Christmas

Sunday Bookends: wrapping up Christmas — but not right away, family outings, mystery books, and

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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


What’s Been Occurring

Welcome to my last Sunday Bookends for 2023. Crazy, isn’t it? Tomorrow it will be 2024.

2023 flew by for us in some ways and dragged in others.

This past week we ended the year with a lot of family time.

It was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents and two family days and a lot of relaxing together and watching movies.

Today and tomorrow will be more relaxing and then it will be back to school for the kids and I on Tuesday.

I wrote a bit about our last week in my post yesterday if you would like to catch up.

I was watching a video by Darling Desi on YouTube yesterday and she talked about how many years ago in our country we used to celebrate the Christmas season until January 6 and that we should give ourselves permission to do that if we want to. So this week I’m giving myself permission to continue celebrating Christmas with Christmas movies and books that I didn’t get to in the month of December.

I started watching It’s A Wonderful Life last night so I can watch some of my favorite scenes and before bed I read from a vintage Christmas book.

What I’m/We’re Reading

I didn’t read a ton on my break but I did read some. I finished Christmas in Abasorka County by Craig Johnson and made progress on Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin.

The one by Craig Johnson is a small collection of short stories featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire from his Longmire Mysteries series.

 I should have Southern Snow finished this week. I am not taking so long to read it because it is bad. I just stopped reading it to read some other Christmassy-themed books like the collection of vintage Christmas stories, the Johnson one, and a few chapters of Little Women, which I am making my way through slowly. Southern Snow does feature Christmas but I believe it can be read any time of the year.

Early last week I started an ARC by Kristen Perrin called How To Solve Your Own Murder and I was hooked and am blazing through it.

 For those who like clean reads – this is clean so far but I’m only on chapter 10. There has been one swear word and it could get worse as things get intense, but I’m not sure. In other words, if you usually read Christian or clean fiction like me – just be warned that this is not listed in those categories.

I’ve also started Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson, which is another ARC read. The book releases February 6.

In January I’m focusing on cozy like I did in December so I hope to read some more cozy mysteries, including The Cat Who Went Into The Closet which my husband ordered for me and a couple of Nancy Drew books.

I’m also reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens with The Boy for English.

Little Miss and I have been listening to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever but I’m trying to get her to let me read her The Borrowers at night before bed.

We will be back to reading a history-related book for school on Tuesday, but I’m not sure which one yet.

The Husband is reading John Connolly books because Connolly has just put up his entire catalog on Kindle Unlimited. If that isn’t a sign of things to come in the publishing industry I don’t know what is. That means his ebooks are exclusively only on Amazon and he’s a NY Times Best Seller. They cannot be purchased anywhere else for 90 days. Interesting.

Also interesting is that the book we downloaded, The Furries: A Charlie Park Book begins in the town my husband and I lived in for 20 years for me and more than 20 for him. It is the town he now drives through to go to his second job because the towns up there all run together. The Furries is actually two books in one and the first one that mentions the town is The Sisters Strange.

 It’s so bizarre to see the town in the book because it is truly a tiny little area essentially in the middle of nowhere. There are about 3,200 people in the town he’s talking about and maybe 13,000 altogether in the three towns that run together. I may be off on that number – I didn’t check the census but it is definitely under 30,000 these days.

I’m very curious now to know how Connolly knew about it or his connection to the area. He even writes about the flood we went through there in 2011. Thankfully it did not hit our home since we were at a higher elevation but it did flood the historic and business district of the town. I was working for the newspaper at the time and took photographs of the destruction but almost forgot to take them because I was just standing on the hill looking down into the rest of the flooded town in shock.

I’d also love to know if any of his characters are based on any real-life residents. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if they were. I don’t know that Connolly’s books are my cup of tea but after reading the first chapter I am hooked and if he goes back to Athens in this book, I know I will be trying to see which characters might be based on people I know from there.

In an interview with a Maine television station, Connolly said he wrote this mainly in lockdown during the pandemic so he was mainly in Ireland at the time (which is where he is originally from). This makes the book partly taking place in Athens that much more interesting to me. He also released the book in chapters like I have done on my blog. Maybe Mr. Connolly saw my blog and copied me. *wink* Ha. Ha.

What We watched/are Watching

I watched a ton of Christmas-themed shows and movies since I last posted a Sunday Bookends.

A Christmas Carol from 1938

White Christmas

Elf (for the second time)

Trading Christmas

A Biltmore Christmas

A Christmas Story

A half of The Man Invented Christmas (need to get back to it)

Half of Blithe Spirit (need to finish it when The Husband is home from work)

The Christmas special from last year of All Creatures Great and Small

The Little House on the Prairie Christmas special

A Christmas episode from M.A.S.H.

We also watched a couple other episodes of M.A.S.H., a couple episodes of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, the first episode of C.B. Strike (based on the books by Robert Gailbraith. I read the first one and enjoyed it even though it was dark and full of obscenities – just a warning for anyone who might try it), a lot of Newhart, Forgotten Way Farms, Darling Desi, Doctor Quinn Medicine Women, and The Pioneer Woman.

I probably watched some other things as well but it has been two weeks so I’m not sure.

What I’m Writing

I’m working on my book Cassie and blathered on about a bunch of movies and other stuff here on the blog.

Next week I will be writing about the movie Persuasion to kick off Jane Austen January. Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be starting buddy watches of movie adaptations of Jane movies January 11. We have started a link up that you can access through the menu at the top of my page.

If you want to read more about the feature you can see my post here: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/28/getting-ready-for-jane-austen-january/

The movies we will be watching include:

Sense and Sensibility – 1995 (January 11th)

Pride and Prejudice -2005 (January 18th)

Emma – 1996 (January 25th)

Miss Austen Regrets (February 1)

On the blog recently I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I listened to Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon before and during Christmas week.

I have also been listening to a collection of audio productions of Jane Austen’s books on Audible and plan to start Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry on audible at some point, but probably not until February because I’ll be listening to the Jane Austen for Jane Austen January.

Photos from this week

Christmas:

Local light display:


Fun outing:

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.

Saturday Evening Chat: Baking cookies, relaxing by the fire, and getting ready for Christmas

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

I am so glad you came for a visit. Come sit. Don’t mind the cat sitting on the top of my bookcase. She’s weird.

Here we are, two days before Christmas.

Would you like a cup of cocoa, tea, or coffee? How about some homemade chocolate chip cookies?

My parents, daughter, and son made them the other day.

Last we spoke I was dealing with Covid but then I suddenly wasn’t.

It was a short bout, thank God (literally). I couldn’t help worrying that it would be worse, though, since I’d had such a bad case in 2021.

None of us had very serious lingering issues from it, just a bit of congestion for a few days afterward. It was honestly such a quick illness it felt more like allergies. If it hadn’t been for the insane burning in my nose and eyes and the fever darted up so high and then down again, I would have suspected it was just allergies.

The rest of the week was spent doing schoolwork, baking cookies with my parents, watching Christmas movies, and procrastinating on housework.

The cookie baking was funny because there was a lot of debate among my parents and Little Miss on how to make the cookies.

“That’s too much sugar.”

“That’s what the recipe calls for.”

“But the flour into the egg mixture not the egg mixture into the flour.”

“Is that too much butter?”

“No, just use the spoon and put the dollops on. Don’t roll them into balls.”

In the end, they came out fine but were very small and very, very sweet. They were so sweet, I made myself sick after only three.

Today I need to finish some dishes and vacuum the floors in my living room, kitchen (don’t ask why it has carpet in there), and Little Miss’s room. Yes, I am procrastinating again, why do you ask?

Tomorrow we are going to visit my parents for Christmas Eve. We plan to have pizza and wings and watch a couple of movies (White Christmas and Elf).

We will be back there again on Monday for Christmas Day.

I plan to take a break from things like Instagram and Facebook this upcoming week and maybe even longer. It’s very much grating on my nerves. Threads, for example, is horribly annoying even though I deleted the app and do my best to ignore it. I really want Instagram to stop putting it in my feed to try to capture me with the drama everyone vomits on there.

I do very well ignoring it but once in a while a sentence catches my attention and I go over and look, but it’s almost always someone writing something extremely controversial and then writing afterward: “but I don’t want to debate this.”

You don’t want to debate this.

Ah. Okay. Then what was your point of putting it out there in public? You just wanted everyone to pat you on the back and praise you? You expected all love and no pushback on a site becoming known for its intolerance and vitriol?

I couldn’t even share one drop about anything about my faith without getting at least one or two nasty comments when I was on it very briefly. I left as fast as I could when I saw all the biting sarcasm, snarkiness, and just out and out rudeness.

I just don’t have time for all that hatred balled up in one place.

Lately being on social media has felt like a kid that’s had too much candy to me. You eat just enough to satisfy your desire to connect with people and then you eat a little more but as you continue to eat you feel sick and then sicker and then you’re throwing up and that’s finally when you decide you’ve had enough and you need some real food.

And by “you” I mean “me”, of course, because most of my readers have been smarter than me and have stayed clear of social media altogether. God bless you.

So today I am doing my best to spend as much time as I can off social media. T least a little.

I am posting here or there but not scrolling much and for most of today I’ll be watching old movies, a Christmas movie or two, and reading a book. I would be off social media completely if I didn’t need to promote my books a little.

The Husband is working today so I’m sad he’s not here to watch movies with us but he will be at my parents tomorrow and with us on Monday and most of the rest of the week.

We will not be having a white Christmas this year since all we have had is rain and gloom for the last several days and are set to have the same for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Our last semi-significant snow was on December 11 and Little Miss had a blast playing in it with Zooma The Wonder Dog.

Tonight as I finish this post, I am sitting by the fire and looking out at my neighbor’s beautiful Christmas lights.

I’m watching While You Were Sleeping and I was contemplating what to make for dinner but the kids have all decided they want something different and are going to make it themselves so I am on my own for dinner and that’s fine with me. As an aside – what is with While You Were Sleeping? It’s such a weird movie. Why have I now watched it three times? The woman should have told them the truth from the start. It’s just so weird and then they’re all fine with it at the end of the movie. Gah. It’s weird, people! Weird!

Anyhow, the lights are on the Christmas tree and I’m enjoying it while I can because The Husband starts taking it down the day after Christmas. I’m going to try to drag it out until at least January 1 this year. I’ll jump on his back and yell “Noooo! Leave it alone, you big bully!”

I don’t think I’ll really do that. I’ll just ask him to leave it up and  he’ll say, “Okay.”

I won’t be back for a Sunday Bookends post tomorrow so I will chat with you all again sometime next week. Bring your tea or I’ll make you whatever I have here.
How was your week last week?

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

Three light-hearted or sweet Christmas movie suggestions for you to watch this weekend

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Here are three movies I am recommending you watch to keep yourself in the Christmas spirit this weekend.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered For Christmas

I watched this one a week before last and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I watched it two years ago. Now, is this movie a bit cheesy like most Hallmark movies? Yes, but it also has some of the most poignant, beautiful, and touching moments I’ve seen in a movie not produced by a Christian company. There are messages in this movie that so clearly point to Christ and redemption it is mind-blowing.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered was a show for a brief time on the Hallmark Channel and follows the lives of four people who work for the old letter office in the United States Postal Service. The characters in the show take a letter or package and try to reunite it with its owner, no matter how many years have passed since it was lost.

Sometimes the show is unbelievable and maybe a little silly but I fell in love with the characters so I continued to watch it when they made the show into TV movies instead. There are several (sorry, I didn’t stop to count before I wrote this) 90-minute movies featuring the characters and I believe I’ve watched all of them now.

I watched this on Peacock this year but you can also watch it through the Hallmark Channel on Amazon or the Hallmark Channel app, I believe, but don’t quote me on that.

Trading Christmas

I have watched this movie at least once every Christmas since finding it four years ago. It stars Tom Cavanaugh and Faith Ford and it has humor, sweet moments, romance, and it’s about a writer so you know it interested me.

It is a Hallmark movie (again) and (again) I know they have a reputation for being poorly written and cheesy but this, like Signed, Sealed, Delivered holds up pretty well and is worth the watch. Will there be a trope or two you roll your eyes at? Yeah, probably, but I think Tom Cavanaugh’s sarcasm and snarkiness will help heal those wounds.

The premise behind the movie is that Faith Ford was expecting her daughter to come home from college for Christmas but the daughter wants to go somewhere else with her boyfriend so Faith’s character has to decide what to do with herself. Her husband passed away six years ago but she’s always had her daughter home with her. Her friend (Gabriella Miller) tells her on the phone she should do something bold this year for Christmas and let her daughter grow up on her own. Faith takes this advice to heart and signs up for a Christmas trade with Tom Cavanaugh’s character. Faith lives in a little tiny and Tom lives in New York City so he comes to the tiny town to finish his novel and Faith goes to NYC to have a new experience. While there she meets Tom’s brother played by Gil Bellows and – well, no spoilers here but he is a perfect gentleman.

Tom on the other hand is not a perfect gentleman when Faith’s friend shows up at her house, thinking she will surprise Faith for Christmas (because Faith didn’t tell her about the trading houses thing).

I own this one but you can watch it on Amazon with a premium subscription, Apple TV for purchase, The Roku Channel, Vudu, and YouTube Premium. I also found it free on YouTube with captions in another language but I can’t vouch for it being the full movie.

One Special Night

This movie is for us oldies – it features two well-known actors – James Gardner and Julie Andrews – who are stranded together in a cabin in the woods. Yes, it is that old trope but it is a very subtle and sweet use of it and not a raunchy one. Julie’s character lost her husband a year earlier but is visiting the staff at the nursing home and James’ character is visiting his ill wife.

A storm is coming and Julie offers James a ride home. Her car crashes in the snow and they start walking and find an old cabin. They spend the night there and end up getting to know each other. There are a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings after that, including the complication of James’ wife still being alive. Lest you think this is a movie about cheating, it is not. It is all very tastefully addressed and the relationship between James and Julie remains a friendship throughout most of the movie.

I found this one a bit predictable but still sweet especially because the main actors were such legendary ones.

I watched this one on Amazon but I see it is now streaming for free on several streaming services including Peacock, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto, Plex, Vudu, and Amazon with an Amazon Prime Video subscription.

Have you seen any of these movies? What did you think of them?

The Star

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

This is a post I wrote in 2017 about the star my dad puts at the top of the field next to his house.


He and my son set the star up yesterday but I missed the photos because I didn’t realize they’d already done it. I was sitting inside a warm house talking to my mom instead. Oops.

Here is the post from 2018 and some photos from 2017, 2019, and 2020.

They carried the star up the steep, snow-covered hill because the truck’s tires spun and sent the hunk of metal skittering sideways toward the old dirt road. In the end, they left the truck in the field and slid the star, made of wood and strands of Christmas lights off the roof. Their breath steamed patterns out in front of them as they walked and the sun, a misleading sign of the outside temperature, cast long shadows onto the untouched surface of the snow that fell the day before.

Ropes were looped and tied and hooked on a pulley, the ladder was climbed and the star was hoisted with a couple reminders from father-in-law to son-in-law to “be careful of the lights! You’re hitting the lights on the tree!” But finally it was high enough and nails were hammered in to hold it in place.

Dad built the star several years ago and put it at the edge of the woods, at the top of the field and where people driving by on Route 220, across the Valley could see it. It has become a beacon, you could say. A beacon of good will, or peace, or joy or whatever it represents for each person who sees it. It can mean a lot of things for a lot of people but for Dad it is a sign of hope and the real reason behind Christmas. After all – isn’t that what the birth of Jesus was all about? Bringing hope to a hurting, fallen world?

So on this little hill, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, my dad hangs his homemade, 50-some pound star, and with it hangs a little bit of hope – hope for health, for peace, for love for all, hope for the broken, the weary, the shattered souls.  And it reminds us who is the hope of the world.

Isaiah 9:6-7

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Sunday Bookends: Christmas movies, Christmas books, Christmas, Christmas, and more … yes, Christmas

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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



What’s Been Occurring

I wrote yesterday that I tested positive for Covid on Friday. I must have been at the tail end of it because yesterday morning I woke up with my nose clear and able to taste and smell again. I pretty much felt like I hadn’t had anything at all. I had written yesterday’s blog post on Friday evening when I was at my worst – congested and swollen in my nose, no smell or taste, and this horrible burning up my nose and through my sinuses that kept coming in waves and making my eyes water so bad I couldn’t see.

I literally cried when I could taste peanut butter and smell my essential oils in the morning. I know it seems dramatic and if you don’t know my back story with Covid-induced smell and taste loss then it does seem that way.

My previous smell and taste loss lasted a couple of weeks or more and when it returned my smell and taste were distorted for months afterward.

You can read more about that on the blog by searching Covid in the search bar to the right, though I’d just skip it because it’s depressing. Ha! It’s depressing but also gets hopeful later and taught me about trusting God.

Today when I made myself some deli ham on lettuce with Italian dressing (I’m trying to cut bread all the way out for health reasons) and I could taste the Italian dressing I felt weepy. I really did.

Every time I can smell something or taste something I feel immediate gratitude.

While I didn’t like the fear that came with getting Covid again since my last bout sent me to the hospital for five days (hooked up to a very low dose of oxygen for a day and a half of those days), I do like the reminder God gave me with this that he got me through that first bout and he is going to get me through whatever struggles I am facing now.

Much like a rainbow is a reminder of God’s promise to never flood the earth again, being able to smell and taste is like a reminder to me that God hasn’t failed me and doesn’t intend to let me fall now.

This illness was like a short head cold but I was very concerned part of the time it would be longer, like Covid was for me and my family before. I remained calm most of the time with a few breakdowns of crying, but trying to remember the verses about Jesus giving us peace that passes all understanding.

Most of the time I felt very peaceful. I did not feel dragged out like I did when I’ve been sick in the past.

Still, I prayed to God on Friday and asked him to please give me a sign that I was going to be okay. I prayed again very, very early Saturday morning when I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I asked God to forgive me for me being annoyed because I had just been thankful for being able to smell and taste a few days before and now it was being taken away again. I asked God to forgive me for not being thankful that I was breathing okay.

At 6:45 a.m. I still couldn’t smell anything.

At 9:30 a.m. I could both smell and taste.

Little Miss and my fever were gone (mine had been gone even when I tested positive for Covid the day before) and we both felt almost like we’d never been sick in the first place.

Talk about an answer to prayer.

We are in quarantine another day and then I can finally see my parents in person for the first time in two weeks.


What I/we’ve been Reading

Because my eyes were watering a lot this week, I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I did continue some of my Christmas Regency romance book, which is a collection of novellas in one book. I am in the second novella now.

I also read a little of Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin. I hope to have at least Southern Snow finished this week, but I also hope to finish Christmas in Absaroka by Craig Johnson.

Since it is the week before Christmas, I will probably continue to read A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems, which is a collection of Christmas stories by a variety of authors, including L.M. Montgomery, Louise May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain as well.

Oh, and I will definitely be finishing up my audiobook of Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon which I have been listening to each night before bed. I mentioned before on here that I didn’t know if I liked the narrator but I absolutely love him as I continue to listen so I wanted to correct that. From what I understand he also narrates the other audiobooks of the Mitford series so I hope to collect them over time.

Little Miss and I are listening to The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever again.

What We watched/are Watching

Since we couldn’t leave the house last week, I watched more than I do other weeks.

I watched We’re Not Angels as a buddy watch with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and blogged about it.

I also watched Going My Way, the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary’s. I’ll blog about it later this week but really enjoyed it. I might have liked The Bells of St. Mary’s better, though. I don’t know. They were both very good and watching them close together was a good idea.

I then watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and while I am about done with watching any more movies based on this book, I loved this one. This is probably my favorite version so far.

My aunt used to look for this version every year and I didn’t know why until I watched it this week. I wish I had taken the time to watch it with her when she was still alive.

I will blog about it later this week but for now, I will say I loved the acting in the movie. I also loved how I really feel this movie gave us more time with each character and gave us a more well-rounded impression of them. That well-rounded impression connected me to the characters more than any other movie I’ve seen and maybe even more than the book itself, which made the emotional impact of what unfolded even more powerful for me.

I highly recommend this version if you’re going to watch a movie adaptation of this story.

Last night I watched a Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small (the latest version).

This week I plan to load myself up on Christmas movies including The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Man Who Came To Dinner, White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and maybe Arthur Christmas.

I will also be watching Christmas-themed YouTube videos and a couple of Christmas specials from the creators of The Chosen.


What I’m Writing

This past week I shared a lot of Christmas-themed blog posts including:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to audiobooks such as Shepherd’s Abiding and The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever and also Christmas music about the reason for the season (at least in my family) – Jesus’ birth.

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.

Comfy, Cozy Christmas Movie Impressions: Holiday Affair

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

Welcome to another post where I share my thoughts about a Christmas movie I recently watched.

(This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. Read more about it and join up to the linky here. )

This movie stars Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and Wendell Corey. Note: I will not be including large spoilers in this post.

Leigh plays Connie Ennis, a widower, whose husband died in World War II. She has a 6-year-old son, Timmy played by Gordon Gerbert , (ironically I worked with a man named Tim Ennis and my husband still works with him). She is dating a man named Carl (Wendell Corey) who is predictable and safe. You know, the ole’ boring boyfriend versus the dashing and bold potential boyfriend trope.

Mitchum plays Steve Mason, whom Connie meets at a department store when she’s there as a comparison shopper for another store. Steve pegs her in her role right away but doesn’t turn her in because she tells him she’s a single mom and her son’s only support.

That move gets him fired and one would think that means he is out of Connie’s life. On the contrary, they continue to have interactions when Connie goes to apologize to him and then he ends up helping her out on her next shopping trip.

That encounter leads to Steve meeting Timmy, who is enamored with Steve – much more so than Carl, who he knows wants to marry his mother.

Timmy acts out with Carl and is sent to his room and this leads to a heart-to-heart with Steve who learns Timmy wants a train for Christmas.

Steve makes this happen and yet another interaction occurs between him and Connie.

There is a lot of back and forth in this film and more than one interaction between Connie and Steve when she walks away from him angry and he just watches her walk away with a smug grin.

Steve knows he gets under Connie’s skin and he knows there is a spark between them. Connie, though, isn’t willing to admit that she could have a passion for any man other than her late husband. She doesn’t really have passion for Carl.

Part of the time I felt like both Carl and Steve wanted Connie to just get over her dead husband already and that annoyed me. Both men seemed threatened by a dead man.

Since Timmy is six, it’s probably been about five or six years since Guy, Connie’s first husband, has been dead. That is a fairly long time but I didn’t think it was fair of either man to want Connie to just forget her late husband.

Then I realized that it wasn’t that the men wanted her to forget Guy – they wanted her to be able to remember the good times of her marriage with him while not being afraid to find happiness in the future. In fact, one of them says this explicitly but I missed it so I went back and watched their interaction again.

I felt much better about the intent of the men after that and could agree with others who called it a clever and touching film, even if there were a few times I thought Steve Mason should be smacked. Ha!

This is a movie with a definite love triangle, of course, and you’ll have to watch to see how all that works out. Some of the movie is predictable but some of it isn’t. There are plenty of surprises to make this movie a unique and non-traditional Christmas watch.

There are some great lines like when Steve says to Connie at one point: “I don’t think I should stay around – I might fall in love with you.”

I also loved Connie’s in-laws. They were one of the cutest elderly couples I’ve seen in a film with all their witty banter. Mr. Ennis had a cute quote: “Mother, I’ve been married to you 35 years. You boss me, you heckle me, you hide my things and pretend I’ve lost them just so I have to depend on you. You’ve spent 35 years trying to make me admit that I couldn’t possibly get along without you; and you’re right. I couldn’t. What’s more, I wouldn’t want to. Every one of those years was good, even the bad ones because you were with me. And so I drink to your health and all the wonderful years to come.”

I also liked:

  • Steve Mason: You see, if you aim higher than your mark, then you’ve got a better chance of hitting the mark.
  • Connie Ennis: But he shouldn’t feel that he’ll always get everything he wants.
  • Steve Mason: Well, not always, no, but every now and then, so that he’ll know that these things can happen.
  • Landlady: It’s the last room at the end of the hall.
  • Connie Ennis: Oh, thank you.
  • Landlady: And leave the door open.
  • Steve Mason: [Connie rings door bell] Come in.
  • [Connie opens door and enters]
  • Steve Mason: Well, you found the place. You know, very few people come here to eat anymore. Too much atmosphere. We’ve been thinking of closing down the joint to redecorate.
  • [Closes door]
  • Connie Ennis: Uh, the landlady said to keep the door open.
  • Steve Mason: Let’s worry her, huh?
  • [Closes Murphy bed closet]
  • Steve Mason: But let’s not worry you.

According to an article on Turner Classic Movies, Holiday Affair was a box office flop that became a hit through repeated television airings, much like It’s A Wonderful Life.

It’s A Wonderful Life became the bigger classic, of course.

Mitchum’s casting was seen as a little odd at the time considering he’d just come off an arrest and prison sentence for pot possession. RKO’s owner and tycoon Howard Hughes had faith in him, though, and pushed for his casting to be kept.

According to TCM, “In fact, just before filming started on Holiday Affair, RKO paid $400,000 to acquire sole ownership of Mitchum’s contract from independent producer David O. Selznick, who had shared the contract with RKO.”

Mitchum may have had a bad boy reputation, but according to articles about the making of the movie, he was a dedicated actor and a practical joker. He made a point of using his jokes for a purpose, like when he and Corey both put their hands on Leigh’s knee in a scene to get her to make a certain face that was perfect for the final cut.

Mitchum also kissed her for real during the kiss scene to throw her off and that move also made for a realistic shocked reaction.

Leigh wasn’t as comfortable with Hughes, though, according to TCM.

“Leigh wasn’t as happy about her relationship with Hughes, who had arranged to borrow her from MGM for a series of pictures starting with Holiday Affair,” the article reads. “But that didn’t prevent a very strange encounter when he summoned her for a private meeting toward the end of production. Hughes presented her with a private eye’s report on her activities, claiming her current boyfriend, Arthur Loew, Jr., had ordered the investigation out of jealousy. Leigh saw through the ruse at once – all of the people she was linked to in the report were members of Loew’s family. Clearly Hughes had ordered the investigation himself. She informed him that their future meetings would be strictly business if he wanted her to keep making films at RKO.”

I found this movie free on Tubi and also on Max. It is available to rent on other streaming services, including Amazon Prime and AppleTV. If you know of anywhere else it is streaming, please let me know.

Have you seen this movie?

What did you think about it?

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

I wrote about A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong last year but wanted to share this post again for this year since my daughter and I just watched it last week. It has become a Christmas tradition, along with the other Goes Wrong Show Christmas special.


Have you seen this one? If you have or haven’t, click through to read more about it.

This is part of the Comfy, Cozy Feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

Read more about it and join up to the linky here:

‘Tis The Season Cinema: A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

Comfy Cozy Christmas Movie Review: Beyond Tomorrow

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

This post is part of Comfy, Cozy Christmas, a feature that Erin with Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs suggested. You can find a link-up page at the top of the page and can link up your own holiday-related posts.

This week as I get ready for the Christmas season, I decided to look for Christmas movies from the 1930s and 1940s I’d never seen before. I scanned the list that came up after I typed “1930’s and 1940s Christmas movies” in the search bar and found one I hadn’t heard of, Beyond Tomorrow. It was also apparently called Beyond Christmas at one time.

I also found an article that listed several “forgotten Christmas movies” from that era and I plan to watch a couple more over the next three weeks.

Beyond Tomorrow was released in 1940. It was also titled Beyond Christmas. The movie is a bit quirky in some ways, but also very sweet. I’ll try not to summarize too much or give away too many spoilers so don’t fret if you haven’t seen it. I won’t tell you everything.

The movie follows the story of three old men (Michael O’Brien, George Melton, and Allan Chadwick) who served together in the army and are living in the same house and looking back on their lives with some sadness and regret. They want to help others to make up for some of their regrets, and we learn that they have given away wallets for Christmas.

There is a Russian woman living with the men named Madam Tanya. Toward the beginning of the movie, she gives the men an award that would have been an honor in her old country and says to them, “Joseph, when I had jewels and land and purses, I was often greedy and discontent. When everything was taken away, except my life, I learned that the way to be really happy is to serve others, to be needed, so don’t be sorry for me or for what was lost.”

The household is a buzz as we begin the movie because it is Christmas Eve and some special visitors are coming for dinner. They are a couple who have traveled the world extensively and two of the men are excited but George, a rather morose fellow, is not happy because he isn’t every happy it seems. In fact, when the movie opens he mumbles something about Christmas being a silly holiday.

When the couple eventually cancels, George blames himself and says it is because of some scandal he was involved in in his past.

It’s never really elaborated on what that was but the other men say they are sure it has nothing to do with that. Michael then suggests they take some of the extra wallets they handed out for charity, slide their cards inside with $10, and toss the wallets out the window onto the street and see if three honest people will pick them up and come back to the house to return them.

Whoever returns the wallets with the money in them will be invited to the dinner that is already ready for them.

George doesn’t think anyone will show up but eventually two people do.

First, we have James Houston (who I swear said John Houston when he was first introduced), a cowboy from Texas. He came to New York City for a rodeo and ended up staying around but will be heading back to Texas again soon.

Next, we have Jean Lawerence and when James Houston sees her he smiles and is clearly enchanted. Love at first sight.

The young couple agrees to stay for dinner and after dinner, James amazes everyone with his singing voice, especially Jean. As soon as he sings with that caroling group that stops by she has eyes only for him.

“I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair,” John sings right to Jean and she is mesmerized

Michael O’Brien is also mesmerized. He gets very teary in one of the sweetest breakaways I’ve seen in a movie. He sincerely looked touched.

During a scene where everyone sings Jingle Bells, we see the diversity in the house from the Russian countess and butler, a German or Swedish maid and an Italian chef.

Before the couple parts ways, Jean invites the men and countess to come to the children’s hospital the next night to sing carols. Jean is a Kindergarten teacher and teaches and entertains the children while they recover.

Jim arrives and meets up with Jean and they connect more, clearly falling in love.

Events develop from there, is all I’ll say, but tragedy strikes, and the three men must work hard to keep the couple together in a very unconventional way.

After the tragedy the movie becomes a bit of a supernatural movie with ghosts and dark clouds and voices from beyond the grave, but for very good reasons.

The movie was considered a “B-movie” at the time so it did not feature any big-name actors.

Veteran actors Harry Carey (real name), Charles Winniger, and C. Aubrey Smith star in the movie, which was directed by A. Edward Sutherland.

All three men looked vaguely familiar to me. An article on the TCM site explained why each man might look familiar to some.

Wittinger, playing an Irishman, looked especially familiar to me.

According to TCM, “Charles Winninger’s cherubic face graced many a picture in his long career from 1915 to 1960, including Nothing Sacred (1937), Destry Rides Again (1939), and State Fair (1945). His best-known role, which he created on Broadway before playing in the first film version, was as Cap’n Andy in Show Boat (1936).”

Carey was originally a silent film star and would star in a John Ford film, Three Godfathers, in 1948.

Smith was a very well-known character actor. Films he would be known for include:

From the TCM article:  “Already over 50 when he began his film career in 1915, his amazing longevity and ability to convey his specific type of stock character in a wide range of stories carried him through more than 100 pictures up to his last, at the age of 85, Little Women (1949). When he wasn’t busy standing up for the Empire in such films as Clive of India (1935) and The Four Feathers (1939), he could be seen supporting the likes of Katharine Hepburn in Morning Glory (1933), Jean Harlow in Bombshell (1933) and China Seas (1935), and Irene Dunne in the war melodrama The White Cliffs of Dover (1944), his upper lip stiff for another dark time in English history.”

The movie was not well received by critics in its time, but I found the movie heartwarming with many sweet and memorable moments and quotes.

I watched the movie for free on Tubi, but it is also free on YouTube and Plex and available for rent on many other streaming services.

Here are some of the other movies that are considered “lesser known” which I plan to pick one or two from to watch.

https://discover.hubpages.com/entertainment/lesser-known-classic-christmas-movies-from-the-1940s

What I love about December and Saying goodbye to November

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 17 Comments

I truly do not know how November went by so fast.

I know that many of us say that about every month but November really did fly by for me.

We had some activities, but for the most part it was a relaxing month.

We celebrated two birthdays, an anniversary and, of course, Thanksgiving.

We took a field trip at the beginning of the month to a reptile zoo, which Little Miss was thrilled about.

The Boy and I enjoyed it too, but she was just in heaven. I’m sure we will visit there again in the spring or summer.

We did schoolwork and while there were some of it we didn’t enjoy, we are learning a lot of new things from a variety of sources this school year, so that has offered us some more chances for fun than other years.

I am moving a little away from a strict curriculum for some subjects and focusing on reading books on the topics or doing more hands-on activities instead of paperwork.

That seems to be a lot more relaxing for both the kids and for me.

The Boy still has to do some paperwork, but Little Miss is doing a mix of paperwork with reading various non-fiction and fiction books and exploring more of the things she is interested in.

I plan for us to do some lessons on cooking in December and January for both Little Miss and The Boy.

Even with our oven broken, there are many other ways to cook and that would be something to teach the kids in case they ever move into a place that doesn’t have an oven.

My goal this year for homeschooling is to focus on life skills and things that they will need to know how to do in life in addition to academics.

I still feel like I am not doing enough with actual curriculum, but teaching with less strict curriculum and more freedom in how we learn seems to be benefiting the children’s desire to learn and their overall feeling about school in general.

We still continue to use the curriculum, of course. We are just not as strict on using it every day. Some days we allow reading, art, music, and exploring to be our educational guide instead.

In a couple more days we will be moving into December and I love December more than I used to.

I once dreaded December because I knew cold weather came with it. It officially kicks off a winter that usually lasts a couple of months here in Pennsylvania and sometimes even more.

But now I know that December is when we can make excuses to watch cozy movies, read books full of Christmas happiness, and tell people who want to know if I want to go out in the cold for some sort of cold activity that I have family commitments for the holidays when I really don’t and just want to stay in and drink cocoa and watch movies instead of attending whatever function they want me to.

I’m joking about that last part, of course. I don’t really lie to people. I’m middle-aged. I just tell them like it is: “I don’t want to go out in the cold because I’m old now and I don’t have to do things that I don’t want to. So there.”

Our house is already decorated for Christmas. The Husband (my silly “pet name” for my husband here on the blog only) decorates every year the day after Thanksgiving. I would probably wait until December to decorate otherwise, but it’s nice to start the happy movies and books early.

We only decorate inside because our neighbors go all out for Christmas. Everyone in town (of like 600) loves seeing their lights, but the people driving on the highway down the hill from our street also love it because you can see them from there. They aren’t at the level of one of my husband’s co-workers who has a huge display every year. It’s one of those displays where people almost have accidents looking at it and it’s on a busy street too.

I’ll have some more photographs of their display later on this month, I’m sure, but here are a couple photos I took last year for now:

The weekend after this upcoming weekend there is a holiday event and book sale at the local library which I am looking forward to. I have a couple classics I hope to find there. There is also a light display at the local fairgrounds either that weekend or the next that we plan to visit.

So, while December was once not as fun of a month for me (until we got to Christmas), I now like several things about it, including:

  • Colder weather that allows us to snuggle up under covers with a cup of cocoa or tea.
  • Christmas movies and books
  • My neighbor’s decorations
  • Christmas celebration and family time
  • Christmas events (like book sales!)
  • Snow on our naked trees to make them look less depressing with no leaves
  • Fun things to cook or bake

What are you looking forward to in December? Let me know in the comments.