(courtesy Laughing Squid) Christmas used to be defined by the specials that aired on Network TV. While videos were a thing, it wasn’t yet common in the Eighties for people to routinely have the movies and TV shows they loved on the shelf to watch whenever they wanted, and so Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I read Along Came Holly (Mistletoe Romance #3) by Codi Hall
(courtesy Sourcebooks Casablanca) Writing about people falling love, especially at Christmas, purported to be the most romantic time of the year (and honestly it sure feels like that, even in an Australian summer), is quite possibly one of the easiest things to do in the world. Throw in some cute Continue Reading
Movie review: Wonka
(courtesy IMP Awards) While we all love to know more information about characters that have become near and dear to our hearts, we often have to be careful what we wish for, especially if the originating author is not part of the character augmentation that comes into play. Especially if Continue Reading
On 6th day of Christmas … I put 15 more pop culture ornaments on my tree incl. ABBA, Parks and Recreation, Ziggy and Goofy
(via Shutterstock) What, what, you say, you have yet more ornaments to place upon the tree? Why yes, yes I do; every year I tell myself I’ll stick to 9 or 10 new ones, just the best of the best and yet every year, 50 to 60, sometimes more make Continue Reading
Book review: The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett
(courtesy Allen & Unwin) Christmas is supposed to be all merry and bright and wondrously lovely, escapistly free from the nastiness and brutishness of the rest of the year. Well, that’s the general, tinsel on the tree and deck the hall view of the season anyway. But in Janice Hallett’s Continue Reading
On 5th day of Christmas … I listened to A Christmas Album by Matthew Ifield
(courtesy EMI Australia) Hailing from Sydney, Australia, Matthew Ifield is an up-and-coming 18-year-old singer who has the gloriously lovely voice of an old soul. He brings his nuanced and warmly emotive vocals to full winning effect on A Christmas Album which comes the singer fervent love of the season. I Continue Reading
Festive movie review: Christmas as Usual (Så Var Det Jul Igjen)
(courtesy IMDb (c) Netflix)) Love conquers everything, right? Throw a difficulty at it, an obstacle, a threat or a challenge and it simply laughs in dismissive regard and plows on its merry rose-covered, starry-eyed, warm and fuzzy way. That’s what we’re sold, anyway and it’s what initially seems to be Continue Reading
On 4th day of Christmas … I read Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Realising a dream is one thing, sustaining it is quite another. That is the stark reality of things for Carmen in Jenny Colgan’s Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop, the follow-up to The Christmas Bookshop, when the old, hitherto ill-tended second hand bookstore she was instrumental in saving, Continue Reading
The short and the Christmas short of it: Gordon Goose – Christmas Tree
(courtesy YouTube) Gordon Goose, so his official page says, is a “typical corpo goose with atypical life” with a work life that is, we’re assured, even worse than the one you’re enduring. Still, even with all that corporate existential angst drilling a great big hole into his soul, Gordon finds Continue Reading
On 3rd day of Christmas … I watched Claus Family 3
(courtesy IMDb (c) Netflix) In the third instalment of the Dutch Christmas film series – read reviews of Claus Family 1 and Claus Family 2 – it becomes increasingly apparent that, rather joyfully the grief that marked the first entry in the series and its lingering effects in movie number Continue Reading