‘Wait just a minute!’ I hear your puzzled voices.  ‘I thought you were going to show us your revamped bedroom???  Surely this is a line from ‘White Christmas???  And that doesn’t look like a bedroom photo to me…’

You’re right, and I’m glad (though not surprised) that you recognised those words.  I DID intend to show you the revamped bedroom, but it is, as yet, still in the mid-vamp stage and it’s time now for Christmassy stuff.  And I did promise you a post about Christmas books, last year.  So what’s kept me from posting for so long?

Well, for one thing there was the Compassionate Living Fayre in Edinburgh.  It was organised by Ethical Voice for Animals and Scottish Vegans had a stall there, as usual.  Here I am with my friend, Christie, giving away free samples of vegan home-baking (donations welcomed!). We raised over £112 for VegFam (feeding the hungry without exploiting animals).  But it wasn’t just the stall.  I had agreed, again, to do a talk on a compassionate Christmas dinner.  With a PowerPoint.  It took quite a while to make up my talk and to set up the PowerPoint, I can tell you, and I’d love to show it to you, but I have no idea how…

Anyway, it seemed to go well, and if you’d like a copy of the recipes I handed out, e-mail me at pv47@live.co.uk and I’ll send you one.

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but my beautiful daughter was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (M.E.) at the beginning of the year. We’ve had problems with the benefits agency and a deeply traumatic tribunal.  We don’t talk about it anymore. But it made it difficult to think about blog writing for a while this autumn…  Jane’s now having Kairos therapy and is beginning to feel a difference in her sleep patterns, so that has to help.

You know that John’s a tutor with the Open University don’t you?  Well he’s got two courses running at the moment which means rather a lot of essays to mark.  And as he’s a VERY conscientious and helpful tutor, his comments are lengthy and his tutorial notes copious.  I type them all out for him…  Each essay takes me, on average, 45 minutes, and the tutorial notes a lot longer.  It adds up…  And has meant that I’ve had very little time to READ blogs, far less WRITE them.

John is so busy with his marking that he even took some to Johnny’s graduation and marked them while we were waiting to go into the hall.See what I did there?  Popped in that information, very casually, about Johnny’s graduation?  Yes, our sweet son has passed his post-grad course and was awarded the degree of Master of Science (M.Sc.) (with merit) in Museum Theory and Practice, last week, at Glasgow University!  We’re all thrilled and delighted!Excuse the wrinkled top!  I was so excited when I saw him walking towards us in his gown and hood that I just had to get John to take our photo right away!  Does my excitement, joy and pride show?  Just a tad???

But back to the real subject of this blog post:  Just Like the Ones We Used to Know…

Well, actually, not quite.  We remain a very Christmassy family. Well, you know that, don’t you?  I’ve blogged about our Christmas decorations here, about our favourite Christmas films here and about our snowed-in and flu-plagued last Christmas here. But things have, of course, changed over the years.   No more do we have rosy cheeked tinies hanging up their stockings excitedly on Christmas Eve.  No longer do they sit on my lap, or cuddled in beside me, while I read them their favourite Christmas books.

But we’ve always been a read-aloud family and still are.  Not long after I met John, I started reading aloud to him.  We like it as a way of sharing a book instead of reading it one after the other and having to keep saying, ‘Which bit are you at now?’  The children were both able to read fluently when they were very young, Johnny when he was three years old and Jenny when she was five, but this didn’t stop them from enjoying having me read aloud to them.  When they were wee, our favourite Christmas book of all was probably Lucy and Tom’s Christmas, by Shirley Hughes.We loved all of Shirley Hughes books and enjoyed her illustrations.  When I read a book aloud, I always began by saying its title, followed by the author’s name.  This way, the children got to recognise the names of authors they liked and could look for them in the library and bookshops.  Also, as soon as they could talk, I taught them to say their address, as a safety precaution.  When Jenny was three, we lived for a year at 39 Kinloch Terrace.  Jenny, who pronounced  ‘Shirley Hughes’ as ‘Solly Ooze’, was so used to hearing that name tagged on at the end of book titles that she thought it went at the end of her address, too.  So, when asked where she lived, she would say, ‘Tutty-nine Tinnoch Tellace, by Solly Ooze’!  Wee soul!

Here she is, reclining beside the truly horrible Christmas tree we had at the time, avidly watching something on television.  Don’t you love those wee, crossed feet?  And the engrossed wee face?  I do!Anyway, Lucy and Tom’s Christmas is still a delight to us and the ‘kids’ love to browse in it and reminisce.  This was always one of our favourite pictures from the book.Another favourite was The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which I valiantly tried to read in an American accent.  The kids were uncritical of my efforts and enjoyed it every year for a long time.When they were older, we all enjoyed Jostein Gaarder’s Christmas Mystery and Jenny still rereads it for herself.  This year she’s reading it on her Kindle, her main Christmas present which we gave her early, to cheer her up after the tribunal (which, as you’ll remember, we’re not talking about…)

When they were older still, another Christmas book we loved was Envious Casca, by Georgette Heyer.  We were all big fans of GH’s historical novels, but she also wrote several Golden Age detective stories.  Envious Casca is one of them and we read it so often that our copy fell apart and we had to buy a new one!  The family loved me doing all the different voices and acting out all the parts.  Really, I’m a great loss to Hollywood!  Given a different life, my mantelpiece would be groaning with Oscars! 

I’ll stick my neck out here (though I realise that’s NEVER an attractive look, unless you’re a goose) and say that Envious Casca is the best Christmas ‘who-dunnit’ ever!  It’s a country house, locked door mystery, well told, with a large cast of characters, all with motives.  And it takes place over Christmas!  Perfect!  Do give it a try!Taken by the Hand is one of my favourite O. Douglas books and it features Christmas, so merits a place in this post!

When her mother dies, our heroine is a young adult, now left orphaned.  She’s a shy young woman who has never had to take control of her own life.  To begin with, after the funeral, she leaves Glasgow and travels to London to live with relatives, very busy socialites who, while being superficially kind to her, find her a bit of a drag. 

Luckily, when visiting a woman whom she met on the journey down, she’s invited to stay with one of this woman’s friends for Christmas, in the Suffolk countryside.  There she finds friendship, confidence in herself, people who value her and, of course, love! 

Another book that John and I love is Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher.  (They made a film of the same name…  Don’t let anyone, not even your nearest and dearest, persuade you to EVER EVER EVER watch it!!!  Appalling!  Awful!!!  Nothing like the book!!!  OK?  Fine!) 

We love Rosamunde Pilcher’s way of describing attractive and interesting rooms and houses, and her gentle stories with interesting characters, and this one is typical.  There’s tragedy near the beginning, but then a journey to Scotland, and an interesting house and nice people.  And, as in Shakespeare in Love, and as usual in RP’s books, there’s ‘a part for a dog’.  She knows her dogs… 

Also as usual, there’s lots of smoking and meat-eating, both of which are anathema to me, but we non-smoking vegans are used to having to accept that in books… 

If you like the kind of books I do, give it a try!  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.  But remember what I said about the film, OK?  I’ll be deeply saddened if I hear that you’ve watched even 10 seconds of it.  No, wait.  Let’s be honest.  I’ll be horrified if you watch even ONE second of it!This year, John and I are re-listening to it on talking book, read by the WONDERFUL Hannah Gordon.  She is SO GOOD!  Her acting is perfect, so natural, and she does all the voices… (And, since she’s from Edinburgh, there are no fake (shudder) Scottish accents!  Phew!)  It’s like listening to a cast of actors.  Don’t accept any alternative readers!!!  We’re loving spending the odd half an hour or so in the evenings, John putting aside his essays and me having a break from typing, and crocheting a throw for the couch.  (I’ve hurt my right thumb cutting up vegan dog treats – how unfair is that??? – and can’t knit…) 

So, picture, if you will, the scene…  Hannah Gordon reading Winter Solstice to us via the hifi.  A fire burning in the stove.  A dog leaning into each side of me on the couch.  A cat (usually Tom, of course!) on my lap.  The other three cats reclining about the room.  The offspring to and froing in the background.  A very pleasant way to spend an evening!

Now, I’m going to put my (Christmas) cards on the table here.  Despite my impeccable literary taste, at Christmas I’m not averse to a bit of girlie reading.  As long as it’s well written…  (Though it feels a bit weird that the protagonist’s mother – ‘still quite active and attractive for her age’ in one such book! – is usually my age or younger!)  The Twelve Days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley is good for a chilly afternoon, curled up on the couch with some treats to hand. Holly lost her husband at Christmas and now doesn’t celebrate it any more. Eight years on, she takes a house-sitting job in the country, expecting just to look after a couple of animals and keep the house warm and clean and to be able to get through Christmas far from any celebrations.  However, the absent owner’s family live nearby and they expect to be invited to the big house for the festivities.  And then they’re all snowed in!  You might enjoy it too…

So here’s a photo of our favourite Christmas books.  (The children’s ones are at the end.)And the picture at the top of this post (which I hope wasn’t too much of a disappointment) was of our Christmas mantelpiece.   This is Jane’s domain and I have to fight my corner for any changes I want to make.  There was no argument about this year’s addition, though: an extra Santa,made by our friend Kris, who makes cute and lovely ornaments, earrings, cake-toppers, stitch markers etc., from polymer clay.)

And here, because an SVH blogpost wouldn’t be an SVH blogpost without at least one furry person, is Molly, ‘helping’ me to make Sylvia’s Christmas placemats (remember them from last year???)Well, I think I’ve gone on long enough and you’ve probably got plenty of other things you need to be getting on with.  Normal features (Tom asked me to say; I wonder why…) will resume in the New Year, but in the meantime, I wish you, my lovely readers (and especially those who leave comments!) the kind of Christmas you like best and a 2012 filled with peace, happiness and love. XToday’s title: From White Christmas by Irving Berlin

Today’s breakfast:  thinly sliced homemade toast, marg, marmalade and a Redwood Rasher, washed down with a mug of sweet nettle tea.  Set me up nicely!

Today’s dinner will be: Advent Dinner!!!