Christmas Books by Holly Martin

I love Christmas.  For me, it’s the best time of year.  I love buying presents.  I love

spending time with my friends and family. I love the Christmas lights.  I love the mulled wine, the turkey with all the trimmings, the mince pies and the copious amounts of sweet treats and chocolate.  I love that its two weeks off work and there’s plenty of time for long winter walks through the woods.  I live near Ashridge Woods in Hertfordshire, which is just one of the most beautiful places.  If the snow comes down, it looks magical and if you’re very lucky you might even see some red deer.  I love watching Christmas TV and films and I love snuggling up on the sofa, under a blanket and reading Christmas books.

Christmas books are the epitome of Christmas for me.  They take all those stereotypical images of Christmas, the snow, the chestnuts, the cookies, the stockings, the log fires, the fairy lights, the Christmas carols, the big trees, and they throw them all together into a story that just sparkles and twinkles from the page. Christmas in books tends to be the Christmases that we can never have for ourselves.  I can’t remember ever having a white Christmas.  I don’t live in a picture postcard tiny village that you see on the front of Christmas cards, covered in snow with a large Christmas tree standing in the middle whilst the angelic children stand around it singing Christmas carols. But that’s why we have these gorgeous Christmas stories to provide us with this ideal Christmas. Even if our Christmases are crazy, with a house full of relatives that you don’t get on with, children hyped up on sweets and fizzy drinks and the excitement of presents, even if the turkey burns and the minced pies turn out to be apple ones that went out of date in June, you can still escape to winter wonderlands where everything is perfect, well almost.  There’s always a bit of drama that is thrown into the mix too.

One of my favourite Christmas stories this year is Christmas Wedding at the Gingerbread Café by Rebecca Raisin, the final instalment in the Gingerbread Café series.

Oh I loved this book so much, it was just crammed full of sparkly, Christmassy goodness. Where other books are just set at Christmas, Christmas Wedding has the wonder of Christmas pouring from every page, from gingerbread houses, mince pies, carol singing and a whole heap of sparkling snow.

The story follows the stresses of planning a wedding alongside working full time in a cafe/cake shop, with the added stress of the dreaded in-laws coming to town.

The love story between Damon and Lil is just beautiful and this is a perfect way to say goodbye to this story and characters. The characters as always are so well rounded, so real and I loved that this whole community was painted as a vibrant, wonderful, rich tapestry of life. Rebecca just has such a wonderful way of writing her characters with their own sub plots, pasts and problems.

Rebecca has perfect descriptions too, its so vivid and rich, I could taste the food, smell the ingredients and feel the warmth of Christmas and the cafe.

This story has it all, perfect heartwarming romance, gorgeous characters, brilliant humour and rich descriptions. I absolutely devoured this book. It made me laugh, it made me cry and it made me go awwww on every page. Curl up this Christmas with this gorgeous, sparkly read

http://amzn.to/1tvYX7f

Another Christmas cracker is Twelve Dates of Christmas by Lisa Dickenson. It is like a glorious advent calendar of sparkly goodness as it follows Claudia's Twelve Dates.

The stand out thing for me is Lisa's writing. I have read a lot of Christmas Chicklit and Lisa's is one of the best, standing out amongst a sea of her more experienced peers like a beacon. Her writing, is fresh and hilarious. She has a real gift for humour. I have literally snorted with laughter at the things that Claudia gets up to, laughing loudly in a staffroom full of strangers, and in one case laughing so hard, I choked on my lunch and a bubble of snot escaped from my nose. I can't remember the last time a book has made me laugh like this. Lisa's vivid descriptions help you picture exactly what is going on making you feel as if you are right there with Claudia, cheering her on.

Lisa's characterization is faultless too, Claudia, Penny and Nick are so real, so normal, so well rounded and I love them all. Especially Nick, I adore Nick, I want my own Nick. They're like the best friends you want for yourself.

I don't want to go into too much detail about what each date is about as that would ruin it for you. But trust me when I say, if you buy one Christmas book this year, it has to be this one. You will laugh, you will cry, you will go awwww and then you'll laugh all over again.

http://amzn.to/INVvUT

The Great Christmas Knit Off – by Alexandra Brown

Original Cover

My own copy

The blurb:

The perfect seasonal tale of how laughter, friends and wacky Christmas jumpers can mend a broken heart. For fans of Trisha Ashley and Jenny Colgan.

Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Sybil has been saved from despair by her knitting obsession and now her home is filled to bursting with tea cosies, bobble hats, and jumpers. But, after discovering that she may have perpetrated the cock-up of the century at work, Sybil decides to make a hasty exit and, just weeks before Christmas, runs away to the picturesque village of Tindledale.

There, Sybil discovers Hettie’s House of Haberdashery, an emporium dedicated to the world of knitting and needle craft. But Hettie, the outspoken octogenarian owner, is struggling and now the shop is due for closure. And when Hettie decides that Sybil’s wonderfully wacky Christmas jumpers are just the thing to add a bit of excitement to her window display, something miraculous starts to happen…

My Opinion:

I love Alexandra Brown’s Carrington’s series and that’s why I was really excited for this

book!!! And it’s the start for a whole new series, that’s awesome!

This story follows Sybil. After being left at the altar six months ago and having trouble at work she decides to go away for a while. Her broken heart needs a mend. She goes to this lovely village called Tindledale, to visit a friend.

Sybil is such a wonderful character; she is in a bad place when we meet her. But that change seems to her good and she is finally doing something to get out of her misery. I loved following her story, getting to know all these wonderful people in Tindledale and let me tell you one thing: This village is perfect and sweet and the right place for Sybil to change her life. The other character’s are so sweet and helpful and they all become friends really fast.

When Sybil goes into Hettie’s House of Haberdashery she falls in love with the place and that lovely woman. Her shop is in for closure, but can Sybil help to change that?! After all she has a huge passion for knitting and she comes up with a plan.

Eventually parts of her past come creep9ing up, but she has her own way to deal with it all now and let’s not forget gorgeous and sexy doctor Ben. They had the perfect chemistry from the start and it was great to read about them getting to know each other more and more, there were so many sparks and sweet scenes between them.

Tindledale is an amazing place and just the place for a Christmas story, with so much magic, festive spark and the snowy and sweet surroundings.

Sybil’s dog Basil added so much cuteness to the book, I loved the way Alex included him into the story.

It wouldn’t be an amazing book without some drama going on. It added the right amount of mystery and secret to the story and all the revelations towards the end, made the personalities of all character’s clearer. All the character’s are well lined out and one can see that Alexandra Brown has put a lot of thought and details into each one of them

This book is my fave out of Alex’s books so far. I love her writing, t’s brilliant. It’s so detailed, vivid and sparkly. I felt like being there with the characters in this beautiful, festive and romantic place!!

THIS BOOK IS A MAGICAL MASTERPIECE!!! It’s full of emotions, warm feelings and Christmassy spark. The perfect book to snuggle up to surrounded by Christmas lights and mulled vine.

I can’t wait for the next book of this series!!! Hurry up Alex ;)

Rating:

My possible cast:

Sybil: model

Ben: model

Alex on Twitter: @alexbrownbooks

Website: http://www.alexandrabrown.co.uk

Christmas at my house

 Well, here in Switzerland Christmas Eve is where it all starts. A few years ago, when I was younger we celebrated Christmas on the 24th with my mum’s family and then on the 25th we celebrated with my dad’s family. Both my grandparents on my dad’s side died and the family around my little cousin prefers to go away over Christmas.

So now, we mostly celebrate on the 24^th and the 25^th is just the day after, where we stay together watch movies and play games. It's not Santa bringing the presents in the night of the 25th, no it's the "Christ child" or in German "Christkind" coming on the 24th when it gets dark.

Now, let me tell you more about the 24^th at my house. First of all, I sleep in, always. Then I have breakfast with my family. After that I go back to my room, turn on some Christmas music or start a movie on my laptop, then I start wrapping all the presents (this year this happened a bit earlier, on Monday already). I love wrapping up all the presents. I get to choose some nice silver and white paper and afterwards decorate it in my own style. Almost every year, my dad and brother give me something to wrap as well. “You can do that better than I do”. Then we have a small lunch, since we’ll have a big dinner afterwards. After lunch I finish wrapping everything and bring the presents down to spread under the tree (We always decorate it the evening before - not this year again, because we are going away after Christmas and wanted to look at the tree longer, so we put it up before).

At around 2 pm it’s time for coffee and tea with desert and then we start getting things ready for dinner. It’s funny how we work as a team then ;), of course there is always Christmas music in the background and we start fooling around. Some funny dances were created because of that.

Then it’s definitely time to get ready, before everyone arrives. I like to dress up a bit and

look nice at Christmas. After that I get everything ready for our “aperitif”.  My uncle always picks my grandparents up and they arrive together. We have prosecco or champagne and nip a little something. It’s always fun to catch up and talk properly. Then it’s time for the salad and our “Fondue Chinoise” (It’s not the famous cheese fondue everybody knows, no it’s meat Fondue). That’s our tradition here, we have it every year and it’s so yummy with different sauces.

Time for presents now!!! My brother and I always get the presents under the Christmas tree and give them to our family and then we take turns unpacking them. It’s always so much fun, especially when you don’t know what’s in them.

After the presents we get back to the food again, with some Chinoise soup and the a yummy desert with coffee and Christmas cookies. Slowly we come to the end of the day and we all go to bed happy and content. 

On My TV This Christmas by Jennifer Gilby Roberts

I love shows that get me in the mood for Christmas.  Here are my personal favourites from the multitude available, that really bring out the Christmas spirit.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Vital.  My husband wooed me with The Muppets.  He invited me round to his house to watch them.  The overture at our wedding (it was held in a theatre) was an instrumental version of the theme song.  The Christmas Carol is a classic by anyone’s standards, but this version is definitely the best.

While You Were Sleeping

Not precisely a Christmas movie, but set at Christmas and all about the importance of family.  Lucy saves a man’s life and is mistaken for his fiancée at the hospital.  While he lies in a coma, she goes from all alone to part of a large, warm - if slightly mad - family, and can’t bring herself to tell them the truth.  Then she starts to fall for his brother and things get really complicated.

The Vicar of Dibley: The Christmas Lunch Incident

The Vicar of Dibley is a long-running UK show about a female vicar (played by Dawn French) sent to a small, conservative village where the inhabitants are all mad real characters.  In this episode, she agrees to have three Christmas lunches to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings.  One for everyone who’s ever over-indulged at Christmas dinner.

Miranda: The Perfect Christmas

Miranda and her friends think Christmas would be far better if they spent the day together instead of with their families.  They’re wrong.

Miranda reminds me a lot of my heroine from The Dr Pepper Prophecies, especially in episodes like this where everything is going wrong for her.

Harry Potter

Hands up everyone who wants to spend Christmas at Hogwarts?  From the never-ending feast to the massive tree to the fact that they always have snow, the Christmas scenes in the Harry Potter movies are fantastically Christmassy.  And given that someone’s put them on YouTube, I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8vxuZ3bjrA

What films and TV shows make you feel the most Christmassy?

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Jennifer Gilby Roberts has a degree in physics and a postgraduate certificate in computing, so a career writing fiction was inevitable really. She was born and grew up in Surrey/Greater London, but now lives in North Yorkshire with her husband, small daughter, two middle-aged cats and a lot of dust bunnies.

Her books include The Dr Pepper Prophecies, After Wimbledon, Early Daze and But I Said Forever.

Find Jennifer at her blog, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.