Sunday Bookends: Getting into the Christmas spirit already

/ Lisa R. Howeler

Welcome to my Sunday Morning Chat where I ramble about what’s been going on in my world, what the rest of the family and I have been reading, watching, listening to, and what I’ve been writing.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

The Christmas spirit is already on its way, even though I wasn’t sure I was ready for it. Yesterday the kids decorated the tree, and we chose some Christmas movies to watch later in the month – they didn’t seem to watch them yesterday so I watched The Man Who Invented A Christmas again to get in the Christmas mood.

While we decorated The Husband was performing in a radio play of It’s A Wonderful Life, which we will see the second showing of today.

He’s been rehearsing for the play for the last couple of months and been having a blast. We didn’t go last night because he had to go two hours early and we didn’t want to wait while he got ready, but today we will go with my dad to see it. I thought it was too cold for my mom to come out so I suggested she stay home. We are supposed to have a high of 26 today and yesterday we had a windchill of 13 so I doubt today will be any better.

Last week we had a nice, small Thanksgiving with my parents. My sister-in-law has been facing some health issues so she and my brother stayed home. She is improving but traveling was not really in her best interest this year.

The Husband and I made dinner and took it there. After dinner, we played charades at the urging of Little Miss (who enjoys playing games) and watched part of a movie together. On Friday it was grocery pick-up time for me and yesterday it was staying inside keeping the fire going to cut down on the heating oil costs because it was so cold outside.

This upcoming week I only have one event which I may or may not go to, depending on how we feel and how much we want to brave the cold.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I am reading quite slowly right now so I am still reading Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood and also A Quilt for Christmas by Melody Carlson, which I started yesterday and was pulled right into.

I think I’ll finish A Quilt for Christmas this week since it is very short and cozy at 171 pages long.

Death to Marlow is moving along briskly as well, but I read that mainly at night.

I have borrowed Christy by Catherine Marshall from Libby again since I ran out of time to read it before it had to be returned, but I have a feeling it will go back again – not because it isn’t good. I am enjoying it very much, but I like taking my time with it. I am going to look for a used copy of it to read over the winter.

I am also reading and listening to The Hound of The Baskerville’s by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with The Boy for British Literature.

This past week I finished The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene and left a review HERE.

After I finish the two books mentioned above, and continue Christy, I hope to read Lynn Austin’s Christmas book The Wish Book Christmas and Toni Shiloh’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas. I’m not a huge romance fan so I’ll see if I make it through Shiloh’s book. I know she’s a good writer so if I do set t aside it won’t be because of that. It’s just because some romances aren’t my “thing.”

Little Miss and I have been reading And Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright at night. Last Sunday she read Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets for three straight hours at my parents, taking breaks only for some lunch, a snack of whip cream, and getting a drink. This week she hasn’t read as much but instead we’ve been listening to The Greatest Christmas Pageant ever and then started Caddie Woodlawn again the other night because it’s a favorite of hers.

The Boy is reading The Hound of the Baskerville’s with me, as I mentioned above.

The Husband is reading, but he’s at the play as I am writing this and I might forget to ask him before I hit publish so if I do, I’ll i

What I’ve Been Writing

This past week on the blog I shared:

Comfy, Cozy Christmas

Once again this year Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I are going to be sharing Christmas-themed posts in a link up that you can find at a link at the top of my page. Up there where it says, Home, About, My Books, etc. etc. The link is on a page and you can add your Christmas-themed links from now to January 2!

Erin does such a good job with the graphics for these events. This year she featured our pets in the graphic. It’s so cute and … well, comfy and cozy. Ha!

What We’ve Been Watching

Last week I watched a lot of Murder She Wrote. I write about the show from time to time but I really haven’t seen a lot of the episodes so it’s been interesting to watch through them and either giggle at some of the silliness or get wrapped up in the mysteries – which actually hold together pretty well.

I also watched some of my farmer show on YouTube – Just A Few Acres Farm. One video was just him riding on a tractor with no other sounds and it was seriously the most relaxing thing I’ve seen in a while. I did write some and build the fire while watching but it was very calming somehow. My Sunday morning routine is watching the sermon online with The Husband and then watching Just A Few Acres to try to ease into my day.

Later in the week I watched a show called Now Hear This With Scott Yoo and yesterday I watched a documentary on Leonardo Da Vinci.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

|| November Reflections by Stray Thoughts ||

|| Stocking Fillers 2024 Gift Guide by Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs ||


Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

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22 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: Getting into the Christmas spirit already”

  1. Pingback: Sunday Chat: Bitter cold, snowy weather, the insane prices of streaming services, and a mix of books to read – Boondock Ramblings

  3. Lisa, it is always rewarding to see what is happening in your world. My wife and I will begin our home’s Christmas transformation later this week. We tend to leave everything in place as the calendar moves into a new year.

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  4. I’ve been binging all the baking competition shows I can find, lol… but I’m super picky about the judges – so if I stumble across one with a judge I don’t like, I skip it 🙃

    Also starting to get in the Christmas movie mode: I rewatched Little Women (2019) on Thanksgiving Night, and hit my first Hallmark movie last night – A Biltmore Christmas. I anticipate many more in my future 🙂

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  6. Isn’t this weather crazy? We had such a nice long fall (for once), and then, BAM! It’s winter! Today, I had to be up early because I was playing handbells at church. After I got home and had everything done, Mike and I crawled into the bed with the adjustable base, the heating blanket, and turned on the tv. Needless to say, we were both asleep soon after! I started reading an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe. I think I’m going to skip around rather than read it all. It’s interesting to see how the stories lined up with the show we recently watched, The Fall of the House of Usher.

    This week will be more of the same…physical therapy visits and trying to decorate the house (well, that’s not the same). Just more adulting here!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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  8. I usually do more Christmas watching than reading because that way I can craft while doing that (audiobooks are not for me), but I might pull out my favorite Christmas read again soon.
    Your mentioning The Hound of the Baskervilles – I love Sherlock Holmes – reminded me the short story “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” will be a perfect season re-read, too.

    Cat
    https://catswire.blogspot.com/

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  9. I’m starting with The Marlow Murder Club, the first in that series, and it’s ready for pick up at my library! I also must admit I generally prefer books by women, but there are exceptions!

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    • I like books by women if women are the main characters but I was very suprised by how well Thorogood writes women. I didn’t even think about the fact a man was writing it. I’m on book two and enjoying it. Is the first perfect? Nope…a bit of a long exposition of the crime I feel BUT I was so in love with the charactere I didn’t care.

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    • I did not explain cozy, comfy Christmas very well here but it is for any subject related to the holiday or Christmas season. From the page where I have the link up for this year: “From now until January 2nd, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be sharing all of our cozy holiday posts, about movies, gift guides, baking, books, and other surprises we may have in our stockings!” So it does not just have to be books and definitely not just cozy mystery reads. I just read a lot of cozy mysteries, though I do read less of those during Christmas. I was a communication major in college. Can you tell? *snort*

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  11. It sounds like you’ve had a nice, eventful week. Congratulations to your husband!

    Novella’s are the best for breaking up longer reads and clearing your mind.I have watched quite a bit of Murder She Wrote. My husband loves them so I tend to watch with him.

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    • My husband was the one who always watched Murder She Wrote and used to have me watch it. I remember my grandmother watching it when I was young but I don’t remember any of the episodes. I decided I would start watching Murder She Wrote on my own just recently and now I can’t stop – it’s a lot more fun to watch with him because we like to make a little fun at some of the ridiculous parts of the show (like “why does someone die everywhere Jessica goes???” or “How many nieces and nephews does this woman even have?!” — even though we like it.

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  12. You definitely are in the spirit! We got so caught up in putting up the tree today that I completely missed church. It is nice to have Christmas vibes throughout the house.

    Hound of the Baskervilles is another classic that I never expected to like so much. I’m not good with mysteries, and I typically don’t like books by men as well as I do women, but still…good read.

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    • It’s so interesting you would comment about liking books by women more than women since Claudia also commented that above. Before both of your comments I never really thought about it much but I do tend to read more books by women than men. There are some male authors I really do enjoy and read but most of the authors I prefer are women.

      I am a huge mystery fan, as you can tell from my blog, but in December I tend to read lighter books or romances and looking back at my list of books read last year I actually read quite a few books that weren’t mysteries.

      A familly member recently recommended a historical ficition book to me and I think I may add more historical fiction and a couple non-fiction books to my line up for 2025.

      Happy reading this week and hopefully you have a good week beyond reading too.

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