The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! It's hard to believe that the new year is right around the corner. I do apologize for my lack of posts these last couple of months. With November's NaNoWriMo and December's business of both Christmas preparations and lots of We've Seen Santa events I hardly had a moment to breathe. I hadn't gotten much reading done either. The day after Christmas was spent cleaning up from the celebrations. With my house mostly back in order, I finally had a chance to just sit down and refuse to do anything besides reading yesterday. So, here is what I have accomplished thus far for The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge.

I started the reading challenge way back in November with Debbie Macomber's Christmas in Cedar Cove.








This book is actually a compilation of two Cedar Cove stories. The first is 5-B Poppy Lane. It is a wonderful story that will take your breath away. At times, it nearly brought me to tears. The second is A Cedar Cove Christmas. This one actually did move me to tears. Such a beautiful story of friendship and love. The familiar characters of Cedar Cove prove themselves to yet again be a wonderful collection of varying personalities. They show us how we should behave towards each other, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year.

The next story I read was a novella I read on my new Kindle Fire (thanks Dad). It was Merry Christmas, Baby by Monica Jackson.






This is a story of unexpected love. After catching her fiance in bed with her maid of honor, Sharyn is gun shy to start another relationship. When a sexy physical therapist shows up at her door to help care for her mother, she blocks his every advance. But, they say "love will find a way," and this saying holds true in this novella about finding love and learning to trust again. Merry Christmas, Baby is a great story for the on the go Christmas season. Although, I found myself wishing it had been a full length novel with much more story to tell.

I followed that novella with what can only be referred to as a short story. Although novellas and novels are the only things that count during the course of The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge, I felt that this short story deserved recognition. The Twelve Days of Christmas Mystery by Daphne Coleridge was a cute little story. I'm not quite sure where I picked up this short, but I am glad that I did. I will be looking into reading some of her mysteries in the near future.

After reading Coleridge's short story, I read another novella by Monica Jackson. This one was What Goes Around. In this novella, there is a family curse. I do love family curses. The main character, Evelyn, is the only one who can break this curse. The way to break the curse is to choose love. It was a cute story, and I enjoyed meeting the characters. However, I felt that it would have benefited from another edit. I do not usually mention editing snafoos, as I know that  they do happen. Even such greats as Stephen King have typos and misedits in their books at times. However, this one was bad enough that I feel it is only fair to mention it before sending you off to read it.

I have read a few Children's books this season. Of course there were many readings of We've Seen Santa throughout the season.





Though, I am not entirely sure that this counts as a read book since I knew the story before it ever became a book. LOL.

I did however read Jingle All the Way to my daughter and Jingle, the Husky Pup.





This is an adorable story. However, I am disappointed with the interaction of Jingle. My daughter is five years old, and a fairly skilled reader. When she reads the book to Jingle, he does not respond to her voice when she reads the magic words. I believe that the interactive plush toys should respond well to a child's voice as reading to their own toy and getting a response would encourage reading in young children. We also watched the movie on the Hallmark channel.

We watched many Christmas movies thus far this season, and I still have many more to watch that I recorded on the DVR. My favorite movie I watched this year was It's a Wonderful Life. I watched it on my birthday this year, which made it somehow all the more special.

That is about all I have read/watched this year so far. I am currently working my way through Plum Pudding Murder by Joanne Fluke.




She is one of my favorite authors, and it is a definite bonus that she includes such wonderful recipes in her books. This was a present from my daughter for Christmas. I am excited to be able to read it so immediately because I am currently reading only Christmas books for The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge. On that note, I am going to go curl up wiht Plum Pudding Murder and enjoy a mostly relaxed day, broken only by the fact that I am washing all the bedding in the house so we can ring in the new year on clean bedding.

Hope everyone has a Wonderful New Year!

December is busy busy

December has arrived. It kind of snuck up on me. I really wasn't prepared to turn around and discover we had reached the holidays. I spent the month of November working on my new novel. You can find out more information here about how NaNoWriMo went for me.

Meanwhile, we also have events for We've Seen Santa planned throughout the first weeks of December. We kicked off with a Santa Parade this past Friday.

Followed by a visit with Santa.

This upcoming Tuesday, we will be reading We've Seen Santa to little ones at our local library. There is a reading for the under 3 age group and then another reading for the preschoolers.

We then have two events scheduled for Friday. We will be visiting an elementary school to share our experience of writing, illustrating and publishing with them. We will be encouraging them to follow their dreams. This event will be repeated on a small scale the following Monday at our local library. Friday night, we will be having Cookies with Santa.

We are excited about all of these events. To tell the truth, I am also rather nervous. But, I know that we will have a great time at all of these events. Unfortunately, I am not finding very much time to read even my first book for The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge. I am glad that it runs into January, or there is no way I would be able to participate at all. I only wish I could find more time to curl up and read a good book.

I hope everyone else is finding themselves enjoying the holiday season.