Handling Holidays!!!

[ChrisColeman]

Hey guys

I'm planning my season 2 and I want to add holidays. So guys what is the best way to incorporate the holidays in webseries?

[kellyzollo]

I don't go holiday's I suck at them. I suck at big parties of any kind shape or form. I think the last time I did a huge cast wide party with them was with the rehearsal dinner episode and then the wedding episode. I think the only holiday one I semi incorporated was the New Year's episode, which happened to just go along with when I wrote it at the time.

I'm not a huge fan of the holidays in writing them. Could be that I don't really plan my series around them, I like to focus more on the characters and their storylines opposed to worrying about when the next holiday is coming. I know other producers do an excellent job with adding them it, it just has never really been a huge thing to me or something I focus on.

Kelly

[Dallas]

I think it's important that if you do one holiday, you do it every year. So for example, it's easy to write in Christmas and New Years.

The other ones, I think are harder because your series is always at a different place (at least mine is). I think they are a great way for you to build your community though on a series. Holidays canbe fun and larger gatherings, which can be fan favorites. I love large events where the entire cast is in one spot.

I would check out Spencer Street's New Year's Eve episode for guidence. Footprints also did well on the Christmas episode this past year. I did one too if you wanted to read that as well.

[ChrisColeman]

Dallas I will take a look at the suggested material to read. I've started to get into reading webseries!(I blame Kelly for this new addiction). I think you're correct whatever Holiday I do it has to be a tradition. I still remember the Quartermaines Thanksgivings.

[Allan]

I tend to avoid holidays since I write so far ahead without a strong idea of when things will 'air'. I will occasionally throw in a few references to the time of year in a last minute edit but overall, they don't happen in Oakridge. I did do a Christmas episode once that I really loved, and it's something I really want to do again.

[Pat]

I like most of the others here, don't do holidays. I have in the past, and I enjoy them, its that I plan well in advance, and I normally don't go and plan on specific dates as to when the episodes will be out.

If you want to do holidays, I second Dallas' and suggest making it an event every season/year.

[Ty Junior]

In the first year, when MOOL was daily, I had a holiday-themed episode around December.  It was fun, and I don't mind them as long as they match up with my time table on where the series is.  While I agree that it makes the series more intimate to match up holiday goodness as it corresponds to our witnessing of them in the real world, it should exist to further story and conflict.  Doing the episode every year just to settle a proverbial checklist does not always result in a meaningful holiday episode, especially when it depicts an inaccurate picture of how things really exist and disrupts the plot.   I think you can incorporate it in big ways, like Dallas indicated with some of his samples, or just by having characters consciously aware that the time in which the events in their lives happen to be  transpiring is around thanksgiving or st. patrick's day.  As long as it entertains and furthers story, it should not be a problem. 

[bexeth]

While writing BCD, I always incorporated holidays into the story. I really enjoyed writing them too. But with this work, since it's all taking place over the span of just a few weeks, in a time of year when there aren't that many holidays, it's a little more difficult. I did the Christmas interlude (the first interlude) to basically tie it back into the season, because I enjoyed the holiday episodes in BCD so much.