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Christmas – Lioness at Large

Christmas

Lifestyle

Happy Holidays from My Home to Yours!

Have a lovely holiday weekend, however and whichever way you’re spending it. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, and Happy Newtonmas!

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Literature Reviews

Margaret Millar: Vanish in an Instant

  The Appointment with Agatha group’s April side read, and the third book by Millar I’ve read this year alone. Though I didn’t like it quite as well as my very first foray into her oeuvre (An Air That Kills), it’s not very far behind, and I can definitely see how the two novels came […]

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Fun and Games Lifestyle

Holiday Spirituality

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Task 1: Are there any places or events that are particularly spiritually meaningful to you this time of year? Share a picture or description with us. There are, and it’s put a damper on my Christmas not to be able to go there this and last year. Neither my […]

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Cats Cooking - Food - Drink Fun and Games Lifestyle Literature Movies

Plum Pudding, Bibliomancy, Goblins and Other Charms

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 21: Good Luck Charms and Traditions Another multi-page post (as before, one page per task). Task 1: If you decorate for the holidays, when do you start putting up the decorations? When do you take them down? Are there any superstitions that you are aware of […]

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Fun and Games Lifestyle

Festive Tasks: Travel

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Task 1: If you could go anywhere in the world, name your top 3 locales, and tell us why if there’s a reason beyond just wanting to go. I suppose if I’m to nail it down to three, it would be (in no particular order) Machu Picchu, An African […]

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Fun and Games Literature Music Reviews

Ngaio Marsh: Off With His Head (Death of a Fool)

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 19 — Community Traditions & Folklore: Read a fairy tale, or folklore story, or books based on either.   Marsh’s third (de facto) holiday mystery, though not exactly set on Christmas but on and around Winter Solstice — because here her focus is on creating (with […]

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Fun and Games Lifestyle Music

Holiday Music

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 8 Another multi-page post; as before, one page per task. Task 1: What’s your favorite type of music to listen to during the festive season? Rock? Classical? Opera? Country? Definitely classical. I have Classic FM playing in the background pretty much all year around anyway (when […]

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Cooking - Food - Drink Fun and Games Lifestyle

Personal Holiday Traditions

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 23 Task 1: How do you get through the festive season? Do you throw yourself in whole hog, are you happy to go with the flow, or do you hunker down and wait for it all to be over? Are you a traditionalist, or do you […]

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Fun and Games Lifestyle Literature Movies

Holiday Movies

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 24 — Cherished Memories, Task 4: What’s your favorite Christmas/holiday movie that you can watch again and again? (This can be any movie that takes place during the holiday season, whether or not it’s in the ‘spirit’ of the season (i.e. Die Hard or Lethal Weapon). […]

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Fun and Games Lifestyle

Holiday Lights

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 3 — Light(s), Task 2: Share some photos of your favorite light display, if you have them, or if you have a neighbor who goes ‘all out’, snap a photo to share. Our neighborhood is not an ostentatious one when it comes to Christmas light displays […]

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Blog Lifestyle

For Christmas 2021 …

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Two Christmas Mystery Short Story Anthologies

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 21 — Good Luck Charms and Traditions: Read a book from the fantasy genre, or one with something on the cover that refers to “luck”. Festive Tasks, Door 24 — Cherished Memories: Read a book with a split timeline, one that takes place in the present […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Martha Grimes: Jerusalem Inn

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 13 — Holiday Shopping: Read a book about someone who works retail, or that has a retail establishment on the cover (shop, café etc).   Of all the early Richard Jury books by Martha Grimes, this is probably my favorite — not only because it’s got, […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Amy Pershing: An Eggnog to Die For

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 17 — Food & Drink: Read a book about food, or where the main character is a chef, gourmand, or bartender, brewer or distiller.   Sigh. I think it’s fair to say at this point that food-related cozy mysteries aren’t necessary my kind of thing, at […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Ngaio Marsh: Tied Up in Tinsel

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 22 — Iconic Figures: To celebrate Santa Claus: read a book that qualifies as a comfort read for you.   In a year of revisiting the better part of Marsh’s canon, what book could possibly qualify better as a comfort read?  Seeing as this year might […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 16 — Charity: Read “A Christmas Carol,” or read a book in which poverty or hardship are significant plot elements.   This is one of my annual Christmas rereads; one of the books I’ll never get tired of — in addition to listening to the audiobook […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Anthony Berkeley: The Wintringham Mystery

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 23 — Personal Traditions: Read a book that involves big changes for the main character.   This is relatively early book by Berkeley based on a premise that, if I hadn’t found it in a novel actually published in the interwar era, I’d have declared flat-out […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Donna Andrews: The Twelve Jays of Christmas

Master Update Post HERE   Festive Tasks, Door 4 – Decorating: Read a book that has an object that can be used as a Christmas decoration on the cover. I started reading Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow books a few years ago, with a Christmas book as it happened, and and this point returning to her […]

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Fun and Games Literature

Rupert Latimer: Murder After Christmas

Master Update Post HERE   Festive Tasks, Door 2 – Holiday Books: Read a holiday themed book.  Sigh. This is the first year in which I’m slightly underwhelmed with the BLCC Christmas selection — though conceivably this is largely an “it’s not you, book; it’s me” type of situation.  If you like the sort of […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

Karen Baugh Menuhin: Murder at Melrose Court

Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE   Door 12 — Northern Hemisphere: Read something with snow or ice on the cover or read a ghost story. I read the second book of this series, The Black Cat Murders, as my (you guessed it) “Black Cat” square book for this year’s Halloween Bingo, and while there […]

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