I almost only read holiday themed books every December to get myself in the Christmas spirit. It’s a fun time to just enjoy some books that are usually full of good messages. Here’s what I read in December:
In The Noel Letters, Noel Post has her world fall apart all in a short period of time – she gets divorced, finds out her father is dying and then loses her job a few weeks before Christmas. She has barely talked to her father since she was a teenager and now 16 years later she heads back “home” to see him before he passes away. She blames him for her mother’s death. She remembers her mother trying to leave one night and her father trying to stop her and then she got into a car accident. Once she is back and sees her father’s world and his friends, she wonders if she really knew him at all?
In The 13th Day of Christmas, when 9-year-old Charlee Alexander’s father loses his business, the family is forced to move from their suburban home to a trailer park. Her parents hope it will be a fresh start for her older brother as he wasn’t doing well in school. However, her father has a hard time finding paying jobs and has to stay out long hours. Her mother has to find work, too. The bright spot in life for Charlee is their widowed neighbor across the field – Marva Ferguson. Charlee and Marva become fast friends to the point that Marva invites the Alexanders to join her for Thanksgiving dinner.
In a part of Scotland, celebrating Christmas is frowned upon due to its pagan roots. In A Highland Christmas, police constable Hamish MacBeth loves the Christmas festivities and is determined to spread some holiday cheer to everyone he encounters. Duty still calls, though, and he must try to find a missing cat and track down the people who stole a nearby town’s Christmas tree and lights. In the midst of those cases, he also tries to organize a Christmas singing at the nursing home and takes the new schoolteacher out to dinner.
In Candlelight Christmas, Darcy has had her heart broken in the biggest way – her husband cheated on her with his ex-wife and now she no longer has a relationship with him or his two children that she helped raise for several years. She’s open to love again, but not with a man who has children. Then, her friend takes her to see a concert at a camp where she meets her friends’ brother, Logan. He’s cute, nice, easy to talk to – but he has a son who he gets in the summer and for the holidays. It would be easy to forget about him except that to escape seeing her ex-husband at family events, she joins her friend’s family for them and that includes being near Logan.
To make ends meet while job searching, Katherine writes people’s Christmas letters with a humorous take to them. She just earned a degree in public relations, but also works as a medical transcriptionist. Her neighbor with three cats is set on fixing her up with the single man who lives upstairs. However, Wynn Jeffries is the author of a popular parenting book that lets children set their own rules and boundaries. It’s the very book that Katherine blames for her two nieces now acting like spoiled brats. When she meets him, though, there is an attraction. In Christmas Letters, which will be stronger – the attraction or the objection to his parenting philosophy?
Though Jennifer’s husband died a few years ago, her young daughter is just now coming to terms with her father truly being gone. She has her in therapy and is encouraged when Avery agrees to join the children’s choir for the nativity program at a local church. Also helping with the program is Ryan, a single father who is moving to the area and has a daughter the same age as Avery. Throw in two older bickering ladies who are in charge of the program and a pregnant 16-year-old who is drawn to the church, and the town of Grandon will have a Christmas like none other in The Christmas Light.
Christmas Sweets is full of three holiday short stories that all involve food and hilarious Christmas antics. One story involves a romance that some children are hoping to break up. Another story is about a murder of a mall Santa. The last one is about a theft at a hotel ball. I enjoyed each story.
In The Christmas Singing, Mattie took her broken heart from Pittsburgh to Ohio to start a new life and a new bakery. She has a new beau and is feeling great about life until her bakery burns down. She has to go back to Ohio and finds out her former boyfriend has been keeping a deep secret. Can they find their way back to each other?
In Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Simeon Lee has gathered his family back home for Christmas. Four sons, their wives and one granddaughter are present the day that ends with him being murdered. First an old friend’s son arrives, then his uncut diamonds go missing, he taunts his family by letting them overhear that he wants to make a new will and then tells them that the only one worth anything in the whole lot is the granddaughter. After dinner, which he eats in his room, they all hear a ghastly scream and crashing furniture, but when they break down his locked door, they find no one inside except for the dead Simeon.
The Baxters are facing a Christmas like no other. John wants his grown children to meet the woman who got their sister Erin’s heart after she died in a car accident. The potential sadness has most of them resisting, but through prayers, John finds a way to reach out to each of his children. But, will Erin’s only surviving daughter want to meet the woman who has her mother’s heart? A Baxter Family Christmas shows how love and prayers can bring Christmas miracles to life.
I want to explores doing a podcast, so I picked up So You Want to Start a Podcast to start learning about it. This book is a good start with just the basics of podcasting. It helps knowing how to plan one and what equipment would be needed.
Glad Tidings contains two holiday-themed stories about how sometimes love comes in unexpected places. In “There’s Something About Christmas,” Emma has to fly around Washington to interview finalists for a fruitcake competition. The pilot, Oliver, irritates her to no bounds, but there’s an undeniable spark. In “Here Comes Trouble,” Maryanne and Nolan Adams tell their children how they met and fell in love and it’s quite a story!
A Perfect Christmas is a short story about a teen girl who is wishing her family could experience a perfect Christmas. However, with sick siblings and her father returning late from a work trip, the tree isn’t even up and cookies haven’t been baked. If Marigold can just get to go to midnight mass, she’ll have a perfect Christmas. Christmas isn’t about perfection, though, and Marigold finally discovers what it’s all about.
I love learning about personality types and when I saw a book about the Enneagram I hadn’t read yet, I checked it out from the library. The Enneagram of Belonging is not an overview of the Enneagram, but a deeper dive into each type’s internal motivations. It was insightful and a quick read.
I was approached by the author of Project Hackathon to read and review her book. It’s a book for upper elementary age girls about finding the joys of coding. Three friends sign up for a hackathorn event where they learn some basic coding, make friends and try to use their skills for a greater cause. In this book, there is a focus on girls in STEM and taking care of the environment.
In Obsessed by a Promise, at 11 years old, Blue is on the streets of New York and in charge of his 4-year-old brother, Bo. His mother had died on the ship over and his father was thrown in jail for their rent being overdue. On the streets, the children find each other and help each other out – begging, finding scraps and huddling together for warmth. On Easter Sunday, they decide to beg at a church with Stel, Paul and Gerald. However, the cops show up and take everyone away except Blue. His search for his brother begins the very next day and not a day goes by that he doesn’t search in some way.
Anxiety and worry are common emotions for people to have – especially these days. While it can affect everyone, there seems to be a huge impact on girls. Sissy Goff is a counselor who has seen up close what worry and anxiety look like on girls ages three to 18. The affects can be small or debilitating. However, there is hope. While counseling is still the best option for some situations, Goff gives tips in Raising Worry-Free Girls for things parents can do at home to work with their children on anxiety and shares insights into why it affects girls so much today.
“Be lazy about the things that matter and genius about the things that don’t,” is what Kenra Adachi says in her Lazy Genius podcast. I heard about her through a friend and have listened to several of her podcasts. I am drawn to the idea of not having to do everything well – just the things that matter. As a former perfectionist, this idea is freeing. Her advice for life is very tangible and easily applicable to daily tasks and she shares that in The Lazy Genius Way.
In Love & Olives, Olive finally hears from her father who left when she was only 8 years old. They had always connected over the search for the lost city of Atlantis. He wants to fly her to Greece to where he thinks he has finally found the city. However, her heart doesn’t want to reconnect with the man she felt abandoned by early in her life.
What did you read last month? Share your favorite reads in the comments!
