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Post by sereg on Nov 13, 2014 6:27:18 GMT
Down here:
Christmas crackers are very common.
Advent calenders exist, an usually give you a chocolate a day. They aren't everywhere though.
We have much less decorations and lights than in the States and would never put lights outside.
Father Christmas lives in the North Pole, but no one writes back.
Mistletoe is stereotypical, but people normally use artificial holly.
Shortbread and sweet cookies are not really traditional.
Eggnog is known, but not really found
We do have lots of mince pies
As well as turkey (pretty much the only time of the year you can buy it)
Other common Christmass food is gammon, and fruit cake and Christmas pudding and trifle.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Nov 13, 2014 15:10:18 GMT
Oh right, fruitcake. A brick made out of dried fruit that nobody actually eats. Legend has it that there's only actually one fruitcake, and everybody just gives it to someone else.
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Post by sereg on Nov 13, 2014 21:25:05 GMT
Almost my entire family, including myself, adores fruitcake. We have no idea what's wrong with the rest of the world.
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Post by Mio on Nov 13, 2014 21:46:50 GMT
Apparently everyone else in the world get's their fruitcake a month later and not fresh.
I'm actually curious as to what other possible winter holidays they may have in Equestria, since apparently they have several.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Nov 13, 2014 23:01:54 GMT
I think American bakeries make their fruitcakes different from the rest of the world.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Nov 14, 2014 3:28:28 GMT
Yeah, I think what constitutes a fruitcake is a bit different.
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Post by sereg on Nov 14, 2014 6:38:16 GMT
Okay. Fruitcakes do vary a bit. Here in Soth Africa, we usually have the British dark fruitcake, but I've had Italian panetone as well, and it's also good.
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Post by kegisak on Nov 18, 2014 22:41:50 GMT
So, I'll likely begin writing this next week, once I've got a job-related blog set up for my design stuff at an old professor's suggestion.
I think I have a general idea of what I'm gonna do for the story, though it's pretty bare bones. Of course, I'm aiming for a sort of kid-adventure Christmas special sort of feeling for it, which is gonna inform the plot a little bit. The general plan I've got so far goes like this:
The story begins likely in Miss Cheerilee's class, talking about some general Hearth's Warming traditions, and giving the basic overview of the Equestrian story behind it. Pip, not being from there, is kinda confused by it and asks a lot of questions. Diamond Tiara makes fun of him for not knowing the 'obvious' stuff, and he tells her that Hearth's Warming is different in Trottingham. Cheerilee, seeing a good learning opportunity, asks him to share some of Trottingham's traditions. This is where the objects of the story are introduced: Christmas Crackers, and Mince Pie(Just fruit in the mincemeat of course, no actual meat. Even though horses can totally eat meat and even like it, but whatever some people are finicky about that). Diamond Tiara, and maybe a few other students, laugh about how dumb or weird they think the traditions are.
Later on, Pip is with Peeler and Tealove at the Teahouse, talking about it all, and they come across the idea that maybe he could show them that the traditions aren't that silly by bringing in the stuff to show them - unfortunately, as it turns out, Tealove also doesn't really know what they're talking about - those things kinda just don't exist in Equestria. Pip is crestfallen, and even Peeler is a bit disappointed - he loved him his Mince Pies, after all, and opening the crackers with Pip was always nice.(I'm kind of bouncing back and forth between Pip wanting the crackers for his class and his own sake, for realism, and wanting them to make Peeler happy, for the sake of the theme. I can probably hack having it start as one and evolve into the other, though)
Hearing this, Tealove gets a bit of an idea: She figures she could probably make a Mince Pie for Peeler. Maybe as a seasonal treat too, but mostly for Peeler. It couldn't be ''that'' hard, right? Not all of the ingredients are in Ponyville though, so she'd have to take a shopping trip to Canterlot to get some stuff. Pip convinces her that she should take him along, too - they might not have crackers in Ponyville, but they'd HAVE to have them in Canterlot! So they head to Canterlot on their shopping trip, but getting the ingredients takes longer than Pip expects, so he breaks off(This part I'm a bit iffy on - I worry that, if Pip slips away it makes Tealove look negligent, and if Pip just bolts he looks like a little shit).
Tealove, of course, freaks, and immediately goes to contact Peeler, who in turn gets to Canterlot as fast as he can, and the two start looking for Pip, who meanwhile is setting along on his solo adventure.
Uuuuuunfortunately, that part I'm pretty vague on at the moment. I have an ''end'' in mind, but not so much a middle. Somewhere along the line I'd like him to pick up a nice animal sidekick - a kind of bird maybe, or a bunny. It'd be interwoven with the plot of Tealove and Peeler searching for him, likely running into some of the same charactgers, with the two stories affecting things for each other. The end that I have in mind is that after a long time searching, and finding jack all for it, Pip winds up pretty badly lost in one of the grungier parts of the city. He eventually winds up with a small pack of vagrants who offer him somewhere to warm up a bite to eat while one of them runs off looking for someone to help him. While waiting he gets to talking with the hobos about how they're doing and whatnot, and they talk about the things that they miss - Pip misses all the old, familiar traditions from home. One of the hobos misses his home too, in Fancee - he shipped over trying to get away from what he felt were some pretty heavy laws,m but never managed to hack it since he barely spoke Equestrian. Another hobo misses his family, who he lost touch with after a bit of a stress breakdown. A third one, jokingly, misses when the conductors didn't check train cars for stowaways before every trip.
The whole experience is kind of enlightening for Pip, since as much as the hobos claim they miss various stuff, they're still happy, because they've got friends, and also because ponies get more generous that time of year. Yeah, maybe it's a bit hokey and even false, but ponies being nicer is ponies being nicer. By this point it's pretty late, so Pip starts kind of drifting off, but he stays awake just long enough to see the hobo who ran off come back, with none other than Luna in tow - turns out he had been Uncle Tannenbaum(Currently the patron god of Furheim, came to Equestria for a bit of perspective - As a stallion who ascended /because/ of the holiday, it's surreal and somewhat disheartening for him to see ponies slowly degrade it to a parcel of traditions and false platitudes. Luna, with whom he works closely(As Tannenbaum is the god of Hopes and Dreams), suggested that he should get away from the work and see the ponies.
Tannenbaums problem pretty much parallels Pip's - he wants SOMETHING out of Hearthswarming again, but he's not wholly sure what it is. So he goes searching for what he remembers, but at the end of the day the trick isn't to force himself to enjoy Hearthswarming the same way he used to, but to accept the way things have changed, and enjoy what always really made it special in the first place: The people.
So after a nice conversation, Luna and Tannebaum gather up Pip and take him back to Peeler and Tealove. They're both mad, but at the end of the day just glad to see him safe. They all head home, tired and happy, and the story skips ahead to hearthswarming day. Tealove is over and they're all sharing tea, and some acceptable facsimiles of Mince Pies, and Pip is going through his stocking. At the very bottom, beneath everything else, he finds three Crackers and a note, thanking him and wishing him a happy hearthswarming.
So yeah. I'm still pretty fuzzy on the meat of it, and I'm hoping not to have to make it up while I got along. The essential story points I want to hit, though, are: Pip gets made fun of for weird traditions, Pip and Peeler miss the old Hearthswarminbg, Tealove agrees to take Pip to the city so they can surprise Peeler with something nice from trottingham, Pip gets lost in the city, Peeler and Tealove look for him, and Pip finds some old hobos, one of whom turns out to be a slightly jaded Uncle Tannenbaum. The fact that a god is a major part of the story means that I do want to get some good magik-y stuff going on in there, and they'll probably run into him before the end of the story in some way or another. But, if my previous writing is any indicator, I'll start to get a lot more ideas as I start working on it.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Nov 18, 2014 23:16:34 GMT
Well, the one thing I could you could do is have Uncle Tannenbaum be sort of behind all the events. Like he purposely splits Pip away from Tealove for the purpose of teaching him the meaning of Christmas or whatever, or he sees that Pip has a sort of optimistic and un-jaded view of the holiday and figures that it might help him recapture his enthusiasm. Of course, writing that without him looking like a creeper would be quite a challenge.
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Post by kegisak on Nov 18, 2014 23:59:04 GMT
Well you know, gods get a free pass for that sort of thing.
But yeah, no... it is a possible idea. I want Pip to run into him the first time pretty early on, to give Tannenbaum some motivation to follow him a bit. Given the situation I don't think Tannenbaum would take the initiative on something like that, but I could definitely see him getting interested in Pip and following him a bit. That could definitely help with the Christmas Magic feeling too, if some of his influence is keeping Pip safe. Pip's Animal Sidekick could even be an extension of him or something. Which would have slightly less creeper-vibes.
One thing I was thinking for some of the meat of the story is Pip being draewn to things he thinks reminds him of Christmas in Trottingham, but them turning out to be something different - for example, hearing a drum beat that he thinks is like a march in the Tannenbaum Parades, but turning out to just be a random busker or something. After a few encounters I can imagine him finding himself on a bit of a wild goose chase through the city looking for a little bit of something, and the chase for stuff getting him into a bit of trouble here and there.
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Post by Applelight Limited on Nov 19, 2014 3:24:03 GMT
One of the ponies who picks Pip up...Artful Dodger type?
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Post by japaneseteeth on Nov 19, 2014 3:27:05 GMT
I like that idea that his animal friend is related to Tannenbaum somehow.
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Post by sereg on Nov 19, 2014 16:00:49 GMT
Wait. You don't even have mice pies!? What is wrong with you Americans!?
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Post by japaneseteeth on Nov 19, 2014 18:32:57 GMT
Closest thing we have is the pot pie.
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Post by kegisak on Nov 21, 2014 4:36:31 GMT
We have them in Canada, but you have to look and they're not very popular. Very uncommon.
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