21 December 2011

Happy Holidays



by Robert Lopresti

That title is not yet another blow in the war against Christmas (which seems, oddly enough, to be doing just fine in spite of all the worriers).  Instead I want to think about tying books or stories to specific holidays.  I believe I tried it exactly once, with a story tied to the British custom of telling ghost stories around Christmas Eve.  Alas, that story remains in my ever-increasing pile of stories waiting for a good home.

Is a holiday story more or less marketable than any other kind?  Beats me.  On the one hand, you may be reducing your odds to, say, one issue out of twelve for the year.  On the other hand, the editor might really want something thematic for that issue.  Certainly Christmas is the obvious one, since we as a nation seem to obsess about Noel for a longer period every year.  (In a short story called "The Black Whatever" James Powell suggested this was part of a conspiracy by Santa Claus... that was yet another Christmas story, of course.)

I suppose the person who should be writing about this subject is our own R.T. Lawton, since he write a series of stories about a couple of very dumb criminals who specialize in holiday burglaries (the latest was titled "Labor Day.")

Maybe my problem with all this is that the holidays that mean the most to me tend to fail to show up on the pre-printed calendars.  For example, I always enthusiastically celebrate Bike To Work And School Day, which you may not have heard of, but it's a big deal among my friends, and my wife .helped start it.

Which brings me to the actual subject of this piece (and about time).  You see, we are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary this week.  You won't find that on anyone's calendar but ours, and I am pleased to report there are no crime stories associated with it.

So that's what I will be celebrating.  Oh, and Chanukah, too; we're multi-tasking.  As for the rest of you, I hope your days are merry, happy, bright, and joyful.

7 comments:

  1. Rob
    Many congratulations to you and the missus.
    The 35th - that's coral, I think. I don't know why I know that, but I do.
    Happy Christmas and a great New Year.

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  2. Congratulations on the wedding anniversary! May the entire season be joyful and beautiful!

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  3. Congratulations- and may you celebrate many more.

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  4. Mazel tov to you and your wife, Rob. My two holiday short stories both deal with both Xmas and Chanukah. "Death Will Trim Your Tree" was written for a specific market (Wolfmont's last Toys for Tots holiday anthology, The Gift of Murder) and "Navidad" as a sequel to a previous story and to write about the stranger-than-fiction shocker that really happened to Columbus and the Santa Maria on Xmas Eve (second night of Chanukah) in 1492. "Navidad" was in EQMM and is now up as an e-story on with a nice chunk of the beginning as a sample.

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  5. Let me add my voice to the chorus--Congratulations to you both and I hope that you enjoy many more.

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  6. יום נישואין שמח
    --Dix

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