I have not been reading as much Yuletide as I should, but I have found some great stories amidst what I did read:

The Voices of Small Bears (1050 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Rating: General Audiences
Summary: Make no mistake, a family was here.
My take: . A lovely series of vignettes that adds up to a portrait of Toby and her family of choice.

five to one against (5209 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Summary: How Molly and Nightingale discovered haemomancy.
My take: A very strong Molly POV fills out her role in the series.

Cemetery Polka (2073 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The Sandman (Comics)
Rating: Mature
Summary: They regard each other, for a long moment. Behind her large glasses, Larissa’s eyes are unblinking, but her clasped hands betray her, the fiddling of her thumbs against each other. She wets her lips, pursed and full and pink.
Death is mortal, tonight.
My take: That last line sums it up. Gorgeous bittersweet f/f.

the rain falling on the sunshine (2029 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rating: General Audiences
Summary: In the garden; after the war.
My take: The Secret Garden is a Yuletide perennial (hah!) if there ever was one, and this topic has been done many times before, but this is a nice take on it, with little bathos and a lot of genuine feeling.

The Rock and The River (17442 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Summary: Chihiro takes magic and bends it around herself to make a place in the world.
My take: Spirited Away can generate overly cute fic as well as pieces with genuine mythical power. This is one of the latter. There's genuine human sadness and pathos amidst the many quiet wonders.

Intermission (24398 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Summary: Emil tries to rebuild his life and help Lalli adjust to their new home in Sweden after their return from the Silent World. Slight canon divergence from the end of the First Adventure.
My take: This is a lesson in how to write romantic fanfiction: the myriad bits of everyday (and not so everyday) life, the tight third-person POV, and the genuine human reactions give the eventual breaking of the tension real power, leavened in the last bits with in-character humor.

So tropicsbear was raising money for the victims of the horrible flooding in the Philippines by offering fiction. Here's the story I requested:

The Honeymoon Phase (PG, Saiyuki, Hakkai/Gojyo, Genjo Sanzo, Son Goku)

I enjoyed it a lot!

Second set of recommendations, from the following fandoms: Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome, Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner, The Sandman, Watership Down - Richard Adams, West Side Story (1961), Wintle's Wonders - Noel Streatfeild, Nijusseiki Shounen | 20th Century Boys (Manga), Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie, Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown, All-of-a-Kind Family - Sidney Taylor, Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh.

On the Burning Deck
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
"Nancy in the Blitz" (Excellent choice of title.)

We Climbed the Matterhorn
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Five things Molly Turner might have seen from the summit, if she'd been looking that way, and what she actually found there.

Executor
Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
'"And what do I do for a living? I wait to inherit. Richard and I are both planning to profit from someone’s death; my way just takes longer."'

The True Size for Rational Happiness
Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
'“I’m sure I’ll have very nice bees,” Richard said. “Are you going to be happy?”'

Every New Beginning
The Sandman
"Hob Gadling hears secrets man was never meant to know, and learns more about endings and beginnings."

The Story of Hrayatha and the Rabbit Who Left No Tracks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
"Pipkin listens to a story." And an ambitious young doe has a very interesting encounter.

Independence Wars
West Side Story (1961)
"If you had all that here, why would you want to go back to Puerto Rico?" / "Oh, even if you didn't have all that here, why would you want to go back there?"

Postmarked (A Study in Contrasts)
Wintle's Wonders - Noel Streatfeild
Rachel and Hilary promise to write to each other faithfully.

21st Century Girls
Nijusseiki Shounen | 20th Century Boys (Manga)
"Because girl groups, childhood games, henshin pens, secret passwords, and shoujo manga can save the world."

How to Run Away from Your House and Find Your Home
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
"I could go to college. Do what my mother never could; exceed my father’s expectations of me. Come back with a white woman’s accent, in first-hand clothes."

Goodnight Room
Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown
"Bunnies ... in ... SPAAAAAAAACE!" (Chilling. Poor bunny.)

Steps and Stairs
All-of-a-Kind Family - Sidney Taylor
Ella's having a beau means changes for all of them, but Sarah thinks that the situation seems to be weighing most heavily on Henny.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Abridged)
Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
"Like many of you, the Reduced Children's Classics Publishing group has recently heard a lot of stories in the news about how kids don't like reading the classics anymore. And that's just wrong ... ." The RCCPG believes it has a solution - in fact, several solutions.

Experimental Procedure
Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
"Ari hasn't thought of the right way to watch that tape. Yet."

Damn, it's been exactly three years since louiselux and emungere wrote that.

Three years. It seems unbelievable, somehow.

I've just finished the chapter that ends with Robin telling Angel to trust him and jump off the cliff, in Faerie.

But I'm tired and feel like crud - had my flu shot today, among other things - so I'll have to continue tomorrow.

If there are any Saiyuki fans reading this who haven't read this epic - you should remedy that.

I won a story from what-we-dream (who wrote "Forfeit") in the help_pakistan auction.

She has written a wonderful, slightly spooky tale - just right for this time of year - about Gojyo and Hakkai in that in-between period of their lives when the Banri incident is behind them, they're first starting to work for Sanzo regularly, and their relationship is deepening. Although stories that have Hakkai involved with ghosts are not uncommon, this one has a special twist to it, as well as a very charming, nuanced look at Gojyo and Hakkai's relationship at this point.

Please go read Hungry Ghosts!

It's rated PG-13 and is worksafe except for some swearing and violence.

Last-minute recs for: The Homeward Bounders - Jones, The Jungle Book - Kipling, Juuni Kokki (Twelve Kingdoms), Riddle-Master Trilogy - McKillip (3), Secret Garden - Burnett (2), Swordspoint - Kushner, Chronicles of the Kencyrath - Hodgell, Discworld - Pratchett (2), and Samurai Champloo.

It was funny how this fell out! Recs for:

Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons | Arthurian Legend | Bible - Hebrew Bible or Old Testament | CS Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia

I have to say I was mildly freaked out by the amount of Biblical fic, but some of it was quite good.