Assignments Out for Yuletide 2026
Oct. 25th, 2026 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuletidemods posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
yuletide_adminAssignments are out! You can find your assignment:
You must write for one of your recipient's requests, including all of the characters they specified in that request (but see below). It doesn't have to be the fandom you offered.
Some recipients have selected several characters, but given permission for writers not to include them all using the Additional Tags checkboxes (the ones that start "My gift must…"). Please check through mods if you're not completely sure what your recipient means. You always have the option of including all the characters your recipient selected.
Your assignment is due at 9pm UTC on December 17. Note that this is the same deadline as 2025 but an earlier deadline as compared to previous years and may be one calendar day earlier in your timezone.
Please click on that link right now! The date and time it shows may surprise you. Better to be surprised now than at the deadline!
Our reveals are earlier again this year as well - though there is an extra day between main collection reveals and madness reveals.
Keep Mum! Assignments are secret
This is a secret exchange. Please don’t announce or hint what your assignment is. Don't say what you offered. Don’t reveal to your recipient who you are or what you plan to write for them. In fact, please don’t contact your recipient at all! You can send questions through the mods at yuletideadmin@gmail.com.
I have questions!!
Right! Send us an email at yuletideadmin@gmail.com, or, if your question won't give away what you offered or who you're writing for, you're welcome to comment here. We get tonnes of questions at this time, so please bear with us - it may take us a few days to reply.
As we did last year, we plan to include a few questions for a few fandoms each time we contact a recipient, but we won’t necessarily include decoy questions for every single fandom. This may give the recipient a clue as to which fandoms they’re more likely to receive but should preserve some of the suspense!
Please don't ask us to poke your recipient to update a locked or placeholder letter until at least October 29.
When you send us a question about your assignment, please include your assignment link, which looks like: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2026/assignments/#######
Some of your questions may be answered by coming posts, for example when we reveal all requests. Please keep an eye on our admin community!
Pinch hits and all requests
The first batch of pinch hits will go out in the next day. After those pinch hits are claimed, likely within the next few days, we will make all requests visible and open the Yuletide Madness collection.
Check out the pinch hit community,yuletide_pinch_hits, and sign up through Discord, a feed, or the Google groups mailing list to get immediate alerts for pinch hits. You don't have to be signed up to this year's round of Yuletide to claim a pinch hit.
The New Year's Resolutions 2026 collection is now closed.
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
- at your assignments page: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOUR-USERNAME-HERE/assignments
- at the sidebar of the collection
- in your email.
You must write for one of your recipient's requests, including all of the characters they specified in that request (but see below). It doesn't have to be the fandom you offered.
Some recipients have selected several characters, but given permission for writers not to include them all using the Additional Tags checkboxes (the ones that start "My gift must…"). Please check through mods if you're not completely sure what your recipient means. You always have the option of including all the characters your recipient selected.
Your assignment is due at 9pm UTC on December 17. Note that this is the same deadline as 2025 but an earlier deadline as compared to previous years and may be one calendar day earlier in your timezone.
Please click on that link right now! The date and time it shows may surprise you. Better to be surprised now than at the deadline!
Our reveals are earlier again this year as well - though there is an extra day between main collection reveals and madness reveals.
Keep Mum! Assignments are secret
This is a secret exchange. Please don’t announce or hint what your assignment is. Don't say what you offered. Don’t reveal to your recipient who you are or what you plan to write for them. In fact, please don’t contact your recipient at all! You can send questions through the mods at yuletideadmin@gmail.com.
I have questions!!
Right! Send us an email at yuletideadmin@gmail.com, or, if your question won't give away what you offered or who you're writing for, you're welcome to comment here. We get tonnes of questions at this time, so please bear with us - it may take us a few days to reply.
As we did last year, we plan to include a few questions for a few fandoms each time we contact a recipient, but we won’t necessarily include decoy questions for every single fandom. This may give the recipient a clue as to which fandoms they’re more likely to receive but should preserve some of the suspense!
Please don't ask us to poke your recipient to update a locked or placeholder letter until at least October 29.
When you send us a question about your assignment, please include your assignment link, which looks like: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2026/assignments/#######
Some of your questions may be answered by coming posts, for example when we reveal all requests. Please keep an eye on our admin community!
Pinch hits and all requests
The first batch of pinch hits will go out in the next day. After those pinch hits are claimed, likely within the next few days, we will make all requests visible and open the Yuletide Madness collection.
Check out the pinch hit community,
yuletide_pinch_hits, and sign up through Discord, a feed, or the Google groups mailing list to get immediate alerts for pinch hits. You don't have to be signed up to this year's round of Yuletide to claim a pinch hit.The New Year's Resolutions 2026 collection is now closed.
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
2026 Sign-Ups Closed - What Next
Oct. 24th, 2026 10:12 amyuletidemods posting in yuletide_adminSign-ups for this year's event are now closed, with 1227 sign-ups (3 more than last year). Welcome to everyone who's joined us for Yuletide 2026!
The Avoid Matching request form will remain open for 12 hours for last-minute edits to your Do-Not-Match requests.
What will mods do now?
- Run matching.
- Contact participants who have no possible recipients, or where there's another matter to discuss.
- Update you on when assignments are likely to go out.
If we need to contact you, we'll use the email account associated with your AO3 account. (You can find it at Preferences -> Edit Profile -> Change Email.) We may also use this account later in Yuletide - for example, if your author has a question for you. Please check that you can access this email!
What should you do now?
Congratulations to everyone who posted a story to the 2026 New Year's Resolutions collection, either as requested by mods or just because you wanted to fill a prompt. The collection will be open for roughly one more day, until we send out assignments - if you're planning to post, post soon! The NYR 2027 collection will open on January 1.
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
The Avoid Matching request form will remain open for 12 hours for last-minute edits to your Do-Not-Match requests.
What will mods do now?
- Run matching.
- Contact participants who have no possible recipients, or where there's another matter to discuss.
- Update you on when assignments are likely to go out.
If we need to contact you, we'll use the email account associated with your AO3 account. (You can find it at Preferences -> Edit Profile -> Change Email.) We may also use this account later in Yuletide - for example, if your author has a question for you. Please check that you can access this email!
What should you do now?
- Check and edit any letter you may have linked in your sign-up (please ensure it's complete by end of October 29th AT THE VERY LATEST, and consider adding it to the app and to the comments at the letters post). (If you didn't link your letter in your sign-up, it's too late now. Trust in your author!)
- Please check your letter is accessible - log out of the platform where you have posted it and check that you can still view it, or ask a friend to. Tumblr in particular may cause issues with this and may require you to change your settings.
- Keep quiet about what you've offered: Yuletide is anonymous until reveals.
- Check that you can access the email associated with your AO3 account.
- Check out the pinch hit community, yuletide_pinch_hits, and sign up through Discord, a feed, or the Google groups mailing list to get immediate alerts for pinch hits. You don't have to be signed up to this year's round of Yuletide to claim a pinch hit.
- Browse the promo post or even add a promotion.
- Check that you're happy with your AO3 settings for treats / unassigned gifts - see an older post for more information. If your account is new, treats may be disabled.
- Look forward to your assignments!
Congratulations to everyone who posted a story to the 2026 New Year's Resolutions collection, either as requested by mods or just because you wanted to fill a prompt. The collection will be open for roughly one more day, until we send out assignments - if you're planning to post, post soon! The NYR 2027 collection will open on January 1.
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
Last Day to Sign Up to Yuletide 2026
Oct. 23rd, 2026 09:56 amyuletidemods posting in yuletide_adminSign-up instructions
AO3 collection, home of the sign-up form
Letters post
Countdown to Sign-Ups Closing
Some notes/reminders:
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
AO3 collection, home of the sign-up form
Letters post
Some notes/reminders:
- If you don't select characters in a request, it's your author's choice which character or characters to include from the tag set. Please don't say you want a particular character more than others when you have not selected character tags.
- Please check that the additional tag you've selected makes sense for the characters you've selected. For example, "One or more characters (giver's choice)" doesn't make sense if you select several characters and you really want at least two to interact.
- Please check you can access the email associated with your AO3 account. Mods may use this to reach out to you with questions.
- If you are in the queue to get an AO3 account, reach out to mods directly (yuletideadmin@gmail.com)! We can help you with an invitation to AO3.
- If you plan to write a letter at a location other than AO3 (Tumblr, Dreamwidth, Ellipsus, etc), please make sure the link is in your sign-up. Letters are optional. You don't have to write a letter. But deciding to link a letter later is not an option!
- If you are open to treats, feel free to say so - it isn't greedy! It's just letting people know that you haven't disabled the treat setting.
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
Last Four Days to Sign Up
Oct. 19th, 2026 01:55 pmyuletidemods posting in yuletide_adminYuletide 2026 sign-ups continue!! They close at 9pm UTC on Friday 23 October.
SEE COUNTDOWN
Some housekeeping
In the Assignments section of the AO3 FAQ, we've clarified our guidelines on unusual formats, such as poetry and interactive fiction. Those formats are opt-in - so if you're excited to get them, please mention them in your likes.
We've also expanded the Rules section to include standards that the mod team promises to uphold. These aren't new policies - however, it seems fair and reasonable that we should be transparent about our own guidelines while setting guidelines for participants.
If you don't have an AO3 account and you want to sign up, please email yuletideadmin@gmail.com directly! We have some invite codes to send out & you otherwise won't get through the invite queue in time.
If you're writing an OPTIONAL letter, please link it in the sign-up form, please ensure it's published in an accessible format (tips welcome in comments), and please ensure it's complete immediately after assignments go out. When you complete a letter, consider adding it to the letters post.
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
Some housekeeping
In the Assignments section of the AO3 FAQ, we've clarified our guidelines on unusual formats, such as poetry and interactive fiction. Those formats are opt-in - so if you're excited to get them, please mention them in your likes.
We've also expanded the Rules section to include standards that the mod team promises to uphold. These aren't new policies - however, it seems fair and reasonable that we should be transparent about our own guidelines while setting guidelines for participants.
If you don't have an AO3 account and you want to sign up, please email yuletideadmin@gmail.com directly! We have some invite codes to send out & you otherwise won't get through the invite queue in time.
If you're writing an OPTIONAL letter, please link it in the sign-up form, please ensure it's published in an accessible format (tips welcome in comments), and please ensure it's complete immediately after assignments go out. When you complete a letter, consider adding it to the letters post.
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.