Talkie Tuesday: The Secret Gift of Christmas

 

"It's not presents, but our presence that matters most for Christmas."

 

Hello everyone!

 

What is this, new devilry?

 

I am in fact channeling my inner Boromir here, because in my experience from seasons past, I have never, and I mean NEVER watched THREE Christmas movies in a row from Hallmark and liked all of them so much as I have this year.

 

Now don't get me wrong.

 

Hallmark has more hits than misses but, with so many holiday flicks in their seasonal programming block, and this being their biggest of all the fiscal year - I mean Countdown to Christmas, of course - there's bound to be stuff that just doesn't mesh well.

 

Not this time though.

 

And isn't THAT just something else?

 

The Secret Gift of Christmas just comes in and keeps on giving!

 

Tome Thursday: Lumberjack under the Tree

 

Hello everyone!

 

And welcome to the last book review of 2022.

 

That's right, we're headed into 2023 at full-tilt now, which means that we're only about one blog post away from completely wrapping up.

 

So I picked what I hope is a good one.

 

At least, I liked it!

 

Which is saying something given I can be the world's harshest critic sometimes, even if I like the other books written by the same author.

 

But that's beside the point.

 

Thing is, I wanted a do-over from the book I DID pick from Keira Andrews for this holiday season, which I didn't love as much as I hoped to. I was cautiously optimistic about her novella, however.

 

And boy, did it turn out to be more than just alright!

 

Lumberjack under the Tree brings all the holly jolly you may have missed, plus more.

 

Talkie Tuesday: Our Italian Christmas Memories

 

"Family's where you act the worst, but are loved the best."

 

Hello everyone!

 

And here we are, we made it!

 

The last movie review of 2022, ladies and gentlemen, and although I wish I would have picked something a little more my speed in terms of how much I enjoyed it, this one still nails a couple of points along the way.

 

I knew it was going to be like this, however.

 

The first two movies of the review-show were much too good to be true, so naturally the follow-up was NEVER going to live up to the hype!

 

Ah well.

 

You win some, you lose some, right?

 

So without further ado, let's jump right into the holiday search for a delicious Italian sugo, as well as some common family decency, with Our Italian Christmas Memories.

 

Saturday Snippet: Christmas Tree(s)

 

xx

*image not mine

Saturday Snippet: Christmas Tree

 

It's time.

 

xx

*image not mine

Saturday Snippet: Advent

 

It's starting already, the countdown begins this Sunday!

 

xx

*image not mine

Saturday Snippet: Yule Log ... wut

 

Listen, it's not MY idea, it was Youtube's years ago 😂

 

xx

*video not mine

Saturday Snippet: Advent

 

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent!

 

xx

*image not mine

Synopsis Saturday: LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special

 

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ..." 

Hello everyone!

I hope you're having a lovely weekend so far and that all my friends who celebrate Thanksgiving are going to enjoy it (or are enjoying it) to the maximum!

Here it's finally starting to get a little colder, which means that it's time to pull out all the music and movies that makes us all want to be all cozy and happy at home. For me, this generally means Hallmark because, let's face it.

NOBODY does Christmas like Hallmark does it.

No matter how many other movies they film and other subcategories they have at their disposal, Christmas is still their biggest marketing niche of the year. They normally release at least 30 new movies, though the number may be lower this year due to the pandemic, but they've been up to the 50 already.

However, nope, not Hallmark tonight.

Tonight, it's just Disney. And Star Wars.

And Life Day in the 2020 LEGO Holiday Special!

Saturday Snippet: Season Finale

xx

*video not mine

Saturday Snippet: Christmas Wreath

xx

*image not mine

Tome Thursday: If Only in My Dreams

Hello everyone!

Time for book three in our countdown to Christmas (and to the end of December as well) and can we just say how fast time flies, again??

Like, didn't December just start last week or something?

How is it almost Christmas already?!

But okay, fine, Christmas is almost here for us and it's time to write another blog post about a book.

When it comes to this one, bear with me a little please, because sadly I had no time to read it again yet and so I'm punching it out of my brain from memory.

Hopefully I got the gist of it right!

Although I mean, it's not rocket science.

It's happily If Only in my Dreams, by Keira Andrews.

Saturday Snippet: Christmas Lights

xx

*image not mine

Saturday Snippet: Home Alone

No Christmas without this!

Happy holidays :-)

xx

*video not mine

Saturday Snippet: Christmas Lights

xx

*image not mine

Talkie Tuesday: A Christmas Prince

"Failures plant the seed for greater successes down the road."

Hello everyone!

Dang, I haven't been blown away yet! And I'm not talking figuratively here. We've been having some INSANE winds in my country since yesterday, and to tell the truth when I drove do my PT and back this morning the town looked like the Tasmanian Devil rocked through it, dumped his dirty laundry, and hustled out (not to mention our Christmas tree toppled over in the town square). 

The winds are set to abate today, however (they're saying it's some sort of freak African/Mediterranean thing that came out of the south following the coast), but then we're slated to get more snow.

Which basically means that we've had temperatures in the toasty area for the past two days, in the freezing corner before that, and we're going back to deep freeze.

So, you know, if you can't beat the weather, you snuggle down and watch Christmas movies. Especially if you're encouraged to do so by one of your best friends, who then proceeds to be amused by your running commentary throughout the film.

This Tuesday's review pick: A Christmas Prince.

Saturday Snippet: Christmas Tree(s)

In our house, there's a few of these.

xx

*image not mine

Saturday Snippet: Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

xx

*image not mine

Talkie Tuesday: The Spirit of Christmas

"Twelve days isn't nearly enough."

Hello everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Meaning, I'm overdoing it with Christmas movies this week. Tonight on the menu is one of my all-time favourites, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (and coincidentally the only Jim Carrey movie I can actually watch), but yesterday I was watching something else. 

You know this season is one of those when ALL the cheesiness comes out in spades, but then again this is probably one of the only times per year when it's actually allowed.

So yeah, I watched a semi-cheesy movie. Actually, talking to a friend of mine, we classified it as 'medium cheese' because, why not.

If I hadn't known any better I would have immediately said Hallmark was the one who produced it, but then Hallmark goes overboard with the cheese most of the time, and this one wasn't exactly there yet, though it was close.

All in all, however, it had a fairly reasonable female lead, a VERY good-looking male lead + glasses, and mystery!

I'm talking about The Spirit of Christmas.

Tome Thursday: The Perfect Gift

Hello everyone!

It's time for yet another book blog, and as with the two previous ones, this is going to be a Christmas-oriented piece.

I'm feeling festive considering the fact that I've managed to finish my Christmas shopping earlier today so now all I have to do is wait for the day to arrive so that I can stick the parcels under the tree and watch my family's rections!

Whew.

I have to say, the shopping trip was far less painful than it used to be, but maybe that was because I had company, or maybe I'd finished half of it already so it was only a matter of hashing out some details? Possibly.

In any event, I digress, and terribly so.

The book I'm going to talk about is the one that first got me into reading more work from this particular author, and is titled The Perfect Gift, by Serenity Woods.