Thanks to everyone who participated and helped out with those who wrote for the contest :D I've finished reading, and judging the entries, and I feel confident in naming off the top placer and the subsequent winners.

Without further delay, allow me to give you our winner for the Balloon Ponies contest,

Night of the Krampus

By Wise Cracker

A whopping 5700+ words of story goodness, we have the tale of the Krampus, a deerlike fellow who is a European tradition, played by the inimitable Discord, who is in character as the cunning-yet-somewhat-oblivious jokester he is. I had an instant grab on this story, the worldbuilding was right for the holiday's inclusion to the Equestrian calendar, and while the Luna/Discord interaction feels a little pressed, it was executed in a manner that portrayed the spirit of the holidays quite well. The theme carried out well into the transformation scene, which I thought was quite interesting imagery, in fact, and it got me to shiver a bit with delight as the changes were brought to a close.

The introduction of a new species/character world is different, and while it feels genuine, it might seem a bit odd that Tobias can talk with the toy ponies, a la Rudolph. It worked for the purposes it was trying to attain, but it threw me off, certainly after such a great transformation. I was thinking it would be more like one of the other entries' ideas, where the other parties are oblivious to the TF'd pony's plight, but it was refreshingly different. Worth a read if you've got time for six thousand words of holiday goodness. I still see snow out there! It counts :V

Many congratulations to you, Wise :D

Coming up in a second-place finish, we have..

To remember

This decision was a tough one D: I had to re-read the last two a few times again to really see which one embodied the feelings of the holiday in them, and To remember takes away the clearest resolution of the two. In a short, SoL fic about Twilight and everyone's favorite filly's toy, SoothingCoffee covers the ideas that we should remember those we've since forgotten in our memories and cherish them once more, perhaps bring them back into your life. It doesn't need to be a holiday, even, only when you're feeling lonely. A fine holiday lesson, if I do say so myself.

The transformation was...weird, but interesting in how they took the prompt: turning an unassuming balloon into a pony :0 That's something cool, and creativity is pretty awesome, in my opinion. What followed was a bit of fluff between Smarty Pants and Twilight, who, for some reason, becomes a filly for a scene, ending with Twilight promising to keep Smarty closer in memory, and a certain large stallion receiving a nighttime visitor.

Throughout, the prose is a bit stunted, I'd toss a guess that Coffee isn't naturally an English speaker, but it worked in their favor this time :D It might sound odd at some phrases, but they do make comedic jabs at fandom tropes and ideals here and there, and it's quite the laugh-inducer. I particularly like the grey-area jabs :3 Very subtle, yet hilarious.

If you don't mind the prose and grammatical irks, it'll be a worthy read, something different, at that :V Congrats, SC :D

And finally:

Rainbow Squeaker Dash -- Mature, no link. It's in the folder :V

An interesting, yet resolution-less, it seems, tale about Rainbow Dash becoming a chew toy. I swear I've seen that exact thing somewhere, one with Fluttershy and Dash instead of just Dash. This one was interesting in how they used the connotation of the transformation, that it provided Dash with pleasure to be used as the toy she became. It touched on mental change as well, though temporary. It's a bit stilted, like Coffee's fic, but could use an edit pass as well. I would have liked to see the actual transformation Dash goes through, or the revert, but as it stands, it's completed. The transformation happens through a scene break, and while left up to the imagination, leaves out a big part of the purpose of the fic. The lesson was slightly unclear, with Dash reverting a mere paragraph before the end of the fic, but at the beginning, Dash insults Fluttershy's pets, and Discord decides to intervene. It makes for the change, but Dash doesn't really learn much, besides the wonderful feelings of air rushing out of her squeaky body, which is an idea I want to work with eventually. It's interesting >.>

It had a bit of a terror moment near the end, but Dash pulled through just fine. I would love to see this expanded and worked on more, the idea has potential :D Nice effort, Zubric :D

All three participants and their fics were a delight to meet/read, and I hope they've enjoyed themselves writing and reading the results of their labors :B I'd like to thank everyone who blogged about the contest and promoted it, and everyone who participated for making it a (relative) success

I'll be PM'ing you about prizes soon. Thanks again for reading, everyone, and I hope you'll join us again sometime (with a more freeform contest :B I promise.)

Stay inflated :3
~Dash The Stampede

while the Luna/Discord interaction feels a little pressed

You have no idea... I did say I cut into the thing before submitting.

The introduction of a new species/character world is different, and while it feels genuine, it might seem a bit odd that Tobias can talk with the toy ponies, a la Rudolph

The major shift in location was to justify anyone getting pony-shaped toys. We don't have human-shaped pooltoys, no reason to think the same doesn't hold true for ponies. And reindeer fit the season. The issue with the talking to toys was I had to characterise the species right away and clearly show they had their own magic, and do it without being too telly. But more than that, I wanted at least one 'yeah, there's magic in the world, what makes you think I don't have any?' moment with Tobias. Also, couldn't have the bonding without that, obviously. I actually haven't seen any Rudolph movies, just reviews of them, but I kind of forgot Rudolph could do that. Maybe I absorbed it through osmosis or something. And one of the things that got cut was a remark on how reindeer are so frequently misrepresented as basically mice with hooves, which is something all of those movies do. Another little reference to the Niko movies, which do not. Can you tell I'm a fanboy for them?

It was a lot of fun to write Discord again. Between this and Necro-Semantics, I think he's starting to grow on me... not sure if I should be scared of that. I am going to have to write a proper story for this group sometime, though, one where I take my time to get the kinks out of the story (or in, as 'twere).

hehe yeah, skipping the tranformation of a TF fic, my bad. I'm sure if I had been more focused i could have thought of a lession fo dash but i was too focused on that chew toy part. Hell i wrote that part first.

3988534 Well it's not like Twilight really transformed into a filly. Her mentality did. Just like when you watched that little show you used to watch as a kid as an adult, or when you reminisced a time your parents didn't whip you with a plenty variety of sticks... Nostalgia! That's the word.