//YULEDTIDE.TRINKETRY//12.25

December, 2025 Newsletter

Let us discuss, briefly: Lego murders, Christmases past, spiced vodka, paranormal detectives, and candles lit for the dead.

This Newsletter discusses an ongoing serial. To read, visit the Table of Contents.

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GLIMSVALE GAZETTE

I took a nap. The precious few times that my laptop shuts with a creative work completed, I am overcome with a mighty sleep. Two short stories (one now published), and the time I wrote a 12,000 story in a day so that someone could have reading material for a flight.

And to my surprise, Chapter 10: Enter the Warrens produced the same exhaustion. It shouldn’t have, really, it was a chapter more shaped funny than the others. It was something I’d imagined doing for some time. But at the end of Year 1 on The Longest Game, it felt fitting to wrap it there and go to sleep.

Next year, we will resume the saga of Calumn and Effie— with some new surprises, in store. I will always be proud of what I’ve done in 2025, but it will have been the smallest year for the world of The Longest Game.

Thank you, really and truly, for reading.

- Benjamin Bagenski

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PROJECT UPDATES

Readers by now have survived the Warrens, and perhaps have perused the writings of Pious Mandible. Year 2 of TLG is going to get weirder, and I want to give a hint of some things in store. My ambitions are larger, but I’ll only promise what I know for sure can be delivered:

• A conclusion to the first book, BYZANTINE: Boardwalk Rhapsody.

• A reveal of the actual rules to the Byzantine’s game, which will show consistent throughout the project.

• A playable set of board game rules (not Byzantine— either Get Ghouley! or another game).

• A map of Glimsvale.

• A bonus story set in Glimsvale, 1800s— both to show the Jackrabbit who mapped his Warrens, and as a “teaser” for the novel in progress.

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THERE ARE THINGS ON THE SHELF.

And so, while I enjoy my December, I leave you with a few recommendations. I plan to feature this more, showcasing the other writers whose work I adore. I’ll begin, here, on Substack, with Vibes.

Look! Look at these beautiful idiots.

Vibes Detective Agency, by Alex Shifman, is the first serial I found here on the ol’ Substack Machine. Iz and Santi are a best friend duo who frequently argue about whether or not they’re solving paranormal mysteries. I’ve sat on this Newsletter a week or so because I was planning on recommending it, and knew I’d fall short on what to say. So I’ll just say this:

There are a few things in my life I sit on, keep it in a box, because I love it. I’ve purposefully only seen half the Ghibli films available, to date, because I knew tragedy inevitably lies ahead, and I want to leave some of those gifts unopened. I put off watching Wes Anderson for years, because I already knew his movies would be my favorite. Then I had a kid and yeah, Grand Budapest was.

That is to say, I’ve read through Case 1 twice now, once with my eyes and once with my ears, and feel the reluctance of beginning Case 2, because… the series is complete. You can binge it today, or— if your’e a coward like me— horde them like a dragon. I’m sure Alex and his metrics would just love that.

Also, the story is all very West Coast, which as a forest dweller from the North East, feels very guilty pleasure.

Vibes' Case Files

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CHRISTMAS, 2025

DAY 4: HOTDOGMAN

“Yeah, when I met my wife I said baby never make me choose between you and that hotdog lifestyle. She said— Marv, that doesn’t make any sense, if I hated the dog, I wouldn’t have married the hotdog man. I said— that’s sweet but you still gotta pay for that frankfurter, toots!”

Christmas Eve in my home is for the dead and the unseen. As every generation has done on the Polish end of my family, we put dead grass beneath the tablecloth, light a candle on an empty place-setting at the end of the table, and serve food when the youngest sees the first star in the sky. This year, we will be leaving a truce offering to the things that live beyond the arch by the chicken coop.

But there are many Christmases for those who love it. My family roots blended pagan yuletide and Catholic grandiosity into a ritual as beautiful as the snow. But Coca Cola commercials are their own quaint faith, and commercial Santa Claus is no stranger to our hearth. This year, I’ve turned my Lego Christmas village into a murder mystery for a few friends to solve, day by day.

Notes From The Damned

KRUPNIK (honey-spiced vodka)

• 2 cups sugar

• 1 split vanilla bean

• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

• 4 cloves

• 20 allspice berries

• 1 cinnamon stick, sundered

• 12 or so black peppercorns

• 1 1/2 cups honey

• orange zest

• 2 cups vodka

Dissolve the sugar with a few tablespoons of cold water, add to four cups of boiling water, and add your spices— the vanilla bean, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cinnamon stick and pepercorn. Reduce and simmer for five minutes.

Strain through a cheesecloth, or if you’re not cottage-core enough, a coffee filter. Add honey and orange zest, and heat this syruppy mixture until dissolved. Bring it to a boil then remove from the heat, and stir in the vodka.

Serve hot, cool, anything in between. Merry Christmas.