Christian Christmas Reads Haul!

 

It's that time of year again!

Well, technically I'm a little bit late, but better late than never when it comes to buying some new Christmas Reads, which I did and am waiting to arrive in the mail!

If you're looking for an amazing source of Christian (or clean) Christmas fiction then I highly recommend browsing through the Christmas Fiction section of Christianbook.com. I love that website so much for Christian fiction and even for stocking stuffer ideas, so keep it in mind for that too!

I tried reading Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini a few years ago and just couldn't finish it. But I'm a little bit different now as a person than I was a few years ago so I'm actually really looking forward to this book. And I love Longfellow's poem so I am excited that Longfellow is the primary theme of this book!

This is one I would consider to be more clean than Christian fiction just based on my memory.

I haven't read Lynn Austin books in many years but I like postwar and 1950s fiction, so I think I will enjoy The Wish Book Christmas. I also fell for the cover, not gonna lie. It's super cute. 

Waiting for Christmas, also by Lynn Austin, is another book where I just loved the cover, but I also enjoy Victorian fiction a lot so I thought I would give this one a try. Literature is full of people who married for love, not station, so I wanted to see Lynn Austin's take on the subject.

I haven't had good luck with Julie Klassen in the past, BUT sometimes Christmas fiction brings out the best in an author. So I'll give An Ivy Hill Christmas a try. Regency fiction is some of my favorite to read so I'm hoping that this novella is as charming as it appears.

I absolutely adore Melody Carlson's Christmas fiction! She's one author whose work I look forward to reading every year, but I don't own all her Christmas books and this one is a 2024 release so I am eagerly bouncing up and down waiting for it to arrive. I can't wait to read The Christmas Tree Farm!

Again, here's another author that can be hit or miss with me. I've very much enjoyed some of Roseanna M. White's fiction in the past and really disliked others, but I'm more than willing to give her 2024 Christmas release of Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor a try.

I totally missed last year's Melody Carlson Christmas novella so I had to leap at the chance to buy it, even buying it at full price, which I totally did. I appreciate that romance doesn't seem to be at the front and center of A Quilt for Christmas, but instead is about a widow befriending a child in need of a Christmas miracle for her mother.

While my ancestry is mostly Finnish and Swedish, I do have a small amount of Norwegian blood in me and I happen to love eating lefse, a delicious Norwegian alternative to a tortilla or a crepe that is made out of potatoes. So finding an author, Larry Woiwode, who wrote a story involving lefse, well, I knew I had to purchase The Invention of Lefse: A Christmas Story.

And there you have it! My 2024 Christmas Reads Haul from Christianbook.com! I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my package so I can get reading!

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Excited about the upcoming HBO Harry Potter series!

For numerous reasons, I’m absolutely stoked about HBO’s new Harry Potter series that’s in development! I love magic and fantasy and epic adventures, and stories starring children as the leads. That goes way back to my childhood and has carried on well into my adult years.

But, I’m not really a fan of the Harry Potter movies. In fact, I haven’t watched them in years. With a few exceptions, the films just didn’t meet my expectations, which is strange to admit because I did watch the movies before reading the books. I guess I just didn’t know how much MORE there is in the books than what the films allowed.

I did “like” the movies when I was younger, but I LOVE Rowling’s books. She created such a masterful world of imagery and experiences and characterization and my hope and prayer is that the HBO series really brings that world to complete life.

Funnily enough, my favorites of the Harry Potter movies are the first two! They felt the closest to the books with so much obvious magic just everywhere. I LOVED that feeling so that vibe is what I’m literally crossing my fingers for in the series remake.

 

 

I also have a gentle confession to make so if you don’t want to get a little political, it’s okay to skip the below paragraphs and join up again at the end.

 

 

 

 

 

I support J. K. Rowling and I don’t think anything she said concerning biology and female spaces should have ever created the massive controversy the Harry Potter fanbase finds itself in. Because HBO is standing firm in its stance on having her on board with the new series, I am also on board with them. You cannot have Harry Potter without JK. Nor should you try because that really is just disrespectful to the creator of such an imaginative world.

My sister and I had tickets to Leaky Con back in, oh 2021, in Denver. It’s a Harry Potter themed convention that has, apparently, evolved into something called EnchantiCon but hasn’t really changed their mindset from what I can tell. That season was at the beginning of the intense anti-Rowling sentiment that was infiltrating the Harry Potter fandom. We read through the new “rules” for the convention which were quite long and ranting and realized that unless you towed the line and went with the anticipated anti-Rowling narrative that was going to be in a lot of the talk sessions, you really weren’t welcome at the convention. We got refunds for our tickets.

I have no patience with authoritarianism whatsoever and the entire convention reeked of it. You have no idea how very much that grieved my heart. I wanted to go. I wanted to celebrate Harry Potter and just have an incredibly good time with my friends. The convention should have been about Harry Potter! But they made it about politics. The convention was tainted because it no longer allowed for diversity of thought or opinion on Rowling herself. Authoritarianism isn’t left wing or right wing. It can infiltrate any belief system, any fanbase, and any political party and that is what happened with Harry Potter.

It’s taken me 4 years to reach a place of psychological safety where I can publicly acknowledge that I love the Harry Potter books and JK. Nobody wants to feel that they’re putting themselves in a position of potential harassment by complete and total strangers online for coming out in support of something.

If a person decides that reading the Harry Potter books violates their personal ethics, I’m not going to argue with them. But just because that person feels that way, does not give them the right to thrust that opinion on everyone else in the fandom and demand that we follow suit. Because that’s not happening.

 

 

 

End of gentle confession/rant.

 

I have a delightful Autumn at Hogwarts ambience on Youtube playing on my computer while I’m writing this. If you have never played ambiences, either while working from home or crafting or just if you’re sitting and reading a book, I highly recommend the experience! My sister and I have at least a hundred ambiences saved for a variety of themes, and they are so relaxing as an experience!

We’re making Pumpkin Pasties tonight for Thanksgiving tomorrow, using the delectable recipe from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. We’re not big on pumpkin pie in my house but Pumpkin Pasties are another matter entirely! If you’ve never given them a try, I highly recommend using the recipe from this cookbook.

 I wish you all, at least those of you who celebrate it, a very Happy Thanksgiving!

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