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Monthly Archives: December 2011

Tis A Few Weeks Til Christmas

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So I heard on the radio this morning that we have 19 shopping days left until Christmas!! How did this happen?? The year slipped past while I was not watching. I had a, shall we say, challenging year, and have just started to feel pretty much completely normal again, but it does seem to me like it ought to just be time for Halloween. Not Christmas.

But Christmas will come whether we expect it or not. So how have I been getting ready for it? Well, I have to finish two books and a novella by the end of February (one of those books right after Christmas!) so that is the main way I am spending my holiday. Isn’t the Christmas spirit all about yelling at uncooperative characters and beating one’s head against the desk? Luckily there is online shopping for gifts, and also looking at Cake Wrecks and Go Fug Yourself.

I will get out some of my favorite holiday movies to watch (like Love Actually), decorate the tree, burn my new Marshmallow Peppermint and Dark Mint Chocolate candles from Bath & Body Works, and look at my pretty new party dress. I am also going to see The Nutcracker this weekend (haven’t been in years, so I am very excited!)–I love to see the little girls in their velvet dresses, so excited to be at their first ballet. I will get out some of my Christmas anthologies and re-read some novellas. And on Christmas Eve, there will be my family and my dad’s “famous” margaritas, guaranteed to make even the most frazzled writer feel much, much better…

Last weekend my mother and I made Christmas candy to give as gifts, which is time-consuming (and I usually end up sugar-sick) but is totally worth it. It reminds me of holidays when I was a little kid and would sit in the kitchen watching my grandmother do her holiday baking (she would let me stir the bowls and eat the samples). This Christmas especially I am grateful to be here and spending time with people I love, doing things I love. And that includes writing, which I love even when I hate it. 🙂

Here is one of the candy recipes we make. It could not be easier, and it’s very yummy:

Christmas Bonbons
1 stick butter
2 pounds powdered sugar, sifted
1 can Eagle Brand milk
1 can Angel Flake coconut
Tsp vanilla Chopped pecans
Chopped maraschino cherries

Mix these up, refrigerate until chilled. Then form into little balls.

1/4 pound paraffin
Large package chocolate chips (I use dark!)

Melt in double broiler, and dip coconut balls in. Let them harden, and you’re done! (The pecans and cherries are optional–you can really use anything that sounds yummy to you)

What are you doing to get ready for the holidays? What are you grateful for this winter season?? And what movies do you always get out to watch this time of year?

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Happy Birthday, Jane!

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It’s always very easy for me to remember Jane Austen’s birthday, because it is also my mother’s! (Though luckily only one of them expects a present…). It’s also the birthday of Beethoven and Katherine of Aragon (among others), and it also tells me It’s Almost Christmas. But it’s not always easy to think of what to write about. There are so many things I love about Austen’s books, and so many gifts they’ve given me as I read them over the years. But since Janet and I got to meet Andrew Davies at the JASNA AGM back in October (and hear about his work on various adaptations), I decided to take a look at my DVD shelf and review my thoughts about some of the various films from Austen’s books.

What follows is a Highly Scientific Analysis:

Pride and Prejudice
1995–really, really love (probably my second favorite of all the adaptations!)
2005–love (a controversial opinion, I know, but I thought it very romantic…)
1980–I have the DVD but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt the urge to watch it. It’s a little…slow. But I like it, mostly for Elizabeth Garvie’s Elizabeth
1940–good for a laugh

Sense and Sensibility
1995–really liked
2008–also really liked (especially since the actors were more age-appropriate)

Persuasion
1995–really, really, really love (my number one favorite of all)
2007–the least said the better, I think

Northanger Abbey
2007–loved (so adorable!)
1986–I only saw it once; I think I might have liked it better if I hadn’t been overwhelmed by that music…

Mansfield Park
1999–sorta liked? (it was…interesting)
2007–another one where the least said the better
I really think MP is ripe for a Davies miniseries treatment…

Emma
1996 (the Paltrow version)–liked
1996 (the Beckinsale version)–also liked. I wish I could combine aspects of these two to make something better
2009–sorta liked, especially the beginning (until Romola Garai’s weird facial expressions started to get to me)

And there you have it! This is what I think about every Austen adaptation I have seen. What are your favorites?? Least favorites?? Which one would you like to see made again, with your own dream cast???

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The Nutcracker

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Last weekend I got to do something I haven’t done in a few years–I went to see The Nutcracker! It was so much fun–when I was a kid we used to go every year, and I got a new Christmas party dress to wear to the performance. It was wonderful to see all the little girls in their pretty clothes, so excited to see the dancing and the sparkling lights.

It’s funny that something that’s become such an intrinsic part of the holiday season was a bit of a flop when it first opened! It started out promising. After the great success of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, the director of the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg asked Tchaikovsky and choreographer Marius Petipa to collaborate on another production, one based on ETA Hoffmann’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It turned out to be not a very harmonious partnership–Petipa sent Tchaikovsky very detailed instructions for each number in the ballet, right down to tempo and number of bars, and Tchaikovsky didn’t like working under such restraints. The production was further delayed by Tchaikovsky’s visit to the US and Petipa’s illness, but it did open at the Mariinsky Theater on December 18, 1892 in a version much condensed from the original story (there are only two acts, the first act the Christmas party and battle of the Mouse King where Clara helps save the Nutcracker Prince, and act two at the Kingdom of Sweets where we meet chocolate, coffee, marzipan, snowflakes and Sugar Plum Fairies…)

The first production got decidedly mixed reviews in a town that was very, very picky when it came to their ballet. One reviewer called the Sugar Plum Fairy “pudgy” and one complained about how confusing the Mouse King battle was (“One cannot understand anything. Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards–quite amateurish”). It didn’t take off, though Tchaikovsky did have some success with a suite of the music.

Its first complete performance outside Russia was in England in 1934, and the first US performance at the San Francisco Ballet on December 24, 1944. The New York City Ballet debuted their version in 1954, which is when it really started to become the big money-maker it is now and a cherished tradition for many families like mine (most ballet companies function all year from the proceeds from their Nutcracker performances!)

For more information on the history of the ballet, I really like J. Fisher’s book Nutcracker Nation: How An Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World (2003)
Do you go to see The Nutcracker? What are your favorite memories of the ballet??

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My Favorite Things

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Happy (almost 2012) everyone! I’m afraid to admit this, but my house is in complete chaos at the moment. I have book due (eek) Monday, so the shreds of wrapping paper are still piled on the floor and the new books I got for presents (yay books for presents!!) are stacked on the table. But as I look back on 2011, I remember some really fabulous reads. I can only hope the new year is as good!

Here are a few I liked:

Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War

I admit I don’t know nearly as much about American history as I do European, but I found this epic tale, featuring more than 200 characters with distinctive and linked stories, fascinating and absorbing. I couldn’t put it down…

Kady Cross, The Girl in the Steel Corset

Two of my favorite new things in a good fiction read–YA and steampunk! Plus a fabulous heroine and some great dialogue

Jehanne Wake, Sisters of Fortune: America’s Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad

I am not sure how I missed the story of the 4 Caton sisters of Maryland (granddaughters of the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence), but the story of these Regency precursor’s of the Victorian “Dollar Duchesses” who went to England and married titles is amazing. Marianne married Wellington’s brother (and was said to have been the great love if Wellington himself); Louisa became the Duchess of Leeds and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria; and Bess made her own fortune in the stock market.

Alan Bradley, A Red Hering Without Mustard

The first Flavia de Luce mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, was one of my favorite novels of last year, and this one was just as enjoyable a read. Flavia (a wickedly precocious 11-year-old) and the English village setting of Bishop’s Lacey are tons of fun!

Deborah Lutz, Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism

Who can resist a research book with “sex rebels” in the title?? The Pre-Raphaelites, Richard and Isabel Burton, the poet Swinburne and his favorite flagellation brothels….a great look at a scandalous counter-culture…


Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

I was reluctant to pick this up at first, it was so hyped, but I am so glad I did. Truly a magical and absorbing read.

Chris Adrian, The Great Night

Another magical read! It’s Midsummer Eve in 2008. and 3 humans with romantic troubles get trapped in San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park with Titania, Oberon, Puck, etc for some truly crazy doings (and a group of homeless people putting on a musical version of Soylent Green…)

Priya Parmar, Exit the Actress

Another one I was reluctant to pick up at first–I love Nell Gwyn and have read sooo many novels about her. How could I need another one?? But this was unlike any other I’ve read lately, I started it early one evening and didn’t stop I finished it!

Chris Skidmore, Death and the Virgin Queen

A new account of the mysterious death of Amy Robsart Dudley in 1560, utilizing some fascinating new forensic evidence found from the original inquiry. A story I never tire of speculating about!

Cherie Burns, Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers

I grew up visiting Taos, New Mexico every summer, and my parents would take me to the Millicent Rogers Museum many times. But I never knew much about the woman who once owned that house and the fabulous art and jewelry collections it houses (except for the fact that she wore fabulous clothes in the photos on the wall!). It turns out the Standard Oil heiress (who died in the 1950s at age 51) had an incredibly adventurous and glamorous life that reads like an novel…

I haven’t been to the movies much this year, but I did see some I enjoyed very much: Like Crazy, The Descendants, Melancholia, The Mill and the Cross, and the gorgeous Midnight in Paris were a few.

How was your reading year in 2011??? Did you get any fabulous new books for Christmas presents?

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