Aunties Annex: December Books

PLUS MY TOP 2024 READ 'EM ROUNDUP!

Oh sure, you are thinking, don’t talk to us for a full month and then bombard our inboxes with TWO newsletters in just three days. Not cool, Alexis, Not cool.

December was less about reading and more about watching as many terrible hallmark Christmas movies as we possibly could. Pop the popcorn, turn on the Christmas tree, and break out the candy canes. We like to play “bingo” while watching. Are there too many marshmallows in a mug? CHECK! Does a man lean over a woman to ghost-arm-instruct her on how to do things she already knows how to do? CHECK! Is someone wearing impractical shoes in the snow? Did a car break down and when the hood gets slammed shut was it a surprisingly generically “gorgeous” man who happened to have the ability to call the tow truck? Did the auto shop have to ORDER THE FREAKING PART?!? Why don’t any of these small-town autoshops carry any parts?!? Does that successful businesswoman leave her excellent job to help save the floundering family horse/maple/toy/candy farm/factory? Yes. yes. yes and yes.

I won’t go into the details of every over-the-top holiday film we watched, but I WILL tell you that in 2023, the Hallmark franchise alone released 42 (!!) new Christmas original films. FORTY. TWO. For the record, there were 29 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. That is a whole lot of Christmas to try to cram up your stocking.

All the Christmas movie-watching, cookie-eating, house-decorating, and general holiday shenanigans cut into my regular reading time and I have no regrets.

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MY DECEMBER TOP PICK

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE by Claire Keegan

It is Christmastime in 1985 Ireland and Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, is busy on his deliveries. The season has him reflecting on his past, his daughters, and what his life amounts to thus far. Then, on a fateful early morning delivery to the convent in town Bill is confronted with an event that causes a moral dilemma and changes the trajectory of his life.

In this understated and immensely powerful small book, Keegan weaves Bill’s daily chores, his internal musings, his trepidation and hope, to present to the reader how complicated and simple existence can be. I love how nearly unintentional his life seems, how ordinary and also immensely brave Bill is. Set during the holidays, this is a book you could read any time of the year that quietly asks what it takes to go against the current when the rest of the town and the power structure behind it is swimming the other (decidedly wrong) direction. Or what it doesn’t take. Sometimes change comes in the form of a small ripple. A rock in the stream.

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FROM THE STAX

A WEDDING IN DECEMBER by Sarah Morgan

When Rosie calls home over Thanksgiving, she drops a big surprise. She is getting married! In a month! In Aspen! Always impulsive, her entire family worries that Rosie might be rushing into love and sets off to attend the wedding with maybe less than pure support in their hearts.

I was chasing a Christmassy romance quick read, and this book delivered. A fun frolic into family dynamics in a whirlwind triple romance set in Aspen. With more than one love story at play, plus a true wintery wonderland, this was an excellent cozy Christmas romance. Did the older generation love story reinforce the idea that women should be happy to be keepers of the house and sidekicks to their men? Maybe? But it also might be a realistic example of what an older generation went through and getting more than one love story was worth it.

VERONICA RUIZ BREAKS THE BANK by Elle Cosimano

Veronica Ruiz is running away from college, from a crime she didn’t commit, and from an ex-boyfriend who broke her heart. Just months away from a degree in finance, she gets her foot in the door at a local bank…as a janitor. Undeterred, Veronica knows she will climb the corporate ladder to make her career dreams come true, but how? By solving the case of the banks missing money, obviously.

A companion book to the Finlay Donovan series, featuring Vero, Finlay’s fearless and sometimes questionably bold nanny/accountant. She is a woman willing to bury a body, she’s got your back, and she has some secrets of her own. A quick and quirky origin story to round out the sidekick we’ve grown to love.

MANHUNT by Janet Evanovich

Alexandra Scott trades her fancy New Jersey condo for a remote and rustic cabin and hardware store in the Alaskan wilderness, hoping to catch herself a husband. But the cabin, hardware store, and her new neighbor are not at all what she was expecting.

This Christmas we watched A Holiday to Remember featuring country singer Randy Travis (love this tune) and Rue McClanahan from Golden Girls. It has that soft focus nostalgic magic that only movies from the 1990s hold. This book holds the same kind of dated charm. Is the toxic masculinity of the love interest problematic? You betcha. Am I willing to forget it because the book was published in 1988 and because Alexandra Scott is spunky and charming? I am. I can just imagine Manhunt as one of those problematic and nostalgic ‘90s movies that somehow are simultaneously cringe and sweet.

THE WITCHES OF EL PASO by Luis Jaramillo

Nena is sent to her great-niece Marta, a successful lawyer tied up in a big legal case representing the victims of workplace abuse. Nena holds the key to a family secret, the door to untapped magic that has the potential to change Marta’s life and bring Nena the closure she needs. But magic always makes the user pay. It is up to Marta to decide what part of Nena’s fantastical life she will believe and whether to partake in the unpredictable chaos.

There is magic, there is generational connection, there is…time travel? While I was reading this book I enjoyed the chaos of the plot, but in trying to recap it here I am realizing that it was a bit like a tangle of strings that never fully untangled. The story is carried by the magic that tinges every page, the story of the nuns in the past, and a curiosity about what kind of trouble the magic will bring through the seduction of power.

KINGDOM OF THE BLIND by Louise Penny

Armand Gamache and his friends have been named executors of a will for a woman they have never met, which is weird enough, but when a body is found in the rubble after the house they are in collapses on top of them, the case goes from mysterious to murderous. Meanwhile, in Montreal, the worst of the drugs are about to hit the street. Can Gamache solve and stop it all?

The saga continues. I continue to listen. These books and their characters are familiar enough now that they are the perfect background to my busy life. I can half listen and still get the gist, and it is easy to tune into the action-packed and heartbreaking moments so I don’t miss the stuff that matters.

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2024 READ ‘EM ROUNDUP

I have now shared every single book I have read with you over this year. Is that wild? I think yes. I have never subjected anybody to this particular brand of…entertainment, so a very special thanks to you all for being my guinea pigs. After looking at the entire list, here are my favorite books of 2024. Title links go to my original reviews if you need a reminder of why I loved the book.

If you want to add any of my favorites to your TBR pile, consider buying them from my affiliate bookshop.org store. I’ve even put them in a tidy little list for you because I care.

If you have read any of them, tell me your thoughts. We can chat like we are back in our English Lit class in college.

overall favorite: North Woods by Daniel Mason

honorable mentions: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

best audiobook: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

YA for the win: Turtles all the Way Down by John Green, All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir, Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert, Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, and Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

favorite romances: Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb, Happy Place by Emily Henry, The American Roommate Experience by Elana Armas

favorite series: Beartown (#1) (#2) (#3) by Fredrik Backman (Fiction), The Lioness Quartet (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) by Alanna Pierce (Middle Grade), and ok fine, ACOTAR (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5) by Sarah J Mass (Romance)

What was/were your favorite book/books of 2024? What are you reaching for next to kick off 2025?

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ADULTING

NYE detritus and sparkles. Ringing in 2025 at 7 PM.

Parent hack: If you still want to celebrate NYE with your small kids but don’t want to have to deal with the fall-out the next day from the late night, consider live streaming a countdown in a different country. Last year we celebrated the Irish NY with our Irish friends. This year we tuned in to Rio before our kids melted down. They still get to experience the countdown and the cheers and the fireworks, and we are all in bed by 10 PM (ish).

My mom came to visit this month for our combo birthday. Yes, I was born on my mom’s birthday. How cool is that? She is reading this post right now, Hi Mom!! While she was in town she was reading Penelope in Retrograde by Brooke Abrams on her Kindle and really wants me to read it too. It had her laughing out loud in my living room, so it must have been good. Putting it on my TBR, mama. Love you!

In other news, my husband shared this article and I will be thinking about it as I go about my wish-I-pushed-more-against-the-patriarchy-and-also-I-love-my-SAHM life. It resonates. We also just finished watching Night Bitch, which was as weird as it was interesting and runs along parallel tracks.

I ran slash “wogged” (that is a walk meets a jog) two more 5K’s - a santa dash and a new year dash. Maybe it is becoming a thing I do?!? Even my five-year-old ran this last one and floored me with his enthusiasm and endurance.

Instead of making lofty goals and disappointing myself in two weeks time, for 2025 I resolve to keep on reading, a realistic and attainable goal that I already feel good about. See y’all soon, and happy reading!