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Category: Books & Movies
Monthly reviews and recommendations about books I am reading plus movies guides on various topics.
While on “maternity leave” (aka I’m a stay-at-home mom and my husband has 3 weeks off) I needed to watch some guilty pleasure movies. Guilty pleasure movies are movies that are embarrassing for you to admit how much you like them. But they serve a purpose and if they bring you joy who cares! First of all, these movies don’t require any thinking or remembering. The films are not complicated so you can drift off to sleep, wake up, and still not really have missed anything. Also, guilty pleasure movies have happy endings and will leave you feeling good after watching them. Here is a list of a few of my guilty pleasure movies;
Every year, I try to narrow down all the books I read to a top 12 list. I select the books based on feeling. I chose the books that I am still thinking about and made an impact on me, not necessarily all the books I gave a 5-star rating to. Now you’ll notice below that I have way more books than 12, but I count books in a series that I read in the same year as one book (that makes sense to me). Of the 127 books I read this past year, here are my top 12 reads of 2025 (in no particular order);
This year the holidays seem to be sneaking up on me quicker than ever before. I blame the foot of snow we currently have and the freezing temperatures we’ve had all week. Usually, I like to take one holiday at a time. I am not a fan of Christmas decorations being out before Thanksgiving.  But Holiday Inn was recently playing on television and it got this Grinch in the holiday mood. I decided to compile a list of my favorite Christmas movies to refer to instead of just watching whichever film happens to be playing that evening.Â
You’ll notice a few titles missing from my list that everyone else would include. I also didn’t rank the movies but instead divided them into categories because I like a lot of variety in my viewing pleasure. If I watch a classic one night, I like to pick from another category the next night.
I hope you enjoy my list of best Christmas movies:
I love reading holiday books to my children to help them prepare and get excited. I just started creating this list of children’s Thanksgiving books. The books on this list focus on the holiday featuring traditions and a little history. A few are about giving thanks and having gratitude. A lot of popular Thanksgiving picture books have a character like a turkey or a pilgrim but have nothing else to do with the holiday. I didn’t include those. Over time, this list will continue to grow as I find more books that pass my criteria and we enjoy.
