Wednesday 14 November 2012

Holiday Spirit Blogfest - Please join us! Total Eclipse of the Sun at Palm Cove.




Memoir, Fiction, Recipes, Traditions...and more

How are the holidays celebrated at your home? The blogsphere includes a multitude of countries, cultures, and citizenry of the world. There are as many ways to celebrate as there are cultures -- Thanksgiving, Christmas, Yom Kipper, Hanuka or any variety of holidays of the “giving spirit” during the same season.

In my home we celebrate Christmas as do most Australians. It is an annual celebration to mark Christ's birth (we are well aware this is not the actual time He was born), to celebrate the summer holidays, to celebrate our families and friends who may fly many kilometres to join together again, to just relax by the beach or the pool and read a book (in between eating, drinking and sharing gifts), forgetting about the demands of work -- just for a few days or weeks..

For this Holiday Spirit blogfest (open to the whole blogosphere as are all RFW blogfests), RFW is looking for excerpts of up to 800 words of fiction or non-fiction stories of family tradition, favorite/unique recipes, inspirational articles, etc.; that involve the essence of the holiday spirit.  (Recipes and news articles do not have to adhere to the 800 word limit.) In other words, we would like you to post whatever passes for the Holiday Spirit in your neck of the world. Maybe you would like to post pictures of your decorated home!

Because of the special nature of this Holiday Spirit blogfest, we are allowing up to two submissions; however, they must be in two separate categories. Meaning, you could post your favorite recipe AND an inspirational 800 word excerpt; or a link to an inspirational news/magazine article and a recipe or true story; but not two of each (two recipes, two memoir posts, two articles). If you are posting two separate submissions, please add your blog link twice and add to your name/link what it contains - eg - Donna Hole, 1, Recipe, so participants know to look for two separate posts.

The linky will open on December 12 and remain open thru December 21 to encourage linking to the direct post. However, if you decide to link then schedule a post (or two) later, just leave a comment to let everyone know when your excerpt will be available. The RFW hosts will be checking the comments and links, and if a direct link is available, we will edit your link(s) if you haven't done so. (RFW uses Inlinkz which allows you to delete your own link and add a new one.)

Please join us in celebrating life, love, presents, good food, and of course Family Traditions of all types within diverse cultures.

This is not a competition - it is a sharing. We hope we'll all get to know each other better!

Happy Holidays everyone; and best wishes for your NaNoWriMo projects. Let us know how you go.


Total Eclipse of the Sun (love that song, but we had the real thing yesterday.) Palm Cove, north of Cairns in Northern Queensland, was the best spot in the world to see it, and thousands of people arrived from all over the world to this usually empty stretch of beach to gaze at nature's wonder. Many weddings and engagements took place.


They came from all over the world to experience the total eclipse which was awesome!

Go here to experience glorious professional pictures of the eclipse which shows the wonder of it.
  • Do you know a holiday celebration that is not mentioned above? Please share in the comments.
  • Are you going to join us for this blogfest? The more the merrier.
  • If you're doing NaNo, how is it going? The halfway mark - 25,000 words yet? I'm lagging a bit...
  • Please watch for the linky announcement on December 12.



15 comments:

Sally said...

Hi Denise, hope your Nano is going well. I'm looking forward to hearing about everybody else's festive fun. I'm missing my RFW colleagues this month!

Denise Covey said...

So am i Sally. Yeah NaNo going well. D

Denise Covey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
C.S.H said...

Oh!!! What a delight!! Denise, I think this is great!!! I would love to take part in this!! Thank you for sharing and I will definitely keep an eye out for that prompt!! YAY!! I just love the holidays!! Thank you!!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I'll mention it in the next Ninja News!

Denise Covey said...

Thanks Alex.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Denise .. I hope I'll be joining in this blogfest - better get thinking ... great idea though .. so pleased NaNo is going happily along - mind you total eclipses don't help - must have been amazing ... I've experienced one here - it was cloudy, but we saw sufficient and wasn't quite 100% - but that darkness and coolness suddenly descended ..

Cheers Hilary

Charmaine Clancy said...

Look forward to reading all the festive pieces that go up!
NaNoing away, starting to feel it now. Past halfway but the words are slowing.

Michael Di Gesu said...

Hi, Denise,

Well, you know I am IN! It will be an AWESOME and FESTIVE Blogfest! Looking so forward to it and the holidays!

Unknown said...

Sounds like a great idea to celebrate Christmas!

Anonymous said...

Sounds fun! I'll be in the middle of a blog tour at that time for my debut novel.

Let me tweet about this. ;)


Happy Holidays!

~Laura Diamond

N. R. Williams said...

Hi Denise
I would have loved that eclipse. I'm passing on the word about our blogfest at RFW.

My daughter is learning GIMP on my computer so my writing is in limbo. I think Mirabella will become a novella.
Nancy

Ella said...

What a lovely idea :D
Nice to meet you~

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

Apparently the next eclipse will be in 2028 and best seen from Sydney! I bet it will be a rainy day ;)

Trisha said...

This sounds like a fun blogfest - I will sign up when the linky opens! :)