Monday Amusements 24: Christmas vs New Year

  I'm really enjoying all the Bookish Brits year end videos. I just watched Michelle's latest, above.   Even though I'm really busy with Christmas preparations, I'm desperately trying to read as many books as I can to try to get at least a little bit closer to reaching my 2013 reading challenge goals. I know I won't reach any of them, but I'd like to have a better overall total! This year I was a bit boring and picked things I thought would be achievable or that would get the most of my TBR down, and I really want to get excited about reading again, so I think that next year I need to be easier on myself and simply pick the challenges that sound the most fun! As always I'll be turning to the A Novel Challenge blog for ideas. I'm feeling drawn towards the Jumble Your Genres Reading Challenge and I'd love to do the Arthurian Literature Challenge, but we'll see how I feel at the start of January!

I've also been thinking about my blogging plans for next year (I really enjoyed Jamie's post at The Perpetual Page-Turner about her blogging plans and ideas) - I'm longing to try to plan out the whole year in advance, but I'm not sure I'm quite capable of that yet! Maybe six months? Three?

One thing I definitely must do next year is re-read or watch Cold Comfort Farm - this piece reminded me how much I love it.

Back to the here and now - I loved Faye's post 'Watch Out, It’s the Grinch!' - I love Christmas for all the reasons she mentions. I especially love the decorations - every time I'm out I find myself grinning in delight and exclaiming over all the lights I see on buildings, even ordinary houses. I also adored From My Bookshelves / Books for Winter at prettybooks. I would be requesting as many of those books as I could from the library right now, had I not already picked out my reading for the month. Oh well, January and February are winter months too, right?

My favourite review this week is by Debbie at Snuggling on the Sofa (I've been catching up on the other Bookish Brits' blogs, can you tell?). The Naturals sounds so exciting!

Have you thrown yourself into New Year preparations already, or are you like me, determined to squeeze as much as you can into 2013?