New Year sees the First Anniver­sary of Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio and we’re hold­ing a num­ber of spe­cial broad­casts and Sec­ond Life events to cel­e­brate it over the New Year’s week­end. They range from a spe­cial inter­view with Susan­nah, the host of The MOST on the 31st to a Grand Vien­nese Anniver­sary Ball on the 2nd January.

Tune in to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio today, Fri­day 24th Decem­ber — Christ­mas Eve — at noon or 4pm Pacific/SLT, 8pm or mid­night UK time, for a spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion of Charles Dick­ens’ clas­sic sto­ry, “A Christ­mas Car­ol” — the time­less tale of one man’s jour­ney from miser­ly indif­fer­ence to redemption.

Through the inter­ces­sion of the ghost of his sev­en-years-dead part­ner, Ebenez­er Scrooge jour­neys through time — and Christ­mas — with three Spir­its; observ­ing the caus­es, and effects, that his life choic­es have made — and will make, unless he changes his ways.

Our pre­sen­ta­tion will be broad­cast twice on Christ­mas Eve, the very day of the year when the sto­ry begins, at Noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT, 8pm or mid­night in the UK. The sto­ry was adapt­ed for radio by Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er, based on the spe­cial abridged ver­sion that Dick­ens him­self used for his pub­lic per­for­mances of the work.

“A Christ­mas Car­ol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Sto­ry of Christ­mas”, com­mon­ly known as “A Christ­mas Car­ol”, was first pub­lished in Lon­don by Chap­man & Hall on Decem­ber 19, 1843 and illus­trat­ed by John Leech. Charles Dick­ens arguably set the orig­i­nal prece­dent for the mod­ern tra­di­tion of ghost sto­ries at Christ­mas with “A Christ­mas Car­ol” and he wrote oth­er, lat­er ghost sto­ries that were pub­lished for the Christ­mas peri­od, notably “The Sig­nal-Man” in 1866.

Our pre­sen­ta­tion of “A Christ­mas Car­ol” is per­formed by Shan­don Lor­ing, Elrik Mer­lin, and Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er with music by Paul Mot­tram. The pro­gramme is a CEH production.

In addi­tion to A Christ­mas Car­ol, we will be play­ing sea­son­al music all day.

Yes­ter­day, Decem­ber 21st, saw the Win­ter Sol­stice in the North­ern Hemi­sphere —  the day with the short­est peri­od of day­light and longest night of the year, when the Sun is at its low­est dai­ly max­i­mum ele­va­tion in the sky.

Since pre­his­to­ry, the win­ter sol­stice has been a sig­nif­i­cant time of year in many cul­tures, and has been marked by fes­ti­vals and rit­u­als. It marked the sym­bol­ic death and rebirth of the Sun; the grad­ual wan­ing of day­light hours is reversed and begins to grow again. Some ancient mon­u­ments such as New­grange and Stone­henge are aligned with the sun­rise or sun­set on the win­ter solstice.

Today on Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, we present a pro­gramme of Celtic and Celtic-influ­enced music, includ­ing tracks of a sea­son­al nature. Enjoy!

In addi­tion, there’s anoth­er chance to catch our sea­son­al edi­tion of “Where Have You Been?”, our orig­i­nal series cov­er­ing places to vis­it and things to do around the Sec­ond Life Grid. This time we vis­it the “Let It Snow!” region cre­at­ed by Mil­lie Sharple. More details can be found here. Tune in at noon or 4pm Pacific/SLT, 8pm or mid­night in the UK.

“Stand­ing Stones” by CZMJ is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Our friends at Sean­chai Library are well-known for their annu­al Dick­ens Project where they bring Vic­to­ri­an author Charles Dick­ens and his best-known work A Christ­mas Car­ol to life in Sec­ond Life.

It’s cur­rent­ly a fal­low year for the Project, but one of its cen­tral ele­ments — The Big Read, where a team of read­ers reads the entire book aloud from cov­er to cov­er — con­tin­ues undeterred.

The Big Read is today, Sun­day, Decem­ber 19th at Noon Pacific/SLT and it will take place at Sean­chai Library’s spe­cial­ly-craft­ed Sean­chai Win­ter Hol­i­day des­ti­na­tion in Nowhere­ville in Sec­ond Life.

For the 14th year, Sean­chai Library presents the full-meal-deal of A Christ­mas Car­ol — all the words from begin­ning to end (approx 3.5 hours). Fea­tur­ing: David Abbott, Cor­wyn Allen, Aoife Lore­field, Glo­ri­ana Maertens, Dub­h­na Rhi­adra, and Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er, live.

Today we present a pro­gramme of Light and Light Clas­si­cal music, sea­soned with a few sea­son­al tunes to encour­age the Christ­mas spirit.

And at noon or 4pm Pacific/SLT, 8pm or mid­night in the UK, don’t miss anoth­er chance to hear the lat­est episode of our pop­u­lar orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been”, which this time vis­its the “Let It Snow!” region by Mil­ly Sharple, and also pro­vides infor­ma­tion on some oth­er sea­son­al places to vis­it: details here. Plus “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every four hours from 4am Pacific.

The main image is by John Win­sch and is dat­ed 1913 and appears with thanks cour­tesy of The Old Design Shop