Saturday, January 3, 2026

Yuletide Spirit Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

 


I’m a little late getting this posted, but for whatever reason I’ve been ridiculously tired lately. All I’ve wanted to do after work is crawl into bed and watch a few episodes of Angel. On nights when I’m feeling especially ambitious, I’ll pick up Mirage City by Lev AC Rosen—my first book of the year—which I’m about halfway through. I’m hoping to finish it today, but past experience tells me not to make any bold promises.

When I signed up for the Yuletide Spirit Reading Challenge, I went all in and committed to the highest tier—the Christmas Tree level—which meant reading at least five books with a Christmas setting. It came down to the wire, but I did manage to squeak by and complete my five-book commitment.

The Geek Who Saved Christmas by Annabeth Albert


Look Up, Handsome by Jack Strange 


The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson 

Since I’m a Christmas movie fanatic, I also signed up for the Fa La La La Films side challenge, which simply required watching a whole bunch of Christmas movies. I start watching Christmas movies in early November, and some of them I’ll throw on whenever the mood strikes. What that means, unfortunately, is that a few of my all-time favorites were watched before the official challenge start date. And alas, others didn’t get watched at all, mostly because I was feeling lazy and didn’t feel like messing with the Blu-ray player.

That said, I still managed to watch twenty-six Christmas movies, most of them very much in the Hallmark vein. I also watched twelve of the Rankin/Bass TV specials, during the one stretch where I actually put my Blu-ray player to work.





Challenges: Yuletide Spirit

1 comment:

Kathy's Corner said...

Hi Ryan. Happy New Year an thank you for your Christmas book list. I plan to check them out in 2026 because sometimes we need that Christmas spirit in March or July.

My favorite Christmas movies are A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim. He absolutely owns the role of Scrooge and the British film from the 1940s The Holly and the Ivy is excellent. Have a great year of reading!

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