Settling the Score With 2024: Festive Fit and Fiction Finale

Dress: ModCloth

My mom's Christmas cookies.

Coat: ModCloth

Boots: Impo, Macy's

Sweater: Pink Republic, Kohl's; Boots: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Bow: Target

Pillow: ??? This is my parents' house. 😏

Dress: Xhilaration, Target

A print from a top not in this post.  Because sometimes you need an extra filler pic.  Anyway, it's from ModCloth.

Shoes: Betsey Johnson, DSW

Necklaces and bangles: Kohl's, JCPenney, and B Fabulous

I can't believe that another Christmas -- and year! -- are done and dusted.  It went by in a blur of color and chaos, but for once I have to say that it was a contented kind of crazy.  Thanks, Charlotte.  

That said, no book reviews or other reflections today.  Just a wish that you have a wonderful last day of 2024 and embrace your own kind of crazy in 2025. 🎉🎈     

Second Act Pact: Put a Little Love in Your Art

I was so busy this December that I almost forgot to read Jenny Bayliss's latest.  Known for releasing a heartfelt romcom each Christmas, the Brit lit wit  never fails to make me smile through my Santa-induced stress.  So when I spied a lone copy of Kiss Me at Christmas while tornadoing through Target, I snagged it. 

Teacher-turned-pastoral care worker Harriet Smith is in dire need of a change.  Overworked and underappreciated, she's always on call and haunted by the one student she couldn't save.  And this Christmas her nerves are especially fraught because her daughter's spending the holiday stateside.  Lonely and vulnerable, triple-cardigan-wearing Harriet embarks on a one night stand.  Then, fresh off the walk of shame, she finds her most at-risk students, a.k.a. the "famous five," playing hooky in the abandoned Winter Theater.  

When her students get caught, she takes the blame and, per the eccentric old woman who owns the theater, cleans it up to avoid charges.  Yet what starts as community service snowballs into a production of A Christmas Carol.  Harriet leads, inspires, and energizes the famous five, a local theater group, and various disenfranchised community clubs including refugees, treasure hunters, and self-proclaimed "lonely farts" into putting on the best show ever.  Also, there's the guy from Harriet's one night stand, who just happens to be the eccentric woman's lawyer.       

It's nice when Christmas has a sense of humor.

Still, Kiss Me at Christmas is more than a romcom.  It's about self-care and community, two things that sound as though they'd be at odds but are, oddly, intertwined.  Because it's only when Harriet allows herself to be at peace that she's able to bring peace to others.  And yes, perhaps, fall in love.  

Big-hearted and hilarious, Kiss Me at Christmas is Bayliss's best book yet.  Because everyone deserves a second act.  Especially at Christmas.

A Very Merry ModCloth Christmas

Teardrop Pop Necklace

Pants: Almost Famous, Macy's

Santa, garland, wreath: Michaels

Top: Collectif X, ModCloth

Skirt: Tinseltown, Macy's; Boots: Simply Vera, Kohl's

Pillows: St. Nicholas Square, Kohl's; Blanket: Cuddl Duds, Kohl's

Top: ModCloth

Skirt: Almost Famous, Kohl's; Shoes: Chase & Chloe, Zulily

Bag: Madden Girl, Macy's

Top: ModCloth

What better way to spend Christmas Eve Eve than to wear some merry ModCloth outfits?  Their midcentury vibe put me right in the holiday spirit, which at this stage in the game is code for it's too late to worry that everything isn't done -- or done perfectly -- so just kick back and enjoy it.

That said, I hope you have a very merry and stress-free holiday, no matter what you do -- or what you wear while you do it. 👗🎄🎁

The House That Jack the Quipper Built: Drop Dead Gingerbread Cred

"Run, run, fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"  The beloved rhyme turns out to be untrue in Lee Hollis's Death of a Gingerbread Man.  Because the runner up of Bar Harbor's annual gingerbread house building contest loses more than first place.  He bites the sugar dust, with the winner emerging as the prime suspect.  And he (the winner, not the dead dude) happens to be Hayley Powell's long-lost father.  

In the twenty-odd Hayley Powell food and cocktails mysteries, we've heard nary a word about the man who gave the sleuth life.  Sure, her impossible-to-please mother Sheila sometimes rears her ugly head, but her pops has remained, well, a mystery.  Until now.  Fresh from yet another failed romance, Dwight Jordan blows back into Bar Harbor, much to the delight of half the town -- and the chagrin of the other.  A charming if disheveled conniver, Dwight leaves a trail of chaos wherever he goes.  And this time that trail includes murder.

Death of a Gingerbread Man may be Hayley's zaniest misadventure yet.  I snickered at the sitcom-worthy snafus that Dwight "unknowingly" authors.  Each is more cringeworthy than the last, making for a quirky Christmas caper.  Yet despite being a clever whodunit, Death of a Gingerbread Man isn't really about whether or not Dwight offed his fellow baker.  It's about if he'll stay in Bar Harbor or keep running. You know, like the Gingerbread Man.

Maybe the rhyme rings true after all.  

Elephants Can Remember Christmas Sweater Weather: The Gift of Peace and Mirth

Boots: Wild Fable, Target

Tee: Celebrate, Kohl's

Bag: Holiday Arcade, Macy's; Ring: PinkBopp, Etsy

Barrette: Claire's, CVS

Glasses and platter: Gifted

Sweater: Gem Holiday Sweater, Kohl's; Boots: Simply Vera, Kohl's

Bag: Dolls Kill; Bangle: ZAD, Zulily

Headband: Candie's, Kohl's

Ornaments: Hallmark, Lillian Vernon

Sweater: So, Kohl's; Boots: Olivia Miller, Kohl's

Santa and sign: Michaels

Bag: Holiday Arcade, Macy's

Barrette and necklace (you know which ones!): The Tote Trove

Garland: Michaels; Ornaments: Target, Michaels

Boots: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Santas: West End Garage, Cape May; Elf: Michaels

Shirt: Madden Girl, Kohl's

Island of Misfit Toys: Gifted

Bag: Holiday Arcade, Macy's

Ornaments: Lilian Vernon, Hallmark

Necklaces: Betsey Johnson, Macy's

Christmas sweaters are always a thing.  But you seldom hear about Christmas tee shirts.  Which is why I was a little befuddled by the candy cane-print tee in the first outfit.  Still, I loved the print, and at $4.99, I couldn't pass it up.  So I layered it over a turtleneck and headed out to LabCorp as if I were bound for a white elephant party.  Which, in some ways, I was.        

Surprise, you (by which I mean me) have slightly high cholesterol!  But this elephant (again, me) already suspected that.  So that's where the gallows humor and elephant references end (not me, but Agatha Christie).  

Yep, the Christmas countdown always sets me on edge, cramming my head full of querulous questions.  Will I ever finish wrapping these presents?  Did I buy my niece the same Barbie doll two years in a row?  Should I put something else outside besides my paltry palm tree?  Basically, it all amounts to, did I do enough?  And the answer is usually no.  

But it shouldn't be.  Because the holidays are hard, and anything anyone does should suffice.

So this year, which is our first with Char Bar, I'm going to try to give myself the gift of a break.  Strangely, it's a gift that everyone always tries to give me but that I have trouble accepting.  And if there's anything I should teach my daughter, then it's that she should give herself this gift too.        

That and Christmas comic relief that comes in the form of a tee shirt.