This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the books that have most recently been added to our collections. I had an excellent Jólabókaflóð, or Christmas book flood, so all eleven titles (technically 14 individual books) below arrived at the Burrow in the past month, courtesy of Karen, Rudi, my mother, and Kathleen:

1. Haikyu!! Vol. 1 and #4-6 by Haruichi Furudate (I read the first manga back in 2018, have since devoured the anime multiple times, and now am hoping to read all 45 books before the final movie comes out (next year maybe?).)
2. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
3. Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
4. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
5. Bake Club by Christina Tosi
6. Death Comes at Christmas edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane
7. Into the Uncut Grass by Trevor Noah
8. Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge
9. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
10. Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
11. Fangirl (graphic novel Vol. 1) by Rainbow Rowell adapted by Sam Maggs and illustrated by Gabi Nam

How about you? Have new books moved into your home recently?

Every year, Jana of That Artsy Reader Girl, generously keeps up the tradition of Secret Santa started at the now defunct The Broke and the Bookish, where she sends your info to someone and sends you an entirely different person’s info. There are different levels for participation and I’m sure it takes a lot of energy to get everyone squared away, and that’s all before people start having challenges (such as anyone sending to or from Canada this holiday season). So, every year she runs it, I and the hundreds of other people who look forward to this annual tradition are terribly grateful to her.

This year, my package arrived early (mine snuck out at the deadline and arrived, like the real Santa, on Christmas Eve). I always admire the folks who wait. And sometimes I let the box sit a couple days to get closer to Christmas, but I never make it all the way to the holiday. I’m too excited and impatient!

Kathleen, my Santa, hails from Delaware and put together a fanciful package full of books and other delights. First is a list of places I might want to visit in her home state (and nearby Pennsylvania), and since we’re just a couple hours away and since Delaware is home to my favorite beaches in the area, we will be checking them off. She also tucked in a couple rolls of pretty washi tape and a pen from her work, which, coincidentally and unbeknownst to her, is also the name of the neighborhood where I live in D.C.

Because she knew we’d recently acquired kittens, she included this delightful ornament, which I put well out of reach of the felines (although, to be fair, Coal has challenged my understanding of what that means).

Kathleen made this ornament for me. It includes quotes from The Princess Bride, one of my favorite movies and a terrific book. It is also out of reach of the cats, because I think they would love to find their way inside to take all those quotation scrolls and squirrel them away under furniture.

There is tea and a single person teapot with a cherry blossom motif (it’s required with D.C. citizenship to love cherry blossoms), perfect for putting on a tray within reach as you read on the couch. Kathleen included some delicious spicy holiday jam, a local product filled with berries and jalapeño, and which has been giving my morning toast that extra something something to help start winter mornings.

And finally, the books. She gave me the first of the manga adaptations of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, which I’m very excited to see how they put that together. She also gave me Evie Woods’ The Lost Bookshop, which looks so good. And finally, she gave me Elin Hildebrand’s Winter in Paradise. I’ve read the first two books in Hildebrand’s Winter Street series, and this is the first in a newer wintry series set in the Caribbean instead of Nantucket. I love a beach read when it’s cold outside!

Kathleen, thank you so much. I love everything and am looking forward to hours of reading and drinking tea this winter! Happy #TBTBSanta!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Jasen sent a Christmas card saying how much he values everything I do for the team and a gift for the kittens.

2. Sunday afternoon, I run across town in a desperate bid to finish my Christmas list. I am delighted to discover that Sarah, who’d been ill, is up and doing one final shift at her old job to help them out with the rush. She helps me with my shopping, and since she won’t be back in time to join us for our New Year’s Eve tradition this year, it feels particularly good to see her one last time in 2024.

3. Christmas was lovely, with a slow start to the day after Mum & I were up late wrapping. I think everyone liked their presents, the dinner was delicious, and we finished the night with The Bishop’s Wife, most of which Mum & I dozed through.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Oops. Karen texted to ask me why I hadn’t posted this week, and I thought, “But I did!” But that was last week. Not this week. Ahem. I feel like I’m a little young to be claiming such forgetfulness, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Here, slightly belatedly, are three beautiful things from last week:

1. Our tree trimming was last weekend, and it was a fun event. We had folks from our earliest political days in D.C. (and their teenaged children!!!) and bikey friends and volleyball friends, and while everyone important to us here couldn’t make it (and thank goodness, because we most certainly would not have had room for them all), it felt like a nice balance of the people who make this home. (The photo shows the crew who stayed until the end of the night, with thanks to John for thinking to take a picture.)

2. While Rebecca gamely produced a steady stream of nearly all our ornaments to get them on the tree in record time during the party, I always pull aside a bag that contains the ones Rudi likes best so he can add them himself afterwards. He tucked them onto the tree during the week and then whisked the Christmas box back to our storage unit so it wasn’t cluttering up the living room.

3. While last season it took until the very end of the season to drop a set, this season the team lost our opening game in the second week. And then we were down in the second set, too. But we kept our cool and kept talking and won the second set and then dominated the tie-breaker, which felt extraordinarily good.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Friends, we’ve made it. Done or not, we have reached the night before Christmas.

Thank you for coming along with us all these past 24 days. Thanks to Rudi, Marg, and raidergirl3 for their posts along the way.

Rudi and I drove north last night, which gave us a chance to listen to WXPN’s Robert Drake in his The Night Before The Night Before. We got the pre-show, but if you tune in to WXPN from Philadelphia anytime today, you’ll catch Drake’s main holiday show.

Another Christmas Eve tradition of mine is to watch Christmas Eve on Sesame Street:

If you don’t have time for the live broadcast, nor an hour for Jim Henson, may I offer Stan Rogers’ “At Last I’m Ready for Christmas,” which is far shorter:

If you celebrate, Merry Christmas. And if you don’t, peace on earth to us all.

Hey, folks!

Earlier this week, Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader posted about her most recent Christmas reads and invited me to share it on the Virtual Advent Tour. In response to her post, I thought I’d note down the holiday reads I’m either in the midst of or hoping to get to this season (through mid-January when our tree comes down):

Finished:

• A Holly Jolly Diwali, by Sonya Lalli, starts just before Diwali in the fall and carries through until Christmas (with a postlude set at the following Diwali), so I’m counting it. If you want an international romance, much of which takes place in India, and a multicultural approach to holidays, I encourage you to check it out.

Underway, but early days:

• The Mistletoe Motive by Chloe Liese is about rival booksellers, Gabriella di Natale and Jonathan Frost, at an indie shop that is threatened by a national chain, Potters. I’m early in, but expect lots of festive wordplay and allusions to favorite holiday books and movies.
• A Winter in New York by Josie Silver focuses on a young British woman who’s moved to New York after the end of a bad relationship and still reeling from her mother’s death. Then she finds out that her mother’s beloved and secret gelato recipe may have come from a city shop.

Still to come (let me know if I should prioritize any of these):

• Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle
• A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
• The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett
• Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop, edited by Otto Penzler
• The Christmas Orphans Club by Becca Freeman
• Mrs. Jeffries and the Midwinter Murders by Emily Brightwell
• The Christmas Café by Eliza Evans
• The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore (my BFF gave me this years ago and I can remember reading the start of it on the metro and cannot tell you why I didn’t finish it. I’m assuming life and figure if ever there was a year to read a Christmas satire, 2023 is it.)