Hanukkah. (Especially given that Blair is canonically Jewish, Hanukkah is more than appropriate to appear in any Drabble Day offering, but it's a must-have for this Day.)
10 Dec
11 Dec
UNICEF ([Birth]Day) or helping children - officially "born" on 11 December 1946 as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF has been working to meet the needs of children around the world for more than 75 years. If your muse doesn't want to give UNICEF an explicit shout-out, feel free to do anything in keeping with the goals of UNICEF to "to save children's lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfil their potential." (A free day for art.)
12 Dec
13 Dec
cocoa - in honor of National Cocoa Day, and because I love it :-), today's prompt is that potentially yummy, sometimes really crappy beverage (which actually has featured in a surprising number of slash fics & M/M novels that I have read :-)).
14 Dec
15 Dec
(ugly) sweater - in a combination of honor of National Ugly Sweater Day & my personal annoyance about stores only wanting to sell ugly holiday sweaters and not fun or pretty holiday sweaters :-), we're going with 'sweater' as the basic prompt, with a parenthetical 'ugly.' I figured 'sweater' was more generic if your muse is as uninterested in ugly sweaters as I am, but I have to admit that 'ugly sweater' could be more fun in a drabble or art. :-)
17 Dec
18 Dec
elf - another fun one that's a personal favorite -- yes, we've done it a lot of times; no, I don't care. :-)
19 Dec
20 Dec
caroling -- in honor of 'Go Caroling Day'! I think there's a lot of fun potential here, and now I kind of want to find a caroling opportunity on the 20th... :-)
21 Dec
22 Dec
Solstice - I'll be revealing these about 93 minutes after the official moment of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere (03:27 GMT 22nd Dec), in the midst of the Longest Night.
Along with Hanukkah & Christmas Eve, this is a staple each year, but there are many ways to approach it!
23 Dec
24 Dec
Christmas Eve - you know the spiel by now!