It’s that time of year again, when I can’t decide if this is the last roundup of the year or the first!
What I read
I had already hit my goal of 150 books in November, so everything in December was just a bonus. I managed to hold onto my last Audible credit as I had a few books I’d bought on 2 for 1 deals and I also listened to some things from the plus catalogue. Audible keeps reminding me I can renew early and get 12 credits now… but I’m trying to hold out! If I wait for another 2 for 1 sale I can get two books for my last credit and then I can see what else is in the plus catalogue and available at the library.
Only two books in December were BABALs* though there was also one about a woman searching for a book. Eight were Christmas-themed. A few came from the library. I’ll find out just how badly I did at not borrowing more books until I’d read what I already had when I do my 2025 year in books later this month.
I read:
- Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (Ernest Cunningham #3) – Benjamin Stevenson
- The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club #5) – Richard Osman
- The Secret Christmas Library – Jenny Colgan
- How Heathcliff Stole Christmas (Nevermore Bookshop #3.5 ) – Steffanie Holmes
- A Reluctant Christmas Novel – JC Williams
- Hot For Slayer – Ali Hazelwood
- Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden #5) – Charlaine Harris
- A Loom of One’s Own – Virginia Wool
- A Fool and His Honey (Aurora Teagarden #6) – Charlaine Harris
- A Cornish Seaside Murder (Nosy Parker Mysteries #6) – Fiona Leitch
- Last Scene Alive (Aurora Teagarden #7) – Charlaine Harris
- The Mystery of the Missing Book – Judith Cutler
- Cruel Winter With You – Ali Hazelwood
- A Cornish Campsite Murder – (Nosy Parker Mysteries #7) – Fiona Leitch
- Christmas at a Highland Castle – Rachel Barnett
- Poppy Done to Death (Aurora Teagarden #8) – Charlaine Harris
- Murder at Martingale Manor (Chronicles of St Mary’s #14.8) – Jodi Taylor
- A Nurse’s Secret (Nightingale Nurses #14) – Donna Douglas
- Out of Time (Time Police #6) – Jodi Taylor
I ended the month still working through:
- Charlie and the Christmas Factory – various authors
- Trick of the Dark – Val McDermid
- A Brush With the Past 1900-1950 – Shirley Hughes
What I watched
- Only Connect and The Simpsons plus a few episodes of The Repair Shop as Brodie likes it when they fix up toys. Ewan and I also watched the final season of Stranger Things and we finished Lego Masters Australia (Australia Vs the World).
- Christmas/New Year specials of Only Connect, Taskmaster and Gladiators.
- I’ve watched a bit more of Byker Grove, I think I’m in 2001 now (which was only 15 years ago… right?)
- My sister and I finished the Princes Switch trilogy with the third film – Romancing the Star.
- Our Christmas movies were Home Alone 1 & 2 and Elf.
- On Christmas Eve we went to the cinema to see Zootopia 2.
- I watched the second series of Karen Pirie which is based on the second book in the series – A Darker Domain.
- We introduced Brodie to Labyrinth as well, which he liked.
What I did
Like November, December was also pretty dominated by Christmas-themed stuff.
- Elf returned and got up to a lot of nonsense in our house.
- We made our yearly visit to a nearby country park to make Christmas decorations (Brodie made a Christmas helicopter, naturally) and hunt for reindeer and elves in the woods before having hot chocolates in the cafe.
- We also kept up our yearly tradition of visiting the big garden centre to look at all the Christmas stuff and have hot chocolates, and visiting a Christmas Tree farm cafe for even more hot chocolates and Christmas stuff. This year I bought a skirt for my Christmas tree as I’ve wanted one for ages!
- I did very little on my birthday as I was the only one off, but I did take Brodie to a library Christmas party.
- I did a couple of jigsaws that I got for my birthday. Sadly the Famous Five one was missing a few pieces!
- We had a few hilarious games of Telestrations (my drawing was supposed to be chicken nuggets… At the end of one game we all drew dalmatians as the one my mum drew earlier had been mistaken for a cheetah.)
- We went for exactly one walk which was along the beach (rather cold but I found some pottery and Brodie found two golf balls).
How was your December?
*Books About Bookshops and Libraries
Fiona
pippastef
worldofblyton
World of Blyton 
According to goodreads.com I reached 166 books from my 160 books goal.
In December I’ve read several Christmas novels like “Silver Bells” by Luanne Rice, “Silent Night” by Mary Higgins Clark and “Night of the Reunion” by Michael Allegretto, “Keep this for me” by Jennifer Fawcett (excellent), “Reckless” by singer Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders), a Jacques Cartier biography, “6:40 to Montréal” by Eva Jurczyk (big flop!), “Never look away” by Linwood Barclay (excellent), “Winter Morning” by Nancy Bacon (lovely), “What Falls Away” (Mia Farrow’s memoir), a children’s book by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (Understood Betsy) which was rather boring, and “Summer Sisters” by Judy Blume, her first attempt to write a novel, but it was not really a novel.
For Christmas we received among other things a voucher for the movie theater, so as soon as a good movie will be released, we plan to go to the movies this year again after an absence of several years, because for one thing the sound was way too loud and they refused to turn it down a bit and they got rid of the 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. shows last year, but the 4 p.m. shows are back now. So once it’ll be light outside until 7 p.m. we’ll go to the movies again.
As it’s way too cold and slippery since mid December (our neighbors don’t throw sand on their part of the sidewalk), we stopped walking outside and walk now instead in some malls. The next 2 1/2 months will be uneventful, but from April on we’ll do day trips again.
On DVD we watched a dozen old Alan Ladd film noir and westerns, “Finding Home” with Geneviève Bujold, “Deceived” with Goldie Hawn, “Mr. Blandings builds his Dream House” (Cary Grant), two Peter Strauss TV movies (In the Lake of the Woods + Death in the Shadows), “A Stranger in my Arms” (June Allyson), “Cross Creek” (Mary Steenburgen) and two Leslie Caron films from my early childhood: “Lili” and “Daddy Longlegs”.
Before Christmas we watched “White Christmas”, both “Home Alone” movies, “Silver Bells” with Anne Heche, “One Special Night” with Julie Andrews and James Garner, “Funny Farm” with Chevy Chase, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” with Chevy Chase, and “The Reckless Moment” with Joan Bennett and James Mason (my favorite film noir and you can watch it on YouTube).
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