Advent Fact & Story

The Twelve Days of Christmas refers to the period known as Christmastide (also known as Twelvetide) beginning on Christmas Day and concluding with Epiphany on January 5th, a point that commemorates, in the Western Christian calendar, the visitation of the Magi to the baby Jesus, or the baptism of Christ in the Jordan River in the Eastern Christian calendar – although both ‘acts’ are seen as Christ’s manifestation as the Son of God to the world.

Nowadays, the Twelfth Day of Christmas is viewed as the official end of the Christmas festivities and the day on which both Christmas decorations and tree are taken down.

From January I intend to post regular pieces of flash fiction (1000 words or less) on a sister blog site every week. So, as a prelude to this…


In December of last year my festive flash fiction story The Wintermachine was published in Dark Fiction’s wonderful Christmas anthology 'Twelve Days', a collection based around the Twelve Days of Christmas. It was released as an eBook and as an Audiobook, and both can still be downloaded from Dark Fiction’s website HERE.

For my story (a Steampunk / Supernatural tale set in an alternate blitz-torn London around Christmas of 1940) I chose the Ninth Day of Christmas – Nine Ladies Dancing, and gave it a little twist.

OK, so I know that the Ninth Day of Christmas is actually January 2nd, but as this Advent blog only goes up to Christmas Eve, I thought I’d post this on December 9th instead. For those that missed it, here’s the audio reading of my story, it’s only 8mins 30secs long.

The Wintermachine
(Read by Kim Laikin-Smith)