Winter Theme Picture Story Challenge - Now open for voting

Comments themselves aren't disabled, merely the automatic emails (comment notifications) that let you know you've received a comment. All of the comments made during the voting period will be visible once the voting is concluded.

Ahhhh, I'm figuring that must've been an oversight as you shouldn't be getting comment notifications until the contest judging.

Since you've given out a clue (at least to kephren) RE which challenge story is yours, you may need an extended visit to Miss Thrashbottom in order to make your screen name an accuate descriptor of your person (a part of it anyway).

The comments do show up with the contest stories commented upon (at least mine do when I post them), AFAIK it's the e-mail notifications that are shut off--but those comments haven't shown up yet under "My Comments"--which I assume they will once the voting is completed and the authors' names are included... --C.K.

I too got one comment by email but it was when the voting just began and before Februs announced the comment were disabled. I have commented on many of the stories but I have never read any other comments by others, I think it would affect my voting. So as much as I like reading the comment section of the stories I have to agree with the rule of disabling comments (darn it)

Having just finished reading all the stories, I want to share one or two things I was intrigued by (without making any comments that could affect the voting).

First, the location. Many stories didn't specify exactly where the pictured cabin was, but the great majority placed it in the U.S.A. somewhere. Oregon was by miles the most popular state to place it in, with Idaho, Colorado, Wisconsin, Alaska and Massachusetts getting, by my count, one vote each. One story placed it in the Scottish Highlands, one in the English Lake District and one somewhere in the Western U.S.S.R. as was. One story by implication sited the picture in New England, but the action was in Old England somewhere. I didn't see any story specifying Canada, though one story that didn't specify the location contained factors which, if the story had been true, would have made Canada by far the most likely location.

Many stories played somehow on the disappearance of the eagle and the flag.

There were major characters called Campbell in three different stories: one received a spanking but didn't deliver one; one delivered but did not receive (but did encounter a different kind of physical "punishment"; and one delivered and received in the one story. I reckon that must be the highest ratio of Campbells to stories of any story collection not mainly about Scotland.

An interesting quantitative survey, sir - thank you. I've only read 4 so far, but could the preponderance of Campbells, I wonder, be a reflection of how many characters find themselves in the soup?

I assume this refers to New Year in New England.

Funny I thought the action took place in Boston and Cambridge Massachusetts(home of Harvard) and up north in rural New England.

It seems to me there is one story mentioning Canada, about the worlds strictest parents, really hard not to locate the scene in Canada I would think

One of the main characters was from "Old England" (Britain) and the story may have started out there, but I also recall that the grandparents' cabin was north of Boston somewhere... --C.K.

Wrong! As I said, one story sets the scene in Massachusetts (Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be precise). Another ("The Power of Poetry") is tied to the picture, I'd say, through a Robert Frost poem which I think is set in New England - but the actual action isn't there at all.

Thanks for the heavy wit, canadianspankee. I missed that one in totting up the list. So Canada has one vote and Oregon four, I think. Must be the flag.

Sorry did not mean to come across as "heavy". it is just my sense of humour, I beg your forgiveness!