Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays!
The last month of the year is a beautiful time for celebrations spanning across many cultures. In each of these celebrations, it isn't about how much you are able to give or what you physically receive, but what goodness comes out of your heart and those you surround yourself with. Gratitude, love, and kindness are of extreme importance, as well as taking the time to remember and honor the history that makes us who we are today. So, let us begin the year together with acknowledging a few of these many traditions!
Summer Camp Special
by EllaLuna
Welcome to the Summer Camp Special! I am your host EllaLuna. Last Summer, I worked as a Summer Camp Organiser and Water Polo Counsellor, so I will be bringing you some behind the scenes information as well as some amazing (you wish) puns, so stay tuned ;)
The Year 45 Wizarding Olympics was such a ball with 6 continents turning up, unfortunately, Antarctica was unable to turn up due to lack of competitors being allowed to participate - I still think Killer the Whale and Adélie the Penguin would have been awesome competitors, don't you? In saying that, we had some amazing competition with only the best athletes selected to represent each continent ;)
After three weeks of competition and what seemed like years of waiting, the results were finally released:
In sixth place... South America - 567
In fifth place... Europe - 772
In fourth place... North America - 876
In third place...Asia - 903
And in second place, drumroll place... Africa - 908
Which means in first place... Australia - 1,015
Congratulations to Australia coming out on top with 1,015 points! Elise_Malfoy gained the most points with 379 and Willow Maid not far behind with 261 points.
This year's Summer Camp theme, Wizarding Olympics, bought many new events and ideas to the field. We had the old favourites with Disa and Arielle running Quidditch; crockhanks and EllaLuna running Water Polo and Swimming Races; and newly hired awesome_forever running Bludger Pong with Rose Jean and Leadora. Jenna Rae, tashalouiise, Memrah and Disa were in charge of reffing duels; Ichigo Mirai and Grace brought us the much loved trivia; Melinda North, Lisa Screws, DreamEcho23321 and Daanya manned the Coffee Shop; and Sarah and crockhanks were making sure we survived Summer Camp :P Although we didn't see any Tug of War, Grace and EnglishPhoenix were working very hard behind the scenes! On top of this, we had several new events which were highly competitive with Shuntbumps being run by Tasha, Quodpot with me, Swivenhodge with Rae and Creaothceann with DreamEcho23321 and jellybeans! We also had the 1st bi-annual Honeydukes Marquee run by xSarahsan and many Chocolate Frog Cards were traded!
There was also a Medal Presentation with many medals made by the very famous designer, ELM :lol: That name may sound vaguely familiar to everyone working in the vaults ;) In the end, it was decided that the new Ribeye engraving machine would be used and ta-da! Beautiful medals, if I do say so myself. If you haven't already checked out the presentation, make sure to so you can pick up your medals! We had several notable medals winners, which were Elise_Malfoy and Echse with 4 medals, Arielle with 6 medals and Willow Maid with 7 medals!
Disa was unable to hand out the Summer Quidditch Medals; I heard something about a snitch. Take that any way you want :P Quidditch once again was very successful with fun brooms and creative team names!
In fourth place... Icy VIRTUE-bacca
In third place... PHELPin' in Finesse
In second place... The Big Bang BOLT-heory
Which means in first place... Spiffy SPITZ-fire!!!
Here are your medals (click on image for link to use):
Congratulations to everyone who got a medal or placed ^^ Thank you for making Summer
Camp so much fun! I can't wait to see you all at again next year!
The Real Deal: Episode 3
by Daanya
Welcome back to The Real Deal! This episode I thought I'd do something different and review a tv show for once. I know what you all must be thinking: why not a Christmas themed one? Well, I appear to be one of the only few people that believe that Christmas' arrival is rather premature but that's not what today's topic of discussion is. This entry's TV show is "Strictly Come Dancing."
If you're truly British or just happen to watch it, then you'll immediately know that it is a celebrity dance show produced by the BBC and evidently, it's British. It is the British edition of Dancing with the Stars, which is based in America, and a competition where celebrities are paired up with professional dancers and participate in a number of Latin and Ballroom themed dances - running from early September to Christmas time. Across each series, there are a number of specials (movie week, musical week, Halloween week etc.). Each performance is judged by four people - currently it's Craig, Dame Darcey, Shirley and Bruno - and each one has to give a score out of ten to every performance. Viewers have to tune in a vote for their favourites to ensure their survival to the next week and the two couples that receive the lowest number of votes are then made to take part in the dreaded dance-off. The judges have to decide who they want to save and at the end of each week, one couple is eliminated.
Currently, Strictly is running through its 16th season, which is fast approaching its end. At the start, my favourite to win was Lee Ryan but I assume that not many people liked him, and he was eliminated in the third week - the tears streaming down my face were unstoppable. That always happens to me where my favourite has to be kicked out or just not voted for and then my least liked competitor always seems to do well. It's like the forces sense that I don't want a certain person to get through and then just immediately knows to put them through to the next round just to irritate me: I feel like many of you will relate to hating a celebrity with no logical reason but have a passion for doing so. But I also love that feeling when my favourite finally gets a ten (I literally start running around my living room cheering) - it's a wonderful thing to experience.
Now onto talking about Strictly in general: personally, I adore the show even though I only started watching in this year. However, whenever I come to love something, I find it a tendency of mine to go into the Wikipedia page of it and found out almost everything there is to know about the show - it was started in 2004 and there was a Strictly presenter, Sir Bruce Forsyth, who sadly passed away a year ago, and he was one of the greatest entertainers to exist.
With almost everything, there is a spinoff to accompany it and obviously, Strictly Come Dancing has its own too: Strictly: It Takes Two. There are always some backstage sneak peeks and exclusives, which is what I adore about spinoffs because backstage gossip is honestly so fascinating.
There is so much more to talk about with this amazing show, but I've got to head off now so until next time, keep dancing!
