And having a wonderful time, courtesy of YouTube, revisiting the TV shows that I remember from Christmases long ago. Perry Como, with the Vienna Boys Choir singing the Christmas song with the lines that sum it all up for me. ‘Nights should all be silent, Days should all slow down.’ Val Doonican, complete with gorgeous knitted jumpers. The muppet shows as we lead up to next Sunday when we will have our ceremonial watching of the Muppet Christmas Carol. Never mind that we can recite chunks of it. Never mind that I still cry at the bit when Tiny Tim’s dead and almost certainly always will. Never mind that we are, allegedly, all grown-ups in this house now.
There is definitely something about the gentler programmes where people are ever so slightly orange and TV screens are smaller and squarer. They actually sing carols, and Perry Como retold the Christmas story. I don’t want to think about what it would be like if the Muppets told the Christmas story, but that’s a thought I’m going to find hard to unthink. Ah well, it’s probably ok as long as it stays safely in my head and you’re not going to tell on me, are you?
Most of all, Saturday is the solstice and from then on, even if it is slowly at first, the days will start to grow longer again. Till then, we will go for early evening walks to enjoy the Christmas lights and I will make regular trips outside to watch the first green shoots from the bulbs. I’m not sure whether ‘get a move on’ counts as talking to plants and I don’t want to wish the days away because I know how precious each one is and how lucky I am to have them with my family, but all the same, there is something very precious about winter flowers. I’ve got those too, from heathers and Chinese witch hazel and winter flowering box, but I can and do look forward to daffodils and crocuses and wild garlic and the bright yellow forsythia.
There again, I also look forward to winter walks, and snuggling in reading. I’ve got a collection of Christmas books that I add to each year and, of course, I’ve begun to write next year’s Christmas short stories. There’s also going to be a Christmas Amy and a Christmas Windy Bay because I’ve been busy in the bad weather.
Today though, I shall be going for a walk down through the park to see which winter birds have arrived and it may just happen to take me past the cake shop whose doors are always kept open so I can go in there with a mask. It’d be rude not to go in, wouldn’t it? And the chocolate caramel cookie bombs always look lonely there so I ought to take one home and make it part of my Christmas…
So have a good week, and maybe look at the books that are on special offer at 99p in the UK and 99c in the US.
This week, we have a bumper bundle, all ready for the point when Christmas is done and your new years resolution is to slow down and read more.
There are 3 anthologies under my Tia Brown name, She didn’t mean to find trouble, which is the first 3 Amy Hammond cosy mysteries, Love by the Sea, which is the first 3 Windy Bay cosy romances, one of which is set at Christmas and The scent of lavender, which is the first three Lavender House cosy romances. There are also 3 other Amy Hammonds, which are A Handmade Crime, Aging Disgracefully and Two Graves Publication. A Handmade Crime is sort of set at Christmas because it focuses round the filming of a TV Special. In July. In a heatwave. With everyone wearing Christmas jumpers, and amazingly, no one comes down with heatstroke.
There are also 3 from my Eleanor Neville Shadows series. If you’ve liked what you’ve seen of Doctor Simon Jones when he’s popped up in the recent Amy Hammond mysteries then this is ‘his’ series. He’s stuck on a desert island, injured, responsible for two kids and an awkward millionaire’s daughter in ‘To be the Best’ which is set just after Christmas and that might make you feel better about your Christmas, which I hope won't be that bad!
So have a good week till we catch up on Sunday, and today’s picture is of the Christmas train getting ready to go round Poole Park Lake. Seeing that brings back so many memories of when my children were small because a highlight used to be stopping at the reindeer stables to see Santa. And one year the reindeer got out…
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