The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

And a bit more of what I have been reading and watching these last few days.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A must read story for Christmas. I enjoyed it as usual and will read it again next year. And with perfect timing I finished the story on Christmas Eve.

                                       The Magic of Christmas By Trisha Ashley.
                                       I bought this after reading Twelve Days
                                       of Christmas. Again I do not think there are
                                       any surprises in the book, We know what
                                       will happen and who done it.
                                       Predictable but enjoyable. A nice clean
                                       romance.

And another film:

A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey.
I started watching this one evening but had to stop as I was falling asleep. I did finish watching it the next day but this version of A Christmas Carol will not be on my "have to watch every Christmas" list. It was boring and had sequences that I did not feel fitted in.

The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

I have been reading a lot and watching a few films the last few days. It has been nice and cosy.

Twelve days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley.
I received this book as one of the 25 e-books I got from my husband in my Christmas Calendar.
I really enjoyed it, there was no doubt how the story would end and who the main character would end up with. But I found the story very entertaining and her description of the elderly characters  was brilliant.

I decided that I would like to read more of this author.

                                    The Spirit of Christmas by Henry Van Dyke.
                                    It was an OK book but I was surprised by
                                    how  religious it was. Not my kind of book.

Now a couple of films.

Nativity, a British Christmas film.
Well, I do not think I always understand or appreciate the British humour! I thought the first part of this film was just too silly whereas my English husband was giggling away. The film did improve though and I thoroughly enjoyed the last half of the film.

The Light Before Christmas is a nice short Christmas animation wherein the story of  "Twas the Night Before Christmas" was told.
I enjoyed this and it was perfect viewing for the 24th of December.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas.

My Christmas celebrations have been a mix of 3 different traditions:

1. In some places in Greenland it is tradition to have presents in the morning of Christmas Eve so my husband and I decided to have a present each for breakfast.

2. Me being Danish, we of course had a lot of  our presents after dinner on Christmas Eve. Normally we would have our presents after dancing around the Christmas tree but we were only the 2 of us with a tiny (I think less that a foot high) Christmas tree so we skipped that part.

3. My husband being English, Santa came to fill our stockings overnight - He came quite late so I think we were some of the last on his list when he was on his way home to The North Pole.

I enjoy Christmas very much but have to say I missed my family as I enjoy Christmas even more when we are all together. Last years Christmas with all 16 of us celebrating in a farmhouse in Denmark was brilliant.

WHERE Are You Reading Challenge for 2012

Where Are You Reading Challenge

I have just decided to take part in this challenge  As far as I can see it is mainly about the 50 states in USA but not being from over there I will definitely try to get some locations around the world on my map. I think it is going to be interesting to really notice where the action in the books takes place.

I will chart my progress HERE

And all posts for this challenge can be found HERE

The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

It is the 4th Sunday of Advent and I have another book and film update.

Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibson.   

A glorious collection of stories from the author of Cold Comfort Farm. The title story tells of a typical Christmas at the farm before the coming of Flora Poste. It is a parody of the worst sort of family Christmas: Adam Lambsbreath dresses up as Father Christmas in two of Judith's red shawls. There are unsuitable presents, unpleasant insertions into the pudding and some good Starkadder table talk over. Aunt Ada Doom orders Amos to carve the turkey, adding: "Ay, would it were a vulture, 'twere more fitting!" extract from Goodreads

I looked through the list from The Christmas Challenge of Christmas books released in 2011  and decided to buy this one. The extract only describes the first of the sixteen stories whereof only two are about Christmas. And the book is from around 1940.
I think the name of the book is a bit misleading as there are only 2 Christmas stories. The one naming the book is quite special but good non the less. Despite this I really enjoyed this book. The stories often had another ending than I expected.

Now the films.

The Bear, an animation from the book of the same name by Raymond Briggs.
A cute, excellent animation which I truly enjoyed. If you have the chance, see it. I now want the book!

 
A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart.
At the moment this is my favourite edition of A Christmas Carol 

The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

After reading Christmas Eve by Robert Browning I needed to read something that would bring back the Christmas Spirit. I selected 3 short Christmas stories that was sitting on my bookshelf.

Ever since being introduced to this book of letters from Father Christmas, I think I have read it once every year. It is absolutely brilliant and I will recommend it to everyone.

                                                                        

                                     
Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs is another brilliant book about how hard the  night of Christmas is for Father Christmas. I also love this one and read it every year.

Another must have Christmas book. I saw the film first and then bought the book. And the film is on the to watch this Christmas list. Again, a book I can recommend to everyone.

Three very good books and just right for bringing back the Christmas Spirit

I have also watched a Christmas film over the weekend.

A heart warming very sad film about 2 families. One with a workaholic father, the other a dying mother. Reading the reviews before buying this some people just hate it. I am not one of them, I quite liked it and cried all the way through. This film will be put back in the Christmas box to be watched again next year.

The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

It is about time I update my Christmas reading and film watching.

I have read 3 books or rather book might be a rather large word to use for them.

I started by reading Twas the Night Before Christmas by
Clement C. Moore. I have actually never read this poem before but it was a great start to my Christmas reading

Christmas Greeting, A Series of Stories by H.C. Andersen. That sounds like a Christmas book, does it not?
It was not, it is as it says: A Series of Stories. Of the 13 stories only one is close to Christmas and that is "The Little Match-Girl" which takes place on New Years eve.
But that said, I absolutely love H.C. Andersen's short stories and fairy tales. Here I read them in English but I will quite often read them in Danish as that was his and is my native language.

Today I read this short story.
"Christmas-Eve" is an account of a vision in which the narrator is taken to a Nonconformist church, to St. Peter's in Rome, to a Göttingen lecture theatre where a practitioner of the Higher criticism is discoursing on the Christian myth, and back to the Nonconformist church. extract from wikipedia
After I read the story I had to go hunting on the net for the above description as I had no clue what I had just read! I think that says it all and no I did not like this one.

I did actually finish it but only because it was only about 40 pages, much longer and I would not have, I was struggling as it was.



I have also started to watch Christmas films.

Jack Frost.
I liked it, it was of course  sad in places but also funny and heart-warming.

The Littlest Light on the Christmas Tree.
Cute and sweet. Make sure you watch it with small kids

 White Christmas.
  One of the classics and I of course enjoyed it.

Christmas Calendar

My husband gave me this Christmas Calendar with a window to be opened every day until Christmas.  It is a brilliant Christmas Calendar and behind each window is a picture of a Kindle ebook that he has bought me for that day.

Gratitude Giveaways

In November I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and All-Consuming Books hosted a Gratitude Giveaway. Over 300 blogs took part and I entered some of these.

I have won.

An Amazon Gift Card of $15 Thank you Helen Smith .

the ebook
Best Left Buried by  Cindy Hutchins
Thank you Nathalie Brault at Book Eternity

                  Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
                  Thank you Alaiel Kreuz at Librarian Mouse

Thankfully Reading Weekend

It is the end of Thankfully Reading Weekend. I read a lot on Friday but only a few hours yesterday as I was baking for Christmas most of the day.

Today I have also been busy with everything else than reading among other things been to see the village Christmas tree be lit.

But after finishing Torn and Ascend on Friday I did start another book. I am now reading In Stitches by Dr. Nick Edwards. I have read 76% (app. 206 pages of 272). Not a great book but I will finish it.

It has been a good weekend and I am thankful for having the time to read and do all the other cosy things I have done these 3 days.

Thankfully Reading Weekend

First day is over and I actually ended up reading more than I should have done. Today I have read:

I started this 2. book in Amanda Hocking's Trylle Trilogy  this morning and I did not stop till I had finished it around lunchtime.
I enjoyed this book more than the first and wanted to start the 3. and last right away.

I actually did start this right after, I did not really have the time so I started reading while standing in the kitchen having my lunch! I had to go out shopping but as soon as I got home I got stuck back in and finished around dinner time.

I really enjoyed these books. Torn and Ascend more than Switched. I have seen reviews that compare them to Twilight and I can see the similarities with the mind control thing and the different groupings but still thought they were different enough.

Thankfully Reading Weekend

The Thankfully Reading Weekend has started and I hope to have time for at least a couple of book.

I will start with Torn by Amanda Hocking as I read  Switched yesterday.

The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

I have chosen to take part in The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge, it just sounds so cosy and again my husband within a minute gave me loads of suggestions. This time he just brought his Kindle out which already had a folder called Christmas Tales containing 18 Christmas books / tales.

I have chosen the level of Christmas Tree to read 5 or 6 books and I have also chosen the additional level of Fa La La La Films to watch a bunch of Christmas films.

My list of books (or list of suggested books)

1. The Christmas Books by William M. Thackery
2. Twas the Night before Christmas by Clement C: Moore
3. Christmas Tales and Christmas Verse by Eugene Field
4. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
5. A Christmas Greeting: A Series of Stories by Hans Christian Andersen
6. Old Christmas by Washington Irving
7. Christmas Eve by Robert Browning

These are all quite old Christmas books so I think I will take a look at the list of new Christmas books as well. We will see.

My list of films (I will only mention a few as I have a huge list on the to watch list)

1. Jack Frost
2. The Littlest light on the Christmas tree
3. Christmas shoes
4. A Christmas Carol: several different versions
5. Polar Express
6. It is a Wonderful Life ( I need to watch this every year)

I am so looking forward to this challenge.