Thursday's trailer

Book Page

I'm really psyched right now seeing as my first bookpage was published today! From now on, my bookish musings will be gracing Flanders Today on a monthly basis, so check out the first installment: the graphic novels edition on page 8 of Flanders Today. If you can't get your hands on a copy, try this.

Festive Fiction

I didn't read as many Christmassy books as I'd hoped to this month, I actually didn't do a lot of reading at all to tell the truth because I was usually in bed by 10pm. I know, I'm a wild one.

I did however finally get my hands on A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote, one of my favorite authors. I already read the story a long time a ago as it is a part of one of his short story collections but several years ago they made an illustrated 50th anniversary edition with CD that I was eyeing up for a while now and I have to say I totally love it. The story is pretty sad and is about a young boy (Truman) who reminisces about the his last Christmas with his childlike elderly aunt. What can I say, I'm just a sucker for old people. Anyway, it's a beautiful book and a wonderful story yet slightly sentimental but in a good way.

The other Christmas book I read also happened to be a memoir but with a good helping of reindeer, elves and several Santas. It was David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice or The Santaland Diaries, depending if you get the British or American edition. In a nutshell, he has combined several hilarious short stories about Christmas, all tapping into his own experiences as usual, ranging from his stint as a Christmas Elf at Macy's to Sinterklaas. Classic material and perfect fodder for anyone looking for a break from traditional tales.

Christmas preparations

I’ve been so busy the past few weeks that I’ve barely had time to breath, let alone decorate my Christmas tree or blog. I’ve been working extra shifts at the store which wasn’t that bad actually: baking an obscene amount of gingerbread men, decorating them, jazzing up the window display and climbing in three Christmas trees. Add to that a very important deadline (my first book page) and the usual domestic disturbances plus my dearly beloved yet equally disturbed mother and grandmother and you end up with no spare time whatsoever. Seriously, I don’t have the time or the energy to work fulltime.

Luckily things are slowly winding down now so I can finally get down to business: my own Christmas preparations. I usually start right after Sinterklaas so I’m particularly late this year. The only thing that went according to plan was buying presents, god bless the internet.

This week however, the pumpkin surprised me with my very first real Christmas tree! We usually have a small but really pretty plastic one seeing as I’m a Christmas nut and he’s basically Scrooge so I was really surprised, my insistent nagging must finally be wearing him down. Anyway, the only downside besides it being a white one, was having no ornaments to sproose up this gigantic tree.

So this weekend besides doing all the shopping for the Christmas parties I’ll be hosting this week, we had to get some cheap and easy decorations because I doubt we’ll get another bad boy next year. With a little help from Ikea and Ella Fitzgerald playing her swinging tunes, I had a great time turning our Tree (seriously, it’s an actual Tree not a cute Christmassy tree) into something a little more festive. Sadly, I had to clean the entire apartment afterwards.

Today I started with my food preparations. We usually go to England in December so I can get all my Christmas trimmings but this year we simply didn’t have the time which is why I made mincemeat from scratch for the very first time. It’s not the traditional kind but it’s very easy and the smell is simply divine: lots of spices, fruit and booze. Yum, yum, yum. Bring on the pies!

This afternoon I’m assisting the pumpkin with some last minute shopping seeing as he believes buying gifts is the most stressful and frustrating waste of time, ever. So yeay! And afterwards we might check out the Christmas market in good ol’ Antwerp before I start another week of working, baking, indulging needy relatives, grocery shopping, cleaning and hosting a couple of parties. Thank god, I don’t have anymore deadlines.

Thursday's trailer

A Simples Life

How often does an ad for car insurance get so popular that it gets its own range of merchandise, including one hilarious and oh so cute biography? Not often, that’s for sure.

It all started with an ad campaign for comparethemarket.com, a British website that enables you to find the cheapest car insurance to suit your own personal pickle. The brilliant people behind this website also created the character of Aleksandr Orlov, a prestigious Russian meerkat and founder of comparethemeerkat.com, a website where you can compare meerkats. As you do. Sadly, he is frustrated that that people often mix the two up.

The ads in which he vents his frustration, quickly became an immense success due to this colorful and cute main character with his charming Borat-esque accent and his nerdy assistant Sergei. Seriously, they crack me up and apparently I’m not the only one who’s meerkat mad.

These fluffy friends actually started an entire meerkat craze in the UK, with A Simples Life, My Life and Times by Aleksandr Orlov as the icing on the cake. It’s a beautiful book filled with gorgeous pseudo-historical drawings, tongue in cheek photographs and of course the history of the Orlov clan (ranging from the Meerkat–Mongoose war of 1728 until the Furry Terror of 1921) told by Aleksandr in his own characteristic crazy way.

I actually laughed out loud more times than I care to admit and I know, it’s commercialism is its purest and most evil form but come on, who can resist an autobiography by a meerkat?

Sunday mornings

My Sunday morning usual looks like this: me, my laptop, lots of coffee and tying up some work-related loose ends. It’s the ideal moment to finish off my reviews, re-read my articles before I send them off on Monday and blog. Utter bliss. I know, working on a Sunday morning must seem crazy to most but I personally love it. There’s something about a tranquil Sunday morning that makes my brain go into overdrive, I’m a real morning person if you hadn’t already noticed.

Sadly, I haven’t been as productive as I’ve hoped this morning. Sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with my laptop on well, my lap probably has something to do with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very cozy, actually so cozy that I can’t focus on the four reviews I had to finish this morning. Instead, I’ve spent the entire morning shopping and making a list of New Year’s resolutions.

It all started to go terribly wrong when I decided to order a few last minute Christmas presents. Although it’s still three weeks until that blessed day, when you order online two – three weeks is cutting it short when your presents still have to travel the globe.

After I ordered the presents, I decided to take a look at the Christmas CD’s, seeing as they were only one click away. I love Christmas music, especially my Christmas crooners CD but the pumpkin hates it. Well, he tolerates the crooners but loathes everything else, except Sufjan Steven’s Songs for Christmas, the only acceptable CD during the holiday season. I beg to differ. In order to win him over to the dark side, I decided to invest in some swinging Christmas tunes by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. You can’t beat the classics or my festive spirit for that matter.

Now that I’ve got the music, I need the movies. We’ve already got many Christmassy films which we (meaning me) love to watch every year: It’s a Wonderful Life, The Grinch, Elf, Scrooged,… but staying true to tradition, I still needed a new one for our quiet Christmas Eve together, before all hell breaks loose on Christmas day. And now it’s in the bag.

Then I kinda got sidetracked while I was reading my blogs and started checking out several books which have now earned themselves a spot on my Bookdepository wish list or as I call it, one of the best inventions ever seeing as it keeps me informed about release dates and more importantly, massive price drops.

Due to a pit stop at YouTube (cute kitten clips how I love thee), I started thinking about my New Year’s resolutions and started making a list. More about those December 31st.

And finally before I started this post, I realized that you can do your grocery shopping online as well, which would be great seeing as I’ve got no time to do the holiday grocery shopping this year as I’m working every day until Christmas. I just click on all the items we need and the pumpkin goes to Carrefour to pick them up: simple, no queues, screaming children or bruises from people who can’t control their trolley. I’m definitely going to give this a go.

And now, it’s time for our weekly Sunday brunch: sandwiches, Danish and Disney! And then I'll get some work done, hopefully...

Thurday's trailer

Holiday Reading

It's December, finally! It's snowing outside, Christmas decorations are popping up left and right and soon there will be carols in the air, presents under the tree and the glorious smell of allspice intoxicating our apartment and all who happens to drop by.

If you hadn't already noticed, I love the Holidays: the food, the shopping, the decorating, Christmas carols, festive films and being surrounded by your loved ones. To quote Brook Benton "I wish everyday could be like Christmas". It's also the only time of the year I get mildly mushy and indulge in otherwise loathsome sentimental slush.

Last year I also started a new holiday tradition, during December I will only read fun, lighthearted and festive fiction. The cornier, the better basically. As you can see by my currently reading status, I already started now that all the mandatory reading is finally over. I gathered a big pile of books yesterday and I can't wait to curl up with my kitty.