The DEADvent Calendar: Day 7

It's Day 7, and...what is going on here?

When Sadie checked the calendar this morning, she found the drawer open and empty, an empty white coffin right on the ground, and a ribbon connected to both, trailing away out of the room!

It looked like her letter might have been answered--someone had arrived to be their gift, but was hiding somewhere! I also told Sadie that gifts too big for the calendar may be found at the end of a ribbon...so she set to finding it!

The ribbon went all down the upstairs landing, and down the stairs!

It went some wacky places as it wound through the hall and living room.

Sadie got excited seeing it wrap behind the tree! Maybe there was a present in there!

But no. It went past!

It was leading to the fireplace, and...

...well, Sadie certainly didn't need the ribbon to tell her what her gift was!

A stocking was...hanged by the chimney with care!

Not the original loop; I replaced it!

Sadie grabbed the note first. Satan had responded!

"Sadie,

I CAN SEE YOU HAVE BEEN VERY NAUGHTY. THUS, I GRANT YOUR REQUEST. SHE IS THE MOST FRIGID DAUGHTER OF THE NINTH CIRCLE AND BEFOULS ******MAS LIKE NO OTHER. KEEP HER IN ILL COMPANY.

YOUR MASTER ETERNAL,

SATAN"

Inside the stocking was the missing chipboard and death certificate from that white coffin--but of course, only one doll had such a coffin! It's Nohell!

But which edition? Well, if you know, you already know, but Sadie didn't. The package inside the stocking began to rise.

And...boo!

It's the variant! The giveaway was the stocking--this was a (frankly incredible) bonus packed into the variant's coffin, and seeing the thing in person totally changed how I presented this gift. I couldn't not use it when I realized how big it was!

Nohell introduced herself to Sadie. She had lots of ideas for spoiling Christmas with her.

My initial plan was to have Nohell be the first-day present, right alongside the final-day present on top of the calendar, but I had her eBay page open and forgot to finalize the purchase until night, which I worried blew my chance of getting her on day 1, so I decided, in the likelihood she came later, that she could be my means for re-creating the "follow the ribbon" Advent presents my mom did, since I wouldn't be able to get her coffin into the calendar and I couldn't add it to the top late and break the flow or the numbering I wrote onto the doors. I think I made it look intentional, and being able to incorporate the story of Sadie using the LDD stationery gift to write a letter to Satan with Nohell as her gift worked out perfectly--including the timing of one gift between letter and Nohell making narrative sense (the letter wouldn't be received until the next gift was being dropped off) and timing absolutely perfectly with Nohell arriving just when she needed to on the day of the in-between gift. There really was no hope of her being a day-1 gift after all, but I like how it worked out. Regardless of when I got her, it was important that I placed her day as early as I could, since there wouldn't be much point enjoying something so specifically Christmasy after the 25th. She's best as scene-setting in the leadup. A full review of her should be posted soon!

I can still put her coffin on top of the calendar after the fact!

Things are looking grim for Sadie. With a friend by her side, the rest of DEADvent promises to be horrendous.

And that's just how she likes it.