Creating is an act of kindness. One person tears off a piece of themselves, shapes it, wraps it, and sends it out into the world in hopes that it might mean something to someone else. Other people do it for us all the time and most of the time we don’t even notice. The work is not seen or noticed, even if through repetition we come to rely on it. Until one day the lightweight they shine will no longer be perceptible. Maybe you left home, or maybe they did, but now it’s your turn to perform such acts of kindness. Carry on the tradition for others – and for yourself.
Friends, it’s time to play Skeal.
Playing Skeal at Christmas is an annual RPS tradition, created and featured by Alice O in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Alice left RPS in April, so I’m continuing it on her behalf.
Skeal is a low, free joke created by Nick Cummings that you can make play in your browser. It will take you five minutes. Go do it now.
Ah, it’s comical, isn’t it. A bit of silly wordplay exaggerated and exaggerated in a way that causes the joy to accumulate and multiply. Every year I forget the details and every year I smile when I pass the gate for the first time and the “Pain” counter appears in the upper left corner.
We play Skeal every year and invite you to do the same as a little marker at the end of the season. I play every year, but in many ways this tradition starts for me long before I go to Itch to find a game. It starts in early December when I remember this tradition for the first time and start singing in my kitchen. Just thinking about Skeal became an incentive to reflect on where I was and where I am. In low? RPS, you remain my strength, my pleasure and my pain.
The nature of traditions is such that we can choose which ones we will continue and which ones we will not. Alice O also played Dracula Cha Cha and Christmas Pain in Christmas Town every December – a lovely tradition! – but I let them go, at least for this year.
Of course, if we want, we can also create our own modern traditions. Who knows what Nic, Edwin, James and Ed might have in store in the coming months and years? They have to decide about it. Skeal for me for now.
