PANDEMIC GRATITUDE
Christmas has come and gone, and all is well. But thanks to COVID-19, small grievances can pile up like they’re much bigger, and they were a couple of times leading up to Christmas that I felt like this sheep:
But Christmas Eve and Day were nice. I made a turkey Christmas Eve afternoon for the sole purpose of turning it into other meals:
Shells stuffed with turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, etc. 
Turkey curry and rice
On Christmas morning we had a sausage, pancake, and apple dish, and Kitty wore herself out in the wrapping paper:
And since my buddy-read book club meets every Monday and Thursday, we had our first meeting for Beloved by Toni Morrison on Christmas Eve. So far, it’s a more challenging book than I thought it would be due to an unconventional writing style and storytelling method. Both of our pets got in on the action:
Kitty 
Eddie
Saturday was my rotation to work at the library, so I got a bit of a break from being at home, which is nice because next week is New Year’s Eve and day, so we get next Thursday and Friday off, too. I’m not a fan of too many days at home. Is this a very American thing to think?
THIS WEEK’S BLOG POSTS
The newly-released collection of short stories The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories by Danielle Evans wasn’t as well-crafted as I thought it would be. If you were excited about Evans’s new collection and had it on your TBR — I know many of you did — consider pivoting to her older collection, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.
I went from a short story collection to a family saga. Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza was an exciting, entertaining, and compelling book that suffered from repetition in the last two generations, but it’s still worth reading.
NEXT WEEK’S BLOG POSTS
On Tuesday I will wrap the entire reading year up with some stats and reflections, and I’ll include a look ahead into 2021. The pandemic made me more whimsical with my reading in 2020, but I’m going to try to hunker down in 2021 and get some of the physical TBR pile read and donated, if possible.
On Thursday you’ll get two-for-one: my reviews of the novella Rolling in the Deep and the much longer follow-up novel, Into the Drowning Deep, both by Mira Grant. Known for her enticing horror, this time around Grant gives readers a scare with murderous mermaids that mimic humans and may be much more dangerous than originally thought.
BOOKS ADDED TO THE TBR PILE
Thanks to Emily @ Literary Elephant for her recommendation!
Grab the Lapels 
I managed to get (mildly) ill at Christmas and so there is lots of Christmas food, mostly involving whipped cream that I am unable to eat. The sheep in the top picture is actually in a bad way as its stomach has spread down beside its spine making it unable to roll on to its side. Granddad used to go round his poll dorset stud every morning just to make sure there were no sheep in this position.
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Does that mean the sheep is dying, or just needs help? I don’t know much about sheep health other than they have lots of rear end problems. I trip through the 4-H barn every summer taught me that.
Oof, I wonder what got you sick that you couldn’t eat whipped cream? Even people in the military get ice cream when they’re not well.
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The sheep needs someone to roll it back on its feet, then it will be ok.
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Honestly, that makes me feel so much better. I’d hate to think I shared a funny picture of a dying animal. Yeesh.
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Man, that food looks great! I made venison on Christmas Eve but that was the extent of our cooking this year.
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That is the most Michigan thing you have ever said to me 😀
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AHAHAHA. It is, isn’t it? 😛
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I think we have all felt like that sheep at times this past year 🙂
Wishing you a great reading week and a joyous new year
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The sheep picture is less funny to me now that another commenter said that a sheep like that is in a bad way. 😦
I’m going to do my best to catch up on all my books this week! Sometimes having little to do during a vacation makes it harder to read, and I don’t know why.
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Oh the read is fine but the donated is getting hard here and I have terrible book pile-up!
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I’ve been donating books in our local Free Little Library boxes. I’ve noticed they’re pretty empty, possibly because libraries have limited hours or are closed.
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We have an LFL locally but you have to ask to add to it and leave the books with the woman who runs it. Which is fine but hard to get round to.
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Erm, why is she so controlling of her FREE library? Come on, lady!
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Merry Christmas Melanie, and I hope you’ll have a happy new year, too! Your food photos certainly look delicious and entirely celebration-worthy, and I’m glad Kitty got in on the festivities, too. 🙂
I hope you’ll like The Body Lies as much as I did, and I’m looking forward to your reading year wrap-up!
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Did you bake anything for Christmas? I know you sometimes do!
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I actually didn’t! My extended family was able to do a sort of gift and food exchange to make up for not meeting in person, and between three households there were already five pies and a dessert, plus snacking goodies, so baking anything more seemed like overkill, haha. But I am making soft pretzels for New Year’s!
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Oh, how lovely that you guys did a food exchange! That sounds fantastic! If you all were able to Zoom while eating the same food, that would have been wonderfully uncanny 🙂
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Poor sheep…I can sympathize. It looks like you were able to have some good meals and hopefully some good connections with others. Happy New Year!
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I hope you had a lovely Christmas, Karissa 🙂
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I’ve had Some Sing, Some Cry in audiobook for years and just haven’t “read” it yet, so it’s good to hear that you enjoyed it. For awhile, I was collecting super-long audiobooks for a friend, and I now have that collection to listen to myself, but it takes me a long time to listen to a book, now that I have so many bookish podcasts (and NPR podcasts LOL) to listen to as well. We finished our holiday leftovers last night and are looking forward to another round for the new year. I’m glad you’re mostly enjoying your holiday and your current reads. Hope you have many good times and good stories ahead of you in 2021.
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I’ll bet the audiobook is wonderful. It says Robin Miles narrates, and she’s done a number of wonderful reads.
Did you have a nice holiday break?
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That’s GTK…maybe I’ll get to it in 2021…I should make a separate list for listening in the year, because otherwise I just get distracted by all the good (and fresh) audio content on other topics.
Yes, thanks. It was mostly very quiet and almost entirely stressfree, which left a LOT more time for reading and I definitely pushed that to the limit. And, now, we’re nearly at the middle of January and I’m just getting caught up online. OOps. I hope your 2021 is off to a good start.
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2020 is the year that I realized that I have a seemingly inexhaustible love of being at home! (But it is good to have a change now and then.)
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How are things going at your library? A couple of weeks ago we reduced our computer-use time to thirty minutes per day instead of the two hours folks got pre-COVID. It was handed down by our board, who has to make decisions based on the Indiana State Library due to public funding reasons.
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Going okay – business is still slow. We have one computer for one-hour use per day and one express for 15 minute use. Demand hasn’t been huge for that. My library system has 17 branches so at other locations they have way more computer use.
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That’s a pretty big library system. Ours has three branches total, and since I’m at the main branch, there is a sizable demand for computer use, but not as much as the two branches.
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Oh my those turkey dishes look delish! And I’m also thoroughly impressed that your buddy read met on Christmas Eve, those are some dedicated bookworms right there!
Glad to see you had a relaxing holiday, I loved getting to know you even better this past year Melanie, and I hope to continue our online bookish friendship for many years to come 🙂
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It was nice to make one turkey Christmas Eve morning and then turn it into different things. I’m glad I thought of it (this year was my first turkey; I’m usually at family’s).
Did you guys have a nice Christmas? I feel like I haven’t heard as much about your kids in ages. I’ve actually forgotten how old they are!
I think you are one of the oldest blogger connections I have. Isn’t that wild? I can’t even remember how I met people because I’ve been doing this for so long…
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Yes! I consider that a huge compliment (being one of your oldest blog connections) 🙂 We had a lovely Xmas, took advantage of the lockdown up here to stay close to home and potty-train our youngest, Arthur. it’s a disgusting job but has to be done! One of those parenting hurdles ya know?
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Potty training sounds hard, and every time parents share their secrets on what they do, all I can think is EWWWW. Good luck, little feller! Make your folks proud 😀
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