(courtesy IMP Awards) I have read so many books in my life that remembering ones that particularly struck me, even as a child, isn’t easy. But one of the twenty or so books that has stuck to my head and my heart like storytelling super glue is the moving 1922 Continue Reading
On 12th day of Christmas … I listened to Songs for Christmas by Christina Perri
(courtesy Apple Music) Have you ever sat back and watched a Christmas special, especially a British one with its earthy humanity and whimsical sense of joy and felt like someone was giving you a great, big soul-reviving hug? If you have, and here’s to everyone being so beautifully treated, you Continue Reading
The short and the festive short of it: The Real Santa aka Father Christmas
(courtesy YouTube) Oh my heart! What a lovely story and yes, it might be an ad for Netto Marken-Discount in Hannover, Germany but it has so much originality and warmth and loveliness that you want to watch it again and again. Focusing on the idea that “It’s a gift to Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I read The Christmas Carrolls – A Fantastically Festive Family by Mel Taylor-Bessent
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) What is there to be said about the wondrously fun and glittering festive fun that is the familially festive joyfest that is The Christmas Carrolls: A Fantastically Festive Family by Mel Taylor-Bessent? Why you could call it “‘festabulous” or “Christmasriffic”, “merrynifiscent” or perhaps even “bauble-illiant”. Continue Reading
Two retro festive episodes of Frasier (“Miracle on Third or Fourth Street” and “Perspectives on Christmas”) + bonus Frasier 2023 review (S1, E7-10)
(courtesy CBS) If there is one thing that the classic sitcom excelled at, it was not pretending that everything in life was perfect. Oh, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and his equally dandy brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) aspired to that superlative state of being with their eyes always on the just-so Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I read That Festive Feeling by Heidi Swain
(courtesy Simon & Schuster) Finding your way out of a dark and terrible place in life is never easy. For Holly that sense of being trapped somewhere she doesn’t want to be – divorced, alone and effectively homeless with nowhere to go but either to stay at her emotionally frigid Continue Reading
Festive movie review: Jones Family Christmas
(courtesy IMDb (c) Stan) One of the great constants of many a Christmas celebration is spending time with family. Many are joyful, quite a few not so much and a fair few others are fraught in one way or another with everyone forced together in a hothouse celebratory fashion that Continue Reading
On 9th day of Christmas … I watched A Storm for Christmas
(courtesy IMDb (c) Netflix) Finding the perfect anything in a very imperfect world is a challenge at the best of times, but even more so at Christmas, ironically because it’s at this time of year, when people yearn the most for this flawlessly elusive state, that they seem to miss Continue Reading
Festive book review: The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Is it possible to successfully manage a new start in life when the halls aren’t decked, the world is not being joy-ed and a man in a red suit isn’t acting all merry and bright? Likely, yes, but honestly why would you want to when Christmas Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I watched DC’s Merry Little Batman
(courtesy IMDb (c) Prime Video) You have to hand it to anyone who looks at a venerable piece of pop culture property, in this Batman who is 84 years young, and thinks there must a way to bring some new life to it. It’s a brave thing to do because Continue Reading