And the winner is...

Actually, tonight we're going to name winners, plural.

But before we get to that: from time to time, people ask us how it is that we pick the winning entries. What are our criteria, which metrics do we use, what weighting do we assign to — okay, so they also ask what possesses us to do this in this first place, and who the heck do we think we are anyway, and who died and made us emperor, and a whole host of other questions as well, some flattering and some less so. The key thing to remember here is that the Friday Challenge is a judged contest, and while we do pay attention to your comments and the crude barometer of the voting widget, at the end of the week, it is our professional judgment that we use to make the call.

We actually take this considerably more seriously than you might think, and the use of the editorial "we" is not merely a conceit. Ideally we get the entire Rampant Loon staff together, either in person or by electronically, to read and discuss the submissions, and then to reach consensus based primarily on what we would choose to publish, if some wonderfully magnanimous person were to lose his or her mind temporarily and give us the startup budget we need to launch that periodical publication we've been dreaming about starting for years.

And with that said, we turn now to the outstanding challenges.

First, Miko is the clear winner of the lesser challenge, A Two-Bit Inspiration, for his entry, "The Johnson Sandwich." So Miko, come on down and claim your prize!

Now, as for the 12/18/09 Christmas Story challenge, this was the subject of considerable and prolonged debate, but in the end, here are our conclusions.

Miko's entry, "A Christmas Offering," was a lot of fun, particularly with trying to figure out who he was referring to with the various obfuscated names. We also believe he was recounting a bit of an artistic journey wherein he learns one of those lessons all writers must learn; that when you put especially clever things in your story, your readers are apt to miss them entirely for the simple reason their mind isn't in the same place as yours. This story isn't first one to feature a cast drawn from the Friday Challenge regulars, but previous entries pre-dated Miko's arrival. While it's fun when these stories crop-up, in the end, it was really too much of an inside joke to make the final cut.

Passingthrough's entry, "Christmas Tree Hunting," was yet another look into a world so different from our own experience. Henry wouldn't even know where to start looking for a "wild" Christmas tree in the Raleigh area, and while we in the Minnesota office have no shortage of vast pine and spruce forests, we also have a very active state forestry department and DNR that would no doubt look dimly on our harvesting one free-lance. Henry, being a Southerner, also wonders about the wisdom of just heading off cross-country over snow-covered ground, while we Northerners would never do that, as based on past experience we know that that is the fastest possible way to discover unmarked swamps and sloughs. One notable difference between this and previous stories is that passinthrough herself seems to be somewhat less than thrilled with this particular adventure, and oddly, that makes the story more engaging. All in all, a wonderful recollection and a good read.

Patrick Henry, a first-time entrant, gave us the most difficult time with, "Christmas 1948." This heart-tugging story of a young girl whose mother dies on Christmas Eve is, well, heart-tugging, all right, and it clearly was the reader poll favorite. But the story suffers from some presentation problems: most notably, that we can't tell if this is supposed to be told in the voice and vocabulary of an 8-year-old girl or if it's from the P.O.V. of an adult remembering what happened when she was a child. In any case it slips and slides between what seem to us to be the two points of view or narrative voices, and the grammatical jumps shake us right out of the story. We liked the father's words to his children in the ending—they were direct, and yet simple enough for a child to understand, conveying the father's loss and the mother's wishes—but in the final cut, we couldn't help but feel that we'd seen this made-for-TV movie or heard this country song before. There is a recycled feel to this one that we just couldn't get past. You've got some good concepts, Patrick, but work on your control of character voice and try to find something more original to say in your next story.

Which brings us around to Torainfor's entry, "Sinead's Christmas Wish." We honestly can't understand why this one didn't top the reader poll. Is it too difficult to use drop.io, or was this one simply too long to read online?

In any case, this story shows us once again that Torainfor has a truly amazing imagination, along with an encyclopedic knowledge of folklore. All four judges found this story to be well-written and a compelling read, even though it is also far and away the longest Friday Challenge entry ever submitted! Sinead is an interesting character; we enjoyed the back-and-forth between Sinead and Glowfeather; we also snickered at the close working relationship between a certain film and theme-park company and the wee folk, even if the company's current management isn't as trustworthy as the founder was. The story felt rushed towards the ending — not surprising, considering how long it turned out to be — and there is definitely a strong deus ex machina in the next-to-last scene, but all in all, the story was a fun romp through Christmas-associated myths and legends around the world. Henry thought the ending seemed a tiny bit pat, but sometimes small demonstrations of affection can help open one's eyes.

So as you've no doubt guessed by now, we declare "Sinhead's Christmas Wish" to be the winner of the 2009 Christmas Story Challenge!

As for everyone else, thanks for participating, and keep on trying!