We are just trying to make every day the best it can be...
TODAY IS MY FAVORITE DAY
  • Home
  • About

Epiphany 2018

1/6/2018

0 Comments

 
We've celebrated Epiphany in a variety of ways in the past. We've hosted large gatherings that included a priest blessing our home. We've made wild Twelfth Night cakes. This year we managed to quietly celebrate this special day that commemorates when the wise men brought their gifts to Jesus.

We began the day with cinnamon rolls. Due to our Christmas stomach virus, I made half the cinnamon rolls I planned to make on Christmas morning. We made the other half on Epiphany. While this decision was merely an effort to use up the cinnamon rolls, it did tie the day nicely to Christmas--bookending the Christmas season.  While the girls ate their cinnamon rolls, I brought down their modest Epiphany gifts. They each received a stuffed animal chosen especially for them. Clare received a pink owl that she had spotted over Thanksgiving. Meg received a lynx that looked like it was right out of Wild Kratts. Anne received the baby bunny toy from Doc McStuffins. 

Following breakfast, Clare insisted we needed an Epiphany craft. I searched Pinterest for "Epiphany crafts for kids" and we came up with Paper Plate Crowns from Meaningful Mama. Our plates were more thin plastic than paper, so I let the girls decorate them with Sharpie markers. I thought this was very brave considering Anne recently decorated our walls with a Sharpie, which led to extensive clean up. After the girls decorated their plates, I cut them with an x-acto knife--again, because we were using a much thicker plate than normal paper plates. The results were cute. 
We finished our Epiphany celebration with a trip to the Festival of Lights at Bull Run Park. Driving through this huge light display has become an annual tradition for us, though we do it at all different times of the Christmas season. `We've driven through the lights on Christmas night. We've gone closer to New Year's. This year was the latest we've waited to see the lights, which end this weekend. I was so glad we squeezed in this visit to Bull Run because 4-year-old Anne had no memory of the lights last year and she was full of her wide-eyed excitement at seeing them. Definitely a nice end to Christmas. 
0 Comments

Christmas Mysteries

1/3/2018

0 Comments

 
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.
​

Over Thanksgiving, I read a fantastic mystery book (with some spy elements) set in 1950s England. A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson is the first in a series of books known as "A Very English Mystery"--and seriously, who could pass up a series with such a title. Sadly the series will be limited to three books because the author unexpectedly passed away just before finishing the third book. Her son, who happens to be an author himself, was able to finish that book, but has made clear that will be the last in the series. 

Reading A Man of Some Repute put me in my happy place. There is nothing I love better than an British murder mystery set in the English countryside. Throw in some snow or perhaps a blizzard that keeps all the suspects trapped together in a run down estate and I'm oh so very happy. It gave me an idea. What if I spent December reading British murder mysteries set at Christmas. I embraced the idea and had  a thoroughly enjoyable murder mystery December.

One of the first books I read was Charles Finch's Gone Before Christmas, which is a short novel in his Charles Lenox series. I thoroughly enjoy the Charles Lenox series, which is set in Victorian England and follows a gentleman detective who dabbles in politics. In Gone Before Christmas, Lenox must find out what happened to a soldier who mysteriously disappears from a railway station cloakroom. It is a charming read and leaves the reader in a joyful Christmas spirit. 
The next book I read was A Highland Christmas by M.C. Beaton, which is a part of the Hamish Macbeth series. The quirky Hamish Macbeth books are always a humorous read. In this book, Hamish must deal with a grumpy old lady whose cat has gone missing as well as a family who won't let their daughter celebrate Christmas. All of this turns into Hamish bringing Christmas cheer to everyone, including the young teacher who is disappointed in her crush on Hamish. 
My  Google research on Christmas mysteries led me to another great read: Cyril Hare's An English Murder. I loved this book. It is a classic country house murder mystery in which all the suspects are snowed in together. The murder victim is a very unlikable man and absolutely everyone has a motive for murder. The detective is not a detective at all, but rather is placed at the country house merely as police protection for the Chancellor of the Exchequer who happens to be a member of the family. This is a great book with all the classic elements of a British murder mystery and the cover art in the edition I read (pictured below) captures that perfectly. 
I next read a book I found in a pile of paperbacks my mom had given me. The Body in the Transept by Jeanne Dams took the genre in a slightly different direction. The investigating character is an American widow who has recently settled in an English village. I enjoyed the setting of this book, with the body being found in an old Cathedral and the main character living in an authentic English cottage. I suspect it is the American ideal of a British village. 
I was very excited to move onto my next book, which was the Dorothy Sayers' classic The Nine Tailors. What a fantastic treat this book is. Lord Peter Wimsey finds himself snowbound in a vicarage after a car accident on New Year's Eve. He is soon drafted into joining the bell ringers for a New Year's nine hour bell peal. Soon a body is discovered and a mystery unfolds. It takes until the following Christmas for Lord Peter to solve this mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed this classic's exploration into the unique use of bells in Britain for spreading news to villagers as well as their complicated, mathematical peals. Lord Peter is always a delight and in this book I also enjoyed the charming characters of the book-smart vicar who lacks commonsense and his very practical wife. 
I read the next book on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas will forever hold a special place in my heart for getting me through my family's Christmas stomach virus. On the night on December 23, Meg started vomiting. She was followed by my husband and then Clare. Anne never came down with the virus in its full force, but she was also suffering from stomach problems and sleeping long hours. I was the only healthy person in our house. While I disinfected the house, reassured sick children and started Christmas dinner (not having any idea whether anyone would eat it), I would occasionally sneak to the living room by the Christmas tree and read Hercule Poirot's Christmas with Christmas music playing on the classical music radio station in the background. It was incredibly pleasantly amidst a lot of unpleasantness. There's nothing I love more than an Agatha Christie book and this one did not disappoint. 
Appropriately my final Christmas mystery read was the second book in the "A Very English Mystery" series by Elizabeth Edmondson: A Question of Inheritance. When I read the first book over Thanksgiving and it inspired this Christmas mystery read-a-thon, I had no idea that the second book in the series took place at Christmas. I enjoyed this book as much as the first in the series. This book brought together elements of a country house mystery with Nazi art thieves and cold war era spies. Quite a few questions were left open with in this book, so I am very glad that Ms. Edmondson's son finished her third book and hopefully answered those questions. 
In addition to the books above, I also listened to several Christmas mystery audio books, which I will detail in another post. I found the audio book option quite useful while I was folding clothes and wrapping Christmas presents. I am so glad I went on this Christmas mystery book journey and I hope to repeat in years to come. Perhaps not every December, but at least every few years. 
0 Comments

    Author

    I am Sandra Penfield--a one-time lawyer who is now a very happy stay-at-home mom. This blog is about making every day the very best it can be and preserving those memories for my children.​

    Disclosure

    This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program.  Through this affiliate advertising program I can earn fees (at no additional cost to you) by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. When you click on the link and purchase the product, I receive a commission.
    What We Are Reading​

    Archives

    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All
    Advent Calendar
    Alexandria Library
    American History Museum
    Aquarium
    Archdiocese Of Washington
    Art
    Ash Wednesday
    Audio Books
    Ballet
    Beatrix Potter
    Beatrix Potter: A Life In Nature
    Benedictines Of Mary
    Benjamin Bunny
    Berry Picking
    Book Barn
    Book Of Nonsense
    Books
    Brookside Gardens
    Bunnyland
    Burns Night
    Butler's Orchard
    Cake
    Capitol Hill Art Workshop
    Carousel
    Cassatt
    Chamomile
    Cherokee
    Children's Museum
    Children's Museum Of Richmond
    Children's Science Lab
    Chocolat
    Cinderella
    Cleaning
    Clemyjontri
    Cluck
    Cooking
    Corcoran
    Cottage Tales Of Beatrix Potter
    Cracker Barrel
    Creativity For Kids
    Crown Of Thorns
    Daffodils
    Dame Frevisse
    DC
    Dear Peter Rabbit
    Degas
    Dollhouse
    Dress Up
    Easter
    Edaville
    Edward Lear
    Elizabeth Enright
    Enders Island
    Epiphany
    Fair
    Fairy Tales
    Faith Quest
    Family Traditions
    Farm
    First Ladies
    Fort Ward
    Frying Pan Farm
    Garden
    Giotto
    Grayson Highlands State Park
    Green Springs Garden
    Hollin Farms
    Holy Rosary
    Holy Saturday
    Homestead Farm
    I Love Lucy
    International Spy Museum
    Inventions
    Irish Step Dancing
    Jackson Pollock
    Jamestown
    Jeanne Birdsall
    Jesse Tree
    Kennedy Center
    Ladybug Girl
    Lakeshore Learning
    Lent
    Library
    Lighthouse
    Little House
    Little House On The Prairie
    Long Branch Nature Center
    Madeline
    Manassas
    Margaret Frazer
    McDuff
    Miss Potter
    Montrose Park
    Mount Vernon
    Movies
    Mud
    Mystic Aquarium
    Narnia
    National Arboretm
    National Gallery Of Art
    Natural History Museum
    Nature Center
    Nature Class
    Nature Walk
    New Echota
    Nonsense Songs And Stories
    Paint
    Painting
    Pancakes
    Parks
    Penderwick
    Penderwicks
    Pentecost
    Peter Rabbit
    Pick-pockets
    Ponies
    Presidents
    Q?rius
    Queen Of Apostles
    Reading
    Retreat Center
    Rhode Island
    Rice Balls
    River Farm Gardens
    Roger Williams Park
    Roly Poly Pudding
    Sacred Heart
    Science
    Science Experiments
    Scooters
    Scotland
    Secret Garden
    Shrove Tuesday
    Sleeping Beauty
    Smithsonian
    Smithsonian Sleepover
    Snow
    Snow White
    Sound Of Music
    Soup
    Spark!Lab Smithsonian
    Splatter Painting
    Spring
    Stories In Art
    Storytime
    St. Patrick's Day
    Sunflowers
    Tea Party
    Theater
    The Cranberries
    The Gruffalo
    The Lion
    The Saturdays
    The Waste Land
    The Witch And The Wardrobe
    Thomas The Tank Engine
    Tom Kitten
    Trains
    Trundle Bed
    T.S. Eliot
    Twelfth Night
    Valentines
    Wagon
    Waldorf
    Washington County Fair
    Watson Farm
    You Are My Sunshine

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.