Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Christmas Tree Hunting in 2020; A Family Tradition

RaeAnna
I love Christmas tree hunting even more beause of Beau. | Sweater | Jeans | Flannel | Boots | Beret

Christmas tree hunting has been a tradition my entire life.

What is the definition of Christmas tree hunting? For me, it means, first, locating a Christmas tree farm: one that grows Christmas trees. [My personal favorite in the Houston area is High Star Christmas Tree Farm. It’s north of Houston. They have amazing prices and friendly staff.] Once at the farm, the hunt is on. Grab a saw and a measuring stick. Find the plumpest, tallest, most symmetrical tree that your space allows. Lay down on the ground, saw that tree down. Shake it, bundle it, pay for it, put it in the truck, head home to set it up and decorate!

Every single year, minus 1999, 2014, and 2015, I have gone to a tree farm, hunted the perfect tree, and cut it down. By I cut it down, I mean, my father, my boyfriend, my friend, my boyfriend, anyone that wasn’t me cut it down. We’ll get to that in a moment. The reason for no tree hunting in 1999 was: My family and I weren’t home for Christmas. We were celebrating in California with family, so we decorated a Christmas cactus. 2014 and 2015 did not have a tree hunt because I was living with my best friend’s family, and they have a fake tree. 

Beau loves the big dogs that moo so much!!!

Out of my thirty Christmases, I have had a real live tree personally cut down (by a someone close to me but not me) for twenty-seven of those Christmases. 

The most fun part about Christmas trees… I’M ALLERGIC!!! Our love is greater than my inability to touch them. I have a commitment to real trees because I love them, I love their smell, I love having a real tree that I picked out of the ground. Luckily, I have people who love me enough to struggle cutting down a tree, setting it up, and decorating it. I, graciously, take on the role of manager, pastry chef, and barista. Everyone gets what they want, but mostly I do.

Loving on the best girl in the whole world.

Once Beau entered the family, she started coming on the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree. This is her fourth year. This year, we have five extra dogs in the house. We decided to save our sanity, and only brought Beau with us to hunt. She loves it. She loved looking at the big dogs that go moo and rubbing up against the pine needles. She did her very best to try and greet every human and pupper she met. And per usual, she did not want to cooperate for family pictures, but I managed to get one nonetheless. 

This is also the first Christmas in my own house. A house with a very high ceiling, a very large living room, and fireplace warranting a large ass tree. I managed to find the chonkiest twelve foot tree I could find. It is a giant of a tree. I love it so much. The amount of joy it brings me is too great for words. Pictures will be coming soon. Bringing it in, setting it up, and decorating it was a several day process because it’s very large and very beautiful. I am in love with my Christmas tree. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna + Beau

Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4315185″]

Fiction

Finding Christmas Diversity in Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory

RaeAnna
Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory

Worth A Read Yes
Length 320
Quick Review Vivian is dragged on holiday to rural, royal England by her daughter. Not only does she get away, she finds love. 

Every December, my reading list becomes inundated with white people doing holiday things because I read Christmas books this time of year. I try to keep my reading list as diverse and mentally stimulating and challenging as possible. Christmas stories are not diverse… in any way; I have been craving more color in my Christmas reading. I finally found it in Jasmine Guillory’s Royal Holiday. Honestly, this is probably one of my favorite rom-commy books I’ve ever read. It’s real and honest and the characters are believable and interesting. I don’t want to punch them. 

Vivian is a social worker about to get a huge promotion she’s worked towards her entire career. Her daughter convinces her to take a trip to England to get away for once. Her daughter is a stylist and will be helping a Duchess during the holidays, so Vivian gets to stay with royalty. While she’s enjoying a week in the lap of luxury, she meets Malcolm, the Queen’s personal secretary. Also, they’re both Black. 

I love that the main character, Vivian, is a single mom in her fifties with a career, drive, adventure, passion, pizzaz, and healthy boundaries. The rom-com problem for her budding relationship with Malcolm is not only believable but a real problem. So often, the obstacle keeping two people apart is ridiculous. Long distance between two powerful working adults, that’s a real obstacle! Workable but hard. 

Enjoying Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory in Baytown, Texas. | Dress | Heels | Earrings

Royal Holiday is not devoid of clichés, it has them for sure. Guillory leans into the clichés without letting them ruin or run the novel. The main characters are strong and independent. They want love, but they’re also not willing to sacrifice everything for it. Vivian is established and knows herself; there is a confidence to her character that comes from living a full life. Malcom is normal and easy going. He’s a man a woman would want to be with and should want to be with.

The writing isn’t spectacular, but it’s perfectly suited to the book and the storyline. Guillory does well with the dialogue. She doesn’t saturate the narrative with saccharine antics; it’s the right amount of realistic and optimistic. 

I truly love how wonderful Vivian is. Rom-coms have a tendency to make the characters overly quirky rather than making them relatable and wonderful. Vivian’s just a normal woman with anxieties and excitement and hopes like the rest of us. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I love it. I respect it. Royal Holiday has an ending that grown women with careers want to watch play out. 

I love that this romantic comedy features a strong, independent woman who gave up nothing for love. She chose happiness, her career, her family, and the man of her dreams. She sacrificed nothing and still won. Thank you Jasmine Guillory for giving me a romantic comedy I actually appreciate and the two main characters are Black. Yay!!! We need this kind of diversity in romantic comedies and Christmas novels. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Royal Holiday is my favorite Christmas read of the year.

Memorable Quotes
“Vivian couldn’t decide what appealed to her more, hot coffee and fresh scones or that man in the corner who looked like a tall mug of hot chocolate.”
“Plus, she was on vacation, for God’s sake—everyone did something a little out of character on vacation, didn’t they?”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Book Depository
Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4314143″]

Title: Royal Holiday
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Publisher: Berkley
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780593099049

Books, Fiction, Reading Lists

11… Of My Favorite Christmas Books to Read

RaeAnna
A Christmas Treasury is one of my favorite Christmas books and my #1 recommendation.

When I started blogging, I decided to dedicate December to reading Christmas and holiday books. By now, in my third year of continuing this tradition, I have now encountered many Christmas inclined books. Some have been beautiful classics and others have been smutty romances and others have been worse than a Hallmark movie with a bigger time commitment. 

To save you some time, I’m sharing eleven Christmas books I will always recommend. There are a couple silly romances, but they’re well done, and now is the time of year for love, joy, peace on Earth, and a little mindless reading.

  1. A Christmas Treasury This one is a beautifully illustrated book full of lots of Christmas stories. If you buy one book this year for Christmas, make it this one. Perfect for children and adults. Plus, it looks amazing sitting on a coffee table or under the tree. 
  2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Arguably the greatest Christmas story ever told, it changed Christmas in England and America. It’s a classic because the tale is timeless and the writing is superb.
  3. Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien I adore everything about this book. Tolkien wrote to his children for two decades as Santa. The letters were accompanied by beautiful illustrations. 
  4. Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory So often Christmas stories involve white people. I love that this romantic comedy had a strong independent woman who gave up nothing for love and the two main characters are Black. Yay!!!
  5. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson I have an emotional connection to this one because I starred in the play version as I kid. It’s fun, funny, and full of redemption.
  6. The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn Full of history, adventure, and Christmas spirit, this is a great book for families to read with their kids. I also just enjoyed it immensely as a history buff.
  7. A Merry Christmas and Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott Alcott has been one of my favorite authors since I was a child. I love her Christmas stories as much as her novels. They’re sweet and beautiful.
  8. The Nutcracker by Alexandre Dumas This is not the ballet. It’s a great book about the Nutcracker and Christmas with the right amount of horror and fun.
  9. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum This is such a sweet and fun story. I absolutely love the mystical take Baum gives Santa and his world. It’s adorable and I read it again and again.
  10. Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope I have loved Trollope’s way with words, and his Christmas stories are witty and full of societal insight. 
  11. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry This is a classic Christmas story, and one that probably has more relevance than we would like to admit in today’s world of COVID and financial upheaval. 

Alright. These are my eleven Christmas picks. I highly suggest all of them. You can’t go wrong with any of them. They’re happy and full of Christmas spirit. This year, we could all use a little bit more of that in our lives; I know I could.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna 

Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4311301″]

Books, Fiction

Bed Time Story of Christmas Cheer with Buddy the Elf

RaeAnna
Recreating my own Elf moment by climbing on the tree to hang the star. | Pajamas |

Worth A Read Yes
Length 44
Quick Review A less time consuming way to enjoy Elf the movie.

If you love Will Ferrell’s adventures in New York City as Buddy the [oversized] elf, then this is the perfect book for you and the children in your life. Based on the movie by David Berenbaum Elf, is a great addition to your bedtime reading list or something sweet to put on the coffee table this time of year. 

I’m not going to go over the plot of the book because everyone—should know—knows what happens because it’s a Christmas fucking classic with all the heartwarmth, songs, and baked goods this season requires. 

Being Silly

That was a lie; I’m going to talk about a couple plot points. The movie does a better job explaining why Buddy is able to escape by way of Santa. The book, however, does not. Buddy wanders into the sleigh and is discovered at the North Pole. Instead of going “Oh no! Let’s find his family.” Santa goes, “Sure. A baby. I’ll let an elf adopt the child I accidentally kidnapped.” No mention of Mommy, at all. The more logical and Santa-like thing of ‘Oops! Let’s deliver this baby back home, pop it under the Christmas tree with a bow on his head, and pretend like nothing happened.’ And since there is no mention of the mom, how did she react? Did she respond with a, “K, cool. My kid’s been napped.” She’s nowhere in the story! She probably died of heartbreak.

What I love most about the book is that it keeps some of the most memorable lines from the movie. “Some people just lose sight of what’s important in life.” It does an amazing job of being sweet and funny and Christmassy all at the same time. Buddy is as ridiculous and wonderful as Will Ferrell portrays him in the movie version. 

Kim Smith does a fabulous job bringing Buddy, the elves, Santa, and New York City to life through her illustrations. 

Christmas is about joy and happiness and good cheer. Buddy has become an iconic bringer of cheer for children of all ages since the movie was released. I love that Elf is now in book form to be read around the fire or curled up in bed. 

Memorable Quotes
The Code of the Elves “2. There’s room for everyone on the nice list”
“You’re not a cotton-headed ninny muggins. You’re just… special!”
“Buddy, you’re more of an elf than anyone I’ve ever met.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon
Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4307279″]

Title: Elf
Based on the film by: David Berenbaum
Illustrator: Kim Smith
Publisher: Quirk Books
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9781683692201 

Books, Fiction

A Chaste Christmas Novel: Debbie Macomber’s Jingle All the Way

RaeAnna
Jingle All the Way by Debbie Macomber | Sweatshirt | Shorts | Hat

Worth A Read No
Length 272
Quick Review A chaste (and confusing) Christmas romance for those who really don’t want to be surprised or titillated by love or the holiday spirit. 

I’m going to start off with: I have nothing good to say about Jingle All the Way by Debbie Macomber. I would suggest this book because it is the perfect Christmas romance for Christian women with a sex-sensitivity. Honesty, it doesn’t even have to be sex… intimacy is also applicable.

Everly is a high-powered CEO of a company in downtown Chicago. She gets sent on her idea of hell: a trip down the Amazon river with absolutely no way to connect with the outside world. While on the cruise, she connects with the ship’s naturalist and Chicago-native, Asher. They fall in love on the Amazon as they encounter illness, accidents, kidnapping, and mishaps. 

I still do not understand the title, Jingle All the Way, or the cover image. Poor choices. They do not match the plot at all in any way shape or form. It is very confusing, and I hate it. Poor choices on the publisher’s part.

For the completely inept at knowing how a Christmas romance novel is going to end: If you don’t want to know how it ends (the same as every other one in this genre), do not read this paragraph. I really loathe how the characters always end up married and usually with child in the epilogue. Let’s have a new ending. Like they had three great months before brain cancer suddenly took Asher from Everly and she dedicated herself to preserving the Amazon in his memory. That’s romantic and new!

Macomber’s writing is incredibly unbelievable. The dialogue is very cringe worthy. As someone who is of the same age as the main characters, we would not talk that way to one another, especially if it was a flirtation. The dialogue has as much emotional depth as encounters I have with a friend I don’t much care for rather than the person I’m falling head over heels in love with. 

Having more fun on the photo shoot than I did reading the terrible book.

I know that romances must have a reason the two love interests shouldn’t or couldn’t be together, but the reasons Macomber creates in Jingle All the Way are hardly believable. The only thing I remotely like about this one is that Asher is pressured to give up his wandering ways to settle down and begin a family. For once the man is also giving up something. Surprise, surprise, surprise, they both decide to settle in a small town and be happy and a family and give up their wandering and high powered lives. Yuck.

Macomber also starts off the novel with an attack on Gen Z by painting Everly’s assistant as inept, irresponsible, catty, and an all around shitty human and employee. I don’t like this because it’s a sweeping judgement rather than individualized to this particular person, who is a crap assistant. It also sets the scene that Everly is much older, but in reality, they’re maybe ten years apart in age. 

One of my favorite (read this sarcastically) moments in Jingle All the Way is when Macomber takes the opportunity to defend romance novels as a genre. I don’t understand why she feels the need because the vast majority of the people reading it are fans of hers and the genres. So it feels very self-aggrandizing when Everly says, “They’re positive and uplifting and give me hope of finding my own handsome hero one day.”

I do have one audience to whom I can and would suggest this novel. As much as I really did not enjoy reading Debbie Macomber’s Jingle All the Way, it is perfect for Christian women or women with a sex-sensitivity. I, for one, do not love reading sex scenes. They make me uncomfortable. Yet they are a natural part of any romantic relationship. Kissing is also normal… Everly and Asher do none of it. They two chaste kisses. To have a raging love affair last two weeks on vacation in South America without technology or connection to the outside world, I can’t imagine them not having sex. Not realistic. 

Like I said. Don’t waste your time on this book. It’s terrible unless you really hate intimacy and want to know what the ending is by paragraph one. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Book Depository
Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4300416″]

Title: Jingle All the Way
Author: Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9781984818751

Books, Fiction

LGBTQ+ Romance in Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

RaeAnna
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Worth A Read Yes
Length 384
Quick Review Elle and Darcy are complete opposites. After a disaster of a date, they end up faking a relationship to escape the familial judgement accompanying the holidays.

My reading habits trend toward nonfiction and classical literature. As a blogger, I’ve been trying to branch out more. In 2020, I have read more fluff than I’ve ever read in my entire life, and it’s been great. Not because the books are great, but because this year sucks. That being said, I looked forward to reading Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur because it is a rom-com with two women at the center of the love story. 

Elle is the co-owner of an astrology company with her best friend and roommate, Margot. They’re partnering with a popular dating app to create something new and innovative for users. The app’s owner sets Elle up with his sister Darcy, an actuary. Due to being complete opposites, the date is a complete disaster; however Elle and Darcy embark on a fake relationship to get them through the holidays.

Reading Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur in Baytown | Dress | Flag |

If this ruins the story for you, you’ve not read or watched enough rom-coms… meaning this is your first. Elle and Darcy fall in love in the vein of: opposites attract. Woah. Written in the Stars is a cute novel that’s well written. There’s nothing revolutionary or phenomenal about it and hits all the common beats in a rom-com. At its heart, it’s just another love story. I like it more because it’s a rom-com with two women going through the motions of falling in love. 

Even though I didn’t hate this book, I really enjoyed the female friendships that both Elle and Darcy have. They’re full of unconditional love and support. I will never get tired of reading about realistic representations of female friendships. There are not enough healthy depictions of women supporting women, and I will always show up for them. 

I’m kicking off my Christmas reading with Written in the Stars because it’s my favorite that I’ve read so far of the holiday books. It’s well written with good dialogue. The holidays are a part of the storyline but not the driving factor. I definitely suggest giving it a read the Christmas. 

Memorable Quotes
“ One too many exclamation points and you’d sound too eager. Whether you chose lol, rofl, or haha said something about you, about the conversation. How you spelled the word okay mattered, each iteration distinct in tone. K, of course, was in a league of its own, and if there was a period behind it? Chanceres were, things were not, in fact, okay.”
““No one is worth feeling like you’re not good enough, that you’re not amazing exactly as you are.””

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Book Depository
Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”4295774″]

Title: Written in the Stars
Author: Alexandria Bellefleur
Publisher: Avon Books
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9780063000803