While I am huge fan of novels aimed at adult Christmas tragics such as yours truly, there’s something innately pure and escapist about losing yourself in books aimed at children. They draw me back to a simpler time when Christmas meant, quite apart from freedom from school bullies, the chance Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I read Once Upon a December by Amy E. Reichert
Christmas is often described as a magical time of year but the word is more commonly used to suggest atmosphere and sensibility than actual supernatural influencing of time and events. But in Once Upon a December by Amy E. Reichert, Yule time is literally magical, a place where an alleyway Continue Reading
Find your 30-ton piece of granite! Santa is coming to a snowy landscape near you in Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special
The origins of Christmas, at least when it comes to the English versions of Santa and the reindeers and such – to be fair, the Bible has a pretty good lock on the religious side of proceedings – are as many and varied as those who choose to tell the Continue Reading
Book review: A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
If romantic comedies were your only yardstick, it would be all too easy to believe that true love, the kind made of meet-cutes, playful flirting and sweet connections, is as chaste and celibate as they come. But the fact is we fall in love with our minds and bodies, often Continue Reading
On 9th day of Christmas … I listened to Debbie Gibson’s album Winterlicious
Put your own festive shine onto Christmas standards, honestly even new tracks you pen, is an often thankless task. Go too far towards what’s known and loved, and while you’ll likely end up with a perfectly pleasant collection of festive tracks, you’ll quickly get lost among the crush of retro Continue Reading
Who wouldn’t want to have A Pudding for Christmas with Winnie-the-Pooh?
There is something innately warm and comforting dear old Winnie-the-Pooh at any time of the year but somehow it is at Christmas, when everything is supposed to be epitome of warmth and comfortable, that spending time with him feels most special. Even more so when in Winnie-the-Pooh: A Pudding for Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #80: Christmas singles 2022 – Salem Ilese, Rachael & Vilray, Sigrid, Ingrid Michaelson & A Great Big World + Chord Overstreet
It’s almost Christmas people – like just two days to go woohoo! – and so, it seems fitting to end this year’s selection of songs I love with a selection of festive singles by artists who may not have an album but who have declared their love of the season Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I nostalgically watched retro treasure Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
Have you ever wondered how it is that Santa, who is a tad on the portly side, manages to get down all those teeny-tiny chimneys? There’s a good chance, particularly in your younger years, that you have mused on the physics of present delivering on Christmas Eve, and if so, Continue Reading
Movie review: Avatar – The Way of Water
In the world of Hollywood, emotively-rich dramas sit on one side of the storytelling equation and big, brassy, visually resplendent blockbusters sit on the other, and never, usually, the twain shall meet. But just occasionally, in a happy marriage of lushly visual FX, gripping narrative and compelling characters, a blockbuster Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I read The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan
While we all like to think that life is endlessly possible and lustrously malleable, the truth is, often to quite accidentally, that we end up in craterous ruts of our own making. We don’t mean to send our life down some dead-end road to nowhere but one badly handled sliding Continue Reading