Holidays
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Festive Tasks: Door 19 – City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style …
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Task 2: How does your community celebrate the season – i.e., how do you know it’s Christmas in your community? Fetes? Fairs? Markets? Concerts? Bonfires? If there are many, tell us about your favorite. Pictures if you’ve got them. Light decorations and Christmas market from the first weekend of […]
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It’s beginning to look just a little bit like Christmas …
Another week from hell, and it looks very much like there will be more of the same in store almost all the way through Christmas — looks like the year is intent on finishing in style (in the same style as it’s adopted in the last several months, that is). So, I decided that enough […]
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Festive Tasks: Door 17 – Holiday Food (Tasks 1 – 3)
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE As for the other squares where I’ve completed several tasks in a single post (Gifts, Holiday Shopping, and Correspondence), I’m dividing this into several pages, one per task. Task 1: What’s your favorite seasonal drink? Can be alcoholic or virgin, complicated cocktails, festive punches / noggs or just […]
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THINGS SIMON’S CAT IS THANKFUL FOR (Thanksgiving Collection)
Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!
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Festive Tasks: Door 15 – Correspondence, Tasks 1 – 3
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Same approach as for Like for Doors 7 (Gifts), and 13 (Holiday Shopping): one page per task. Task 1: Do you still send holiday cards? Do you go for amusing, inspirational, or make your own? I used to love sending holiday cards and spent a lot of time […]
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Festive Tasks: Door 2, Task 1 – The Spirit of Christmas Perpetual
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Task 1: Holiday books often have covers that try to evoke a certain emotion in the reader. Post a picture, or a gallery of pictures, of holiday themed book covers that really appeal to you, and, if you want to, tell us why. A large part of what I […]
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Festive Tasks: Door 13 – Holiday Shopping
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Like for Door 7 (Gifts), I’m going to divide this post into several pages; one per task. Task 1: What was the best or worst holiday “bargain” you ever indulged in? Did you get a post-holiday steal on something you’ve had your heart set on or really needed? […]
Read MoreA Saturday Afternoon in November
Also, I thought I’d do without getting yet another pair of holiday socks (and slippers) this year, but then they go and tantalize me with owls and kitties …
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