HELLO DECEMBER
CATCH-UP MONTH
DICKENS
BOOK BLOGGING IN 2026
YULE
I'm linking up with THE SUNDAY POST hosted by The Caffeinated Reviewer!
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CATCH-UP MONTH!
I have a reading theme every month. It keeps my reading diversified in both genre and subject. December is the month I try to catch myself up with personal challenges and this year also my Dickens year-long slow read, Bleak House.
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I started an annual Dickens slow-read this year, and I will get it read by January first if it's the only thing I read in this month, ha ha! I have chosen Martin Chuzzlewit as my Dickens slow read for next year. It's one of only two longer novels of his I haven't read yet. I was a Dickens fanatic as a younger teen, so I've re-read most of his books over the years. I normally read A Christmas Carol starting on Christmas Eve and finishing up on Christmas Day, but I may have to forgo this to get Bleak House finished, a play read, and another NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list book read towards my 2025 goal of four.
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This will hopefully be my fourth NYT 100 Best Books Personal Challenge title for this year. Liis from Cover to Cover gifted a copy to me last Christmas, or as we call it Twinkle Light Season. It's perfect because it is set in Ireland at Christmastime and my Yule celebration is always Celtic themed. It's also a short book, 128 pages, so it will be a quick read to squeeze in before the New Year.
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I have decided to start reading all the BOOKER PRIZE first place winners next year. Flesh is the 2025 winner. The award started in 1969 and there were tied winners at least once, so I'm looking at around fifty-eight books. I'm going to challenge myself to four a year and hope some of them fit into my monthly blog theme and cross over into the NYT list. I also think I have already read a few. Do you follow and try to read Booker Prize winners?
MY 2026 BLOG READING THEME
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I haven't done a yearly blog reading theme since 2022 when I read a majority of Black and Native American/First Nations authors. I would always skip a year in-between and 2024 was supposed to be A Year of Middle Grade, but it didn't happen. After Liis and I read Villette, instead of our usual re-read of Jane Eyre, for our Women's History Month buddy read this year I started thinking about reading other Charlotte Brontë books, and maybe doing a Wuthering Heights buddy read with Liis because neither of us cared for Emily Brontë's writing in our younger years. Then I started thinking about Anne Brontë! This led me to declaring 2026 my Year of Brontë. Seeing that Middle Grade covers a wide variety of genres I might do a back-to-back yearly theme in 2027.
There are seven novels among the sisters and this book of poetry published under their early pen names. There is a collection of stories the siblings wrote about a fantasy world they made up together when they were young, which was put together and published in 2010; there is also a graphic novel about the sisters writing them. I have both of these to read plus a few of the most recommended biographies about Charlotte and the Brontë family. There is a YA fictional account of the siblings' lives with their brother Bromwell as a prominent character. I also plan on watching movies based on Brontë novels, including my favorite Jane Eyre adaptation from 1996 directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt as Jane and Edward. There are also two biographical movies about the sisters: the 1979 French film titled The Brontë Sisters, and To Walk Invisible from 2016. I think Hoopla has all of the novel adaptation movies as well as these two biographical films. I also think I am covered for all the books amongst my ebooks, Libby and Hoopla.
YULE
My ex and I started celebrating Yule with my son, instead of Christmas, when he was three years old. I have always had a Hibernal (winter) Solstice dinner for friends every December twenty-first, since my college apartment house landlord hosted them for those of us who didn't go home during the holiday break. I loved it because they were nondenominational celebrations with no family drama and small handmade gift exchanges. One of my most favorite Yule/Christmas gifts was one of the six inch tall lemon trees my housemate started and gifted to each of us on the Solstice one year. I really wanted to share that holiday feeling with my son.
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Every year we would cut a real tree and put the lights and star on it the first weekend in December. Then we would wait until our Solstice dinner to decorate it with our friends' help. Solstice was also our cookie exchange night. A traditional host gift for the Winter Solstice is a candle. We called Christmas Eve "Saint Nicolas Eve" and had Chinese takeout, holiday cookies, hot chocolate, and played board games. My son and I still do this. December 25th is Saint Nicolas Day for us. My son's grandparents and great-grandparents always gave him more than enough gifts, so at home he received a stuffed full to the brim Yule sock, one small present from St. Nick, and several small gifts like books, puzzles, board/card games, and art supplies from his father and myself.
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We still exchange large Yule socks stuffed to the brim with special candy and other food items like maple syrups and jams. I still put a pair of socks in my adult son's stocking to wear that day so the Yule Cat doesn't eat him. Ha ha! A Christmas stocking tradition from my childhood I carried over to his Yule sock was a fancy kids toothbrush and kids toothpaste. Even now I put a specialty toothpaste in his stocking, this year I found a French toothpaste from The Boston Store, and a six month supply of biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes he loves and bamboo flossers. I gift the other six months worth for his birthday.
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When he was six we started exchanging a book and cookies on Saint Nicolas Eve and we still do it. I have him give me stroopwafel every year. He always wants white fudge covered Oreos.
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For years neither one of us has wanted to endure all the family drama from his father's family or mine, so we happily have Saint Nicolas Day dinner just the two of us with sometimes a stray friend or two. It's always lasagna, freshly baked Italian bread, green salad, cheesecake and a fancy fruit drink.
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Boxing Day with friends and sometimes family became part of our Yule celebrations when we moved back to our city after several years living out in the country. My son was eight years old. We were closer to everyone and in case of snow the roads were less treacherous. Just like with Friendsgiving people bring leftovers from the day before. I also have a hotdog buffet with chicken and vegan hotdogs and all the fixings you can imagine, and an ice cream sundae bar when it's my turn to host. Over the years we've started sharing the day. I still always provide the ingredients for making birdseed ornaments to hang in the trees for the birds no matter whose home we are visiting. We decide at my Solstice dinner what movie we are going to watch after eating.
New Year's Eve anyone who wants to drop in for pizza, brownies, and punch is welcome. I usually have a new puzzle to start and I like to watch the original Wizard of Oz or a Studio Ghibli anime. Sometimes we play cards. I haven't gone out for New Year's Eve since my son was three years old and he's thirty-three years old now. My son and I exchange some type of beverage in celebration of Yule, usually a specialty tea or coffee and friends know to bring a beverage host gift for me if they drop in.
NEW YEAR'S DAY is the last day of Yule celebrations for us. We gift each other a small gift of a nice soap or calendar, day planner, pen, or an art/craft item. Anything that feels like a new start. We also open our fortune cookies from St. Nicolas Eve and read our fortunes aloud. The biggest thing about our day is NO TECH... no phone, no computer gaming, no social media. We eat leftovers and watch movies on DVDs, play cards or board games, and read. We don't take down our tree until the weekend closest to a week after New Year's Day.
What are some of your holiday traditions? How are you doing with your reading challenges? Are there any new features or challenges you are planning for next year on your blog or Instagram?
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