Woo Hoo! It's the First Day of a Brand New Year!

My first book of 2017: Atlas Obscura

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My One Word for 2017: Play!

I will not take 2017 seriously! I mean it! I'm serious!

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Best Christmas Ever

My sons and my daughters-in-law along with our little granddaughter and my husband. Everybody was there. That is what makes it the best Christmas ever.

It was not a good hair day, but who cares when you are together?

 My two sons.

My Chicago son and daughter-in-law, along with their niece.

 Aren't they such a good-looking group?

My son, my daughter-in-law, and their daughter.

Got to take advantage of that mistletoe.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.

Top Ten Best Books of 2016

When you read 354 books in a year, it is impossible to pick the ten best. Here, then, are some favorites, by category from the books I read this year.

If pressed, I'd say my top ten favorites were...

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Lab Girl

F is for France: A Curious Cabinet of French Wonders

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal

The Violet Hour

Humans of New York: Stories

The Sun Also Rises

Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris

The 6:41 to Paris

Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Virtual Advent: No Traditions? Start One!

"Tradition is not to preserve the ashes, but to pass on the flame." Gustav Mahler

"Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable, and safe in a confusing world." Susan Lieberman

Have you been reading these wonderful Virtual Advent posts and feeling sad because you have no traditions? I say: Start a tradition. Even if it's just you and the Christmas tree, steal an idea you like and start it right now. 

That's what we decided to do this year. I have a one-year-old granddaughter and her mom and I decided to start doing some things with her that we can do every year. We invited my daughter-in-law's mom to join us and we all made ornaments.

We used clear glass balls and filled some with red and green.

 My daughter-in-law, Stephanie, taught her mom and me how to decoupage. It wasn't hard. We put pictures of our family on angels and decoupaged them.

 My granddaughter, Annie, helped me paint an ornament green and red. Didn't it turn out good?

Stephanie's mom, Diana, had lots of great ideas for ornaments.

 Annie clapped for us. She was very encouraging.

For more Virtual Advent posts, head over to Sprite Writes.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.

Santa Doesn't Need to Bring Me Any Books This Year

Dear Santa,

My birthday was November 1st and I got everything I wanted this month. I don't need anything more, Santa.

Here's what I got:

Life from Scratch

Letters of Note, Vol. 2

Everyone Love Paris

Villages of Tuscany

Pop-up Paris

The Moth

Atlas Obscura

Start Where You Are

Dinner With Edward

The Diary of a Country Priest

From Cover to Cover

Romeo and/or Juliet

So thank you anyway, Santa, but I'm good for now....Of course, I do have a nice wish list on Amazon...Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I want books for Christmas. Please, Santa, bring me any books you want, but please bring me books!

Take care,
Deb Nance

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

A Week in Which I Finish a Year of Living Danishly and (Finally!) Ballet Shoes

Wrapping Up the Cybils I have been a very bad blogger lately but I promise to do better after I get this first round of the Cybils sorted out on January 1. And, as anyone knows who has ever worked in an elementary school, the month of December is madness. Every day is a new special event, be it Grinch Day or the holiday musical or Polar Express Day or the holiday parties. Outside the school has been crazy, too, what with our town's church alliance's Christmas Walk-a-Mile and helping my daughter-in-law with her crafts at the farmer's markets and getting ready for my dad's ninetieth birthday celebration in January. We are super-duper excited this year for Christmas because my Chicago son and his wife will be coming for the holiday for the very first time to have Christmas with my husband and me and our local son and his wife and their 13-month old baby girl.  Bear with me and I will get back to books soon.... What I Read This Week The Library of Unrequited Love is a short novella about a librarian who has given it all up for her library. It's a silly little story, a cautionary tale, perhaps, but a little story that no one who is a librarian should miss....You will be able to identify. One Man's Christmas is a collection of old columns with a Christmas theme by Houston Chronicle columnist Leon Hale. I chose it because it's a book club theme but who wouldn't enjoy reading about the hard times our parents and grandparents experienced in their childhood Christmases? The Year of Living Danishly is a memoir of Helen Russell's move to Denmark for a year. Russell used the year to take a close look at why Danish people report themselves to be the happiest people in the world. I am happy to have learned more about happiness from this book. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but, sadly, I did not become a fan of Ballet Shoes. I am disappointed to say that it took me three weeks to finally get to the end of this little book, and I just don't feel the love. It's the story of three girls who are adopted by an eccentric fossil collector. The girls all are given unusual (for the time) opportunities to develop their talents, and they struggle to help their guardian provide for them financially. Maybe it is so beloved because all three girls do seize-the-day, and that was a rare thing during the thirties when this book was written. What I Hope to Read Next Week What are you reading today? What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. Click here to join the Salon. The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news and recap the past week. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that we found in our mailboxes last week.   It is now being hosted here. Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews in which you can share the books you've acquired. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from! I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is now being hosted at The Book Date.

VLA: Very Large Array

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.