What’s your favourite Christmas film?
I think it would have to be Every Time a Bell Rings by Carmel Harrington. It’s inspired by and has parallels to the film It’s A Wonderful Life and I just loved it.
First of all, a little about me
What Christmas book are you looking forward to reading this year?
Do you have a favourite Christmas book?
I am a big fan of Christmas songs and the Michael Bublé Christmas album is a firm favourite. However, my absolute favourite Christmas song is Nat King Cole singing The Christmas Song. I just love the smoothness of his voice and the mellow music.
I have now realised just what a cruel question this is! My mind has gone completely blank but I know that I have had wonderful presents over the years. I am always more than happy with books, chocolate, wine and toiletries these days. One present I do remember from when I was little was a Tiny Tears doll which I loved. It even came with hand-made knitted clothes which Santa had arranged for my mum to make especially for the doll!
So I’m going to cheat a little bit here and sneak in what is actually my favourite Christmas film! I used to watch It’s a Wonderful Life with my dad when I was younger and now watch it every year with my own family. It’s very important that it’s written on the calendar. We usually watch the black & white version, since that’s what it was originally filmed in, but we have watched the colourised version too and it wasn’t as strange as I thought it might be. I love the message that no-one is a failure if they have friends.
And finally, what’s the best Christmas present you ever received?
How can people follow you or connect with you on social media?
I’m Joanne and I live in Portobello, the seaside part of Edinburgh. I am married with two daughters, who are in their twenties. I’ve been blogging since April 2015 and have made many friends in the bookish world both online and in real life. It’s a great privilege to be given the opportunity to read and review books ahead of publication. Over the past 18 months, it’s been great to be able to attend lots of events online which I probably wouldn’t have been able to attend in real life. I am involved in organising our local free book festival, Portobello Book Festival, which we managed to run in our local library this year after being online last year.
After such a strangely quiet time last year, I am hoping that we will be able to celebrate more normally this year. Christmas Day is usually quite busy with presents being opened first thing with my family, then going to Church in the morning. My mother-in-law usually comes for smoked salmon and scrambled egg croissants at lunch time, then my mum comes for a traditional Christmas meal later. Hopefully there will be time to watch the Strictly Christmas Special but if not, it will be recorded to watch later!
By the time I put out this post, I will likely have read all my Christmas books for this year. At the time of writing this, I have around 15 Christmas or seasonal books on my to-be-read list! You’ll just have to have a look at my reviews to see how much I have enjoyed them.
And a favourite Christmas song?
As it’s now Christmas Eve and I’ve got a film to watch, I’d like to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas,
whatever you may do to celebrate.
Do you still keep any Christmas traditions from your childhood?
See above! I have several films I just have to watch each festive season though – Love Actually, When Harry Met Sally, The Snowman to name just a few. However, for this question I’m going to choose another film which we watch every Christmas Eve with some hot chocolate – The Polar Express.
Other traditions I have kept since childhood is that I always have an Advent candle and calendar. You’re never too old for an Advent calendar!
You’ll find me on Twitter and Instagram where I’m @portybelle and I have a Facebook page for the blog too.
How do you plan to celebrate Christmas this year?
After asking lots of authors about their Festive favourites over the past couple of months, I thought it
was maybe time I told you about my favourites. Obviously I haven’t written a book
to tell you about, but I’ve answered the rest of the questions.
