dreaming about Christmas

It’s the shortest day of the year today and, looking out of the window while drinking my tea, I can’t but think it’s just as well. Rain and wind and murk is all we’ve had all day, no sign of the sun. However, it’s quite cosy in my cupboard-like study and fairy lights sparkle all the brighter in the gloom. And of course, the dust isn’t quite so noticeable when it’s dark.

I am feeling quite smug as I drink my tea because I have just delivered my last Christmas card and wrapped my last present. And now I am about to start packing, because we’re spending Christmas with my parents. But this is the best moment of packing: considering which books to take.

For my daughter I’m packing One Christmas Wish by Katherine Rundell (illustrated by Emily Sutton), The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden (illustrated by Adrienne Adams), The Little Lamb of Bethlehem by Margaret Tempest and The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore (illustrated by Angela Barrett) because we like rereading them at Christmas. She’s packing a few other books but I do not yet know what they will be.

I like to reread ‘Babette’s Feast’ (Isak Dinesen) at Christmas but I think I shall read that this evening instead of further weighing down my suitcase. I don’t want to cripple myself, and I happen to know that Father Christmas will be giving me a couple of hefty tomes to bring back (Melmoth by Sarah Perry and The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition by Ursula Le Guin and illustrated by Charles Vess). I know this because I helped Father Christmas out and bought them for myself heh heh heh.

But now I must decide on one – or at most two – books to take with me, for the journey and until Christmas Day. (Although in an emergency I can help myself to my parents’ books, they are kind like that.) What should they be? I have started rereading Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love but I am afraid I’ll finish it before we leave. I was saving The Way Past Winter for the holidays but I had to read that last week to keep myself cheerful during a cat crisis. I want something immersive, perhaps nineteenth-century, not too heavy (literally and figuratively), something of a page-turner. When I have finished my tea, I’ll start looking through the shelves.

Do you have any favourite Christmas books? And what will you be reading over the holidays?

And now this seems as good a time as any to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year, and to hope that 2019 is good to all of you. Thank you for reading my blog, and thank you for all your lovely comments.

(Angela Barrett, ‘A right jolly old elf’, from The Night Before Christmas, Orchard Books, 2012; found here; I don’t know if you can see how luminous the colours are, especially the blues, quite amazing)

Comments

[Café Society]

A Merry Christmas to you as well Helen. And Love and Hugs from The Bears.

[Helen]

Thank you, Alex! I hope that you and the Bears have a lovely one.

[Desperate Reader]

Merry Christmas, and wishing you a happy, healthy, new year too.

[Lory @ Emerald City Book Review]

I'm reading The Woman in White right now. Definitely a nineteenth century page turner.

I just read part of The Dark Is Rising with my son (it started as a readaloud but then he couldn't resist finishing it himself). That's one of my favorite Christmas books.

And I gave myself Earthsea as an early Christmas present too, heh heh. I hope you have a lovely holiday with lots of wonderful books!

[Helen]

Thank you, Hayley, and the same to you!

[Helen]

The Woman in White and The Dark is Rising are both wonderful choices! Now I'm wishing that I was reading them, that's the trouble with books, you can only be reading one of them at any given moment.

I hope you enjoy Earthsea! And have a lovely holiday too. :)

[lethe]

Thank you, and wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too!

A lovely little children's book I like to reread around Christmas is Schaap met laarsjes by Maritgen Matter, also available in English (Sheep with Boots): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25196129-schaap-met-laarsjes

Another big favourite of mine to read around the holidays is Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6778281-come-thou-tortoise
I have read it five times already since 2010.

[Jenny @ Reading the End]

Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year! I love The Story of Holly and Ivy, but aside from that I don't do a lot of Christmas-related reading. I do a lot of reading at Christmas, but it's mostly just trying to complete a few reading goals more before the year ends. I'm trying to read at least one more of my own damn books -- Jane's Fame by Claire Harman -- and enjoying it a lot.

[Helen]

Hello lethe, happy Christmas! I hope you're enjoying the holidays. (And your comment was just awaiting moderation but I've been away and never got round to the interwebs, sorry!) I'll look out for both of those books. If a book is worth reading five times, let alone in eight years, it must be very good indeed.

Happy Christmas Jenny! I'm a quite recent convert to the idea of Christmas reading, I do like to do a little since otherwise my Christmas disappears all too easily in a mass of present-buying (there's a LOT of children in our extended family) and travel arrangements. Is Jane's Fame about Jane Austen? I'll look that up too... though even my book greed is currently sated by my Christmas haul, at least for the present. Happy reading!

[Stefanie]

"And of course, the dust isn’t quite so noticeable when it’s dark."

Oh this made me laugh because it's exactly how I think too :)

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Any New Year celebration plans? We will be doing a movie and popcorn in our pajamas at my house and be in bed by 9 :)

[Helen]

A kindred spirit!

I did have a wonderful Christmas, thank you, I hope you did too! And I do like the sound of your New Year, that is usually my preferred option, but this year I went slightly mad and decided to travel back to Britain, ten hours in each direction, for a party. If I never post here again it's because I'm lost somewhere in the Weald of Kent...

[Stefanie]

LOL I hope it's a good party!

[Harriet]

I hope you had a lovely Christmas. Mine was quiet but surrounded by family which was great. So happy to see you taking Rumer Godden for your daughter - she is one of my very favourite writers. Happy new year to you - I'm with Stefanie on the celebration front.

[lethe]

Missing your posts. Hope you are OK <3

[Helen]

lethe, how kind of you! I am perfectly fine, thank you. Just a bit lazy and winterish. I hope you're well too!