So!

Stocking Stuffer 2025 was a mind-blowing event for me for a lot of reasons. We'll get to that in a few moments though. For now though, as is a Stocking Stuffer tradition at this point, let's compare this year's submission count with past years!

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2016: It was just me updating, so 7 entries!
2017: 18 entries!
2018: 19 entries!
2019: 21 entries!
2020: 38 entries!
2021: 33 entries!
2022: 64 entries!
2023: 55 entries!
2024: 48 entries!
2025: 111 entries?!?

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Four hells and wet fur, I've been doing Stocking Stuffer events for nine whole years. I've been doing this for almost as long as I've been with my current employer in the real world. If another one happens next year, I'll have been doing this for TEN. FRIGGING. YEARS.

Do I have any regrets?

Not even in the slightest! I enjoy sharing things I create with others, be it stories or food or computer programs or whatnot.

That being said, I'll admit that it has always been a struggle to keep track of everything. This isn't a regret, more an observation. I really do need to find a way to make keeping track of everything easier for myself somehow, one of these days.

Why did you start doing Stocking Stuffers in the first place?

Wait, when did this become a Frequently Asked Questions segment?!? Well, I'll answer anyway, despite my confusion. I started this just for myself, really. I thought it'd be a fun event to do back in 2016, when I was relatively unknown in the furry community. Just a fun little challenge to motivate myself to write a lot for a thing that no one would probably notice or be disappointed by if I failed. But the deadline helped. It helped me to know, even if I was the only one who cared, that I was going to do my own little holiday gift to anyone who ever read or cared about my stories.

At some point in 2017 I decided to start making it something more social. I'd always loved the idea of "Hypnobear Week" when I saw it on FA, and always wanted to join in, but I rarely was able to due to real life circumstances. But it seemed so fun, like a community collaborative effort to give people something new to enjoy. So I thought... why not try to do something like that? It didn't matter if it was only me doing it or if more people really DID decide to join in, it was just fun to try and create a new holiday tradition.

Why do you promote other creatives?

At some point along the way I came up with the idea of using it, once some people started paying attention, as a way to promote other creatives. I always wanted Stocking Stuffer events to be a Christmas/Haunakkah/Kwanzaa/Holiday gift to the Furry Community that I felt I felt into, and I've always loved the Christmas Season. I love having an excuse to give gifts to people! Not that I need an excuse, but still... Christmas for me was always a time where you showed how much you cared about other people by setting aside time out of your life to think about things they would want, and to reach out to them and try to show them you cared. So... I wanted to show the furry community that I cared about it. Promoting people and trying to get more attention to cool stuff they were drawing/writing/doing seemed like a natural extension of that, and I'm always happy when I hear someone checked out something new they'd never known about because of a Stocking Stuffer event.

Plus it lets me say nice stuff about people I care about, which I think we all need to do more. Most of the people I know in my life IRL are very critical of themselves, harsh and mean exclusively to themselves. I'm, uh, kinda like that myself. I have always had... well, I don't know if you'd call it depression, but just a voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm never good enough: That anything I do I could do better, put more time or thought into, that I don't deserve what I have, that other people around me are better than me, stuff like that. I don't like that voice and I try not to feed it. At one point in my life I went into a depressive spiral because of that fucking voice. So... I don't want to ever feed someone else's version of that voice. I can be critical of a story when I'm asked to edit it and I choose to do so, but even if something someone writes is just terribly written, I like to find something to say about it. And I like to find ways to prop other people up. So even if I'm just being a Cheerleader with Stocking Stuffers, and not really getting other creatives more attention like I hope I am, I want to keep doing that, keep being encouraging, keep helping people see how wonderful they are when they try to make something.

Aren't you oversharing juuuuust a tad much?

Y-yeah, probably. Sorry about that! Let's get back on point.

What are your thoughts on how Stocking Stuffer 2025 played out?

I... was honestly floored by how many people joined in this year. Like... I usually try to start promoting the event in early November, and by the end of November 202 I wasn't even sure if I wanted to DO a Stocking Stuffer this year! Not because I didn't want to, but because I haven't written a lot this year, didn't really accomplish much of what I set out to do at the start of 2025 (writing-wise), felt like I was in a creative slump, and I didn't want to only post up stuff I'd commissioned from others. Also, I felt tired and like my life was so busy and I wasn't even sure if anyone would be interested in Stocking Stuffer 2025. I think what finally convinced me to do it was a few friends of mine talking about wanting to participate this year within metaphorical earshot of me. Hearing that someone else wanted to do it motivated me to want to do it.

I got that Christmas Spirit again.

But I didn't really think it was going to be a big event this year. I was starting late, both on writing stuff for the event and on promoting it to other people. And I've always worried I'm kind of forgettable as a person, someone who has to fight to be noticed or thought of by others. So hearing people commenting on the Announcement Journal that they'd been waiting for it was eye-opening. And I've often in past years reached out to creators I respect privately or group chats in Telegram like The Purple Crayon where writers and artists gather and informed them of the event, hoping they'd join in, but never expecting them to. This year? A lot of my cold-calling actually WORKED. Creators whom I've kind of idolized for a while, like BigBearBruno, TiranMaster, ChampTehOtter and Draconicon, all joined in (Champ in particularly was amazingly prolific!) and other creators I only discovered this year like fitzjolt, Spiralcloud, Jamage, Anynomus101, Ari Thame, and Pawggers also joined in the fun for the first time. We had a lot of people uploading more than one thing, including the true Stocking Stuffer Champion, Arbanis. Some cool people like C-O1L joined in because friends of theirs like Eliza the Plush Empress spread the word to them, growing the event by word of mouth like I always hoped it would. We even had the return of some really noteworthy participants from the past (For me at least) like Tundrafloof, Vorean Vilris, shiftshaper, and Leonine Lark!

And through it all... I had people thanking me for organizing the event, or telling me that they thought it was cool I was organizing the community or trying to cross-promote our works, and it's just-

I- I-

I'm actually tearing up a bit. I don't usually feel like people notice me that much. Whether it's true or not it's a negative self-image I've built up in my head that often needs to be dispelled. So... yeah, Stocking Stuffer 2025 felt like a miracle to me. Just a perfect storm of everything I'd ever hoped it could be, all happening at once. All I ever expected it to be was this silly little arbitrary gift I wanted to give to the community I loved for a few years. I hoped it might become more, but I never thought it would.

This year, a year I felt rushed in my own personal writings and which I started late promoting... exceeded all my expectations and then some. It smashed them just like we all smashed the record for most submissions, previously set in 2022. I thought this event hit its PEAK in 2022 and that peak is now a glass ceiling shattered and on the ground beneath our mighty footpaws, hooves, feet, whatever you have.

I don't know if any future Stocking Stuffer could ever top this one. At least for me personally. This was just... amazing. But, then, I'm always pessimistic about stuff I start, and whenever I'm wrong it's a wonderful surprise.

And even if next year doesn't top this one... it's still a worthy effort, because it means making people like all of you smile. Even if I was the only one doing it next year? Even if I only made one person smile?

It would still feel like a worthy effort.

Truly... I just want to say thank you. To all of you: Everyone who uploaded something, to everyone who commented on something, to everyone who told their friends about the event, or even if you just read or looked at something Stocking Stuffer 2025-related and favorited it.

Thank you for making this event special. I think it'd be special even if I wasn't involved. But thank you for making ME feel as wonderful and amazing as you all did, too.

And a special thank you to my friend Vorean Vilris, for helping motivate me to write all December and giving me the kick in the pants I needed to make my part in this happen.

Another one for my friends shiftshaper and TiranMaster, for being excited about the event when I wasn't feeling that jazzed about it, and giving me the desire to make it happen this year.

And if you didn't get a mention here in this journal? It's not because I don't care about you. Every one of you is amazing.

I just am running out of time to write this.

So thank you.

Thank you all. <3

I hope to see you at Stocking Stuffer 2026!

Posted using PostyBirb