Happy new year, lovelies! I hope you all had a nice christmas and new years eve. I've had a lovely time with my family and old friends, read some good books and played zelda. Look at all the beautifull books I received this christmas:

I just want to wish you all a happy holiday or a merry and wonderful yuletide.

No matter how busy I am, I always make time to create my own christmas card. So, without further ado, here are this year's cards:

It is the second day of Advent, and it could not feel less like winter. The sun is shining, the wind has stopped shaking all the trees, and it feels alot more like spring than anything else. The sweet and creative Nilenna has desided to bring some christmas spirit into our lifes, and with her magic book she will each day pick a person to win one of her lovely gifts. I had planned to introduce one christmas movie each day as a small advent calendar on this blog, but since I'm busy with school and work (as usual) this has to wait until another year. Instead, I would like to join in on somebody elses calendar instead. Maybe it will feel abit more like christmas?

(click on the picture to visit the lovely Nilenna and to read about her calendar)

Even though I still have about three weeks left until my last exam, and even though I'm working most days this christmas, I've already planned which books I would like to read inbetween my working hours. Which books will you read this christmas?

I hope I will have the time to read:

Peter S Beagle ~ The Last Unicorn
(1968)
"The unicorn herself seems to glow, but there is something troubling her. Is she really the last? She goes on a quest to find the others, with a magician and a woman. Will the quest be successful? Or will the unicorn be trapped with the others?

Ransom Riggs ~ Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
(2011)
"A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the clumbling ruins of Miss Perengrine's Home fro Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedroom and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here were more than just peculiar"

Erin Morgenstern ~ The Night Circus
(2011)
"The circus arrives without warning. It is simply there. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rives, and it is only ope at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhoon for this purpose by their mercurial instructors."

John Le Carré ~ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
(1974)
"It has now beyond doubt that a mole, implanted decades ago by Moscow Centre, has burrowed his way into the highest echelons of British Inteligence. His treachery has already blown some of its most vital operations and its best networks. It is clear that the double agent is one of its own kind. But which one? George Smiley is assigned to identify him. And once identified, the traitor must be destroyed."

Patricia A McKillip ~ The Bards of Bone Plain
(2010)
"Scholar Phelan Cle is researching Bone-Plain, which has been studied for the last 500 years, though no one has been able to locate it as a real place. Archaeologist Jonah Cle, Phelan's father, is also hunting through time, piercing history together from forgotten trinkets. His most eager disciple is Princess Beatrice, the king's youngest daughter. When they unearth a disk market with ancient runes, Beatrice pursues the secrets of a lost language that she suddently notices all around her, hidden in plain sight."

William Boyd ~ Any Human Heart
(2002)
"Logan Mountstuart's long life is both ordinary and extraordinary. A writer, a spy and later an art dealer, Logan mixes with the men and women who shaped the twentieth century. But he is also a son, a husband and a lover, and he makes the same mistakes we all do in his search for happiness."

George R R Martin ~ A Feast for Crows
(2005)
"After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears... But as in the aftermath of any climatic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead."

William Goldman ~ The Princess Bride
(1973)
"Beautiful, flaxen-haired Buttercup has fallen for Westley, the farm boy, and when he departs to make his forune, she vows never to love another. So when she hears that his ship has been captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts - who never leavs survivors - her heart is broken"

William Shakespeare ~ The Complete Works
Planning to read some of the plays I haven't read yet.

Ian McEwan ~ The Child in Time
(1987)
"Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, takes his three-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning to trip to the supermarket. While waiting in line, his attention is distracted and his daughter is kidnapped."


Have you read any of these books?

(descriptions from bookdepository and shelfari)

Here are some belated pictures to show the christmas mood:

Movie Classics: Christmas edition

I've been watching plenty of christmas movies this christmas (and I've still got a couple left). I thought of doing a real review, but I think I'm saving that for next year (Yes, I plan too far ahead). The short plot summaries are from imdb.com


The Bishop's Wife
(1947)
Runtime: 109min
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven

"A bishop trying to get a new cathedral built prays for guidance. An angel arrives, but his guidance isn't about fundraising"

Holiday Inn
(1942)
Runtime: 100min
Director: Mark Sandrich
Cast: Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire,
Majorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale and Walter Abel

"At an inn which is only open on holidays, a crooner and a hoofer vie for the affections of a beautiful up-and-coming performer"

Miracle on 34th Street
(1947)
Runtime: 96min
Director: George Seaton
Cast: Maureen O'Hara, John Payne,
Edmund Gwenn and Natalie Wood

"When a nice old man who claims to be Santa Claus is institutionalized as insane, a young lawyer decides to defend him by arguing in court that he is the real thing"

It's a Wonderfull Life
(1946)
Runtime: 130min
Director: Frank Capra
Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore

"An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman bu showing what life would have been like if he never existed"

I'll Be Seeing You
(1944)
Runtime: 85min
Director: William Dieterle
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotton,
Shirley Temple, Spring Byington and Tom Tully

"A soldier suffering from battle fatigue meets a young woman on Christmas furlough from prison and their mutual loneliness blossoms into romance"

Christmas Holiday
(1944)
Runtime: 93min
Director: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Deanna Durbin, Gene Kelly and Richard Whorf

"A young femme fatale-type woman realizes that the wealthy man she married is an incorrigible wastrel"

White Christmas
(1954)
Runtime: 120min
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye,
Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen and Dean Jagger

"A successful song-and-dance team become romantically involved with a sister act and team up to save the failing Vermont inn of their former commanding general"

The Shop Around the Corner
(1940)
Runtime: 99min
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: James Stewart, Margaret Sullivan, Frank Morgan,
Joseph Schildkraut and Felix Bressart

"Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal"

Merry Christmas

I've been abit out of it today. Was up all night with a terrible headache that kept going on all day. At the same time I've received some terrible news. It has something with the news I received last fall which I though was over a long time a go. I'm not sure how to handle it, but I will try to not make it ruin christmas and the blog entires I've got figured out.

Here are some pictures of some of the gifts I've wrapped:


I've watched so many christmas movies lately, but I've still got a few left to watch. I hope it can keep my mind off things...

Music for Christmas

Here are some songs that give me that bittersweet christmas feeling
(the songs are linked)

Loreena McKennitt: The Holly and the Ivy
Loreena McKennitt: The Seven Rejoices of Mary
Sufjan Stevens: O Come O Come Emmanuel
Peter Auty: Walking in the Air
Loreena McKennitt: Snow
Tori Amos: Winter


picture from weheartit

The first (and easiest) exam is over, and I'm one step closer to Christmas. I'm halfway through the gift shopping, and I've already wrapped some of the presents. I love being creative with the wrapping paper, and to decorate them with all kinds of decoration. I'm posting some pictures when all of the presents are wrapped. Normally I make some gifts as well, but I don't think I've got the time for it this year. I've have two days off between the final exam and christmas eve, so the days have to be spent wisely. I can't wait to start reading some lovely books (other than school books) and to watch old movies again. And ofcourse I will be watching some christmas movies as well:
- It's a Wonderfull life (1946)
- Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
- White Christmas (1954)
- Love Actually (2003)

Some other suggestions would be most welcome

Christmas pt 2