(via Shutterstock) It will be pretty obvious if you have even so much as glanced at my blog, that I love pop culture everything. I spend my days, when I am not forced to work to pay for everything pop culture-oriented, watching movies, streaming shows, listening to music, reading books Continue Reading
Christmas 2024
Songs, songs and more festive songs #119: Brett Eldredge & Kelly Clarkson, Ingrid Michaelson & Jason Mraz, Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Canaan Cox and Alice Merton + special Jacob Collier live festive recording
(via Shutterstock) There’s so much Christmas music released each year, and while it’s a joy to a Christmas-a-holic like me, it can get challenging to get to it all, let along let yourself festively soak in it. So, I’ve picked four of the tracks that really struck a chord with Continue Reading
Festive book review: Home For Christmas by Heidi Swain
(Simon & Schuster Australia) There’s a host of Christmas romcom novels out there, all predicated on the same deliciously alluring idea the the most wonderful time of the year is the perfect time for miracles to happen and lives to be remade. But not all of these festively restorative delights Continue Reading
Festive comic review: The Flintstones: Christmas in Bedrock (with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm)
Published in 1965, The Flintstones: Christmas in Bedrock is a fun-filled romp through a good old-fashioned Santa-is-in-peril-only-YOU-can-save-Christmas storyline. In this case, the “YOU” is good old Fred Flintstone who, after a trip out into the forest to get a Christmas tree – forgot the axe? Don’t worry! Bamm-Bamm has a Continue Reading
Festively thoughtful movie review: The Snow Sister (Snøsøsteren)
(courtesy IMDb) Christmas is supposed to be a time of endless joy, peace and goodwill to all. But life doesn’t always play by the idealitically warm and fuzzy rules we lay down for it, and while the festive season should be all chestnuts roasting and sleigh rides, or if you’re Continue Reading
Festive book review: The December Market by RaeAnne Thayne
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) There is a lot of pain baked into The December Market by RaeAnne Thayne. The two main characters, soap shop owner Amanda Taylor, and the man who might, and likely will (because this is a festive romcom and not falling in love in not an option) Continue Reading
“This is it. Don’t get scared now.” Home Alone’s Kevin McAllister in Christmas classics mash-up
(courtesy IMP Awards) Christmas is always super busy, right? It’s part of the charm, part of the curse; but what if you could see a bona fide classic like Home Alone, well, fun parts of it anyway, woven into a number of other classics of the genre? And what if, Continue Reading
Festive movie review double: Your Christmas or Mine 1 and 2
(courtesy IMDb) Your Christmas or Mine? Coming with an inventive take on a romcom, let alone a festive romcom where the rules are even more restrictive, is no easy undertaking. But somehow Your Christmas or Mine manages it, delivering a story that, sure, strains the bounds of credibility but then Continue Reading
Brilliantly imaginative festive fun and healing: The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland by Carys Bexington (story) and Kate Hindley (illustrations)
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) In this postmodern, mash-up obsessed, creatively synergistic digital age of ours, it’s fun to see what really imaginative people will do when they mix their own highly original ideas with an existing, much-loved story. Case in point is The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland by Carys Continue Reading
Festive book review: The Nine Lives of Christmas by Florence McNicoll
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Christmas is popularly thought of as a magical time of second chances. It often doesn’t feel that with all the rush and busyness and the general furious exhaustion and angst of life seeming to reach a tinsel-draped fever pitch, but in The Nine Lives of Christmas by Continue Reading