I hope that ALL of you have a safe and healthy New Year.

We are planning to celebrate very quietly tonight, although I am sure a lot of our neighbors will be shooting off fire works all night long. Now that our “puppy” Sprite is no longer with us, the noise will at least not make any of us shiver with fear all night. She was absolutely terrified of fire crackers (and thunder).

My husband and I are so different than my parents. I remember my mother and father going to late-night parties at the end of the year… sort of like they were cramming in one last hurrah on the 31st of each December. I’m not sure if it’s that we live in a different time or if my husband and I simply are party-poopers, but somehow we just can’t seem to get excited about the prospect of huge New Year’s Eve parties. We much prefer small get-togethers.

Anyway, I truly hope ALL of you (and yours) have a wonderful 2014 (and on!)

I hope ALL of you and your loved ones have a wonderful Christmas.

This is the time of year where all of us seem to be a little kinder and more patient with others.

May this Christmas feeling stay fast and hold with us until this same time next year.

 

Since we have just two more days before Christmas,  I thought I would post an entry that Alfred suggested.  I am guessing that by this time, most of you have everything pretty much organized for Christmas. You have prepared your surroundings the way you want them, you have your menu planned, and you know which functions and/or services you will be attending to celebrate Christmas. What better time to ask Alfred’s question:

Danna, was wondering about asking readers if they have any particular ornaments or decorations that just have to go out to make the Christmas Holiday special for them.   I have four items that we put out – will tell you about them later but thought this might be a good column idea.

As I mentioned in my earlier entry, the holiday season for us just wouldn’t be the same without my son’s and daughter’s hand-made ornaments and my daughter’s hand-made Nativity. Sure, I have blown-glass ornaments, a china Nativity, and store-bought pine cone baskets and trees out in the garage, but we have found that we simply don’t miss them.

Over the years I have been slowly cutting back on what we bring in from the garage. I have added more “Extra Christmas” descriptions to our bins out there. They are the bins that I just don’t feel we need to bother with, which makes my husband pretty happy since he won’t have help me bring them in or take them back out after the holidays.

Those are my “have to go out” items, Alfred. How about the rest of you? Do you have an item or two which you think turn your Christmas house into your Christmas home?

Hmmm… What to do?

I just finished a Christmas Cozy Mystery by an author whose book I absolutely loved 95% of the time. How can that be, Danna, 95% of the time? That doesn’t even make sense.

Well, actually it does.

As I have written about before, I love reading Holiday Cozy Mysteries set in their corresponding holidays. Since it’s currently the Christmas season, that’s what I have been reading.

I just finished a new-to-me Cozy Mystery author and was absolutely loving my book. Everything in the book (the author’s fluid writing style, her characters, the lovely snow-covered setting, the small town, and the mystery) made me think this author was destined to become one of my personal favorite authors. (I make that sound like a great, big honor, don’t I?) Aha, this is an author who I will be recommending at the end of the month, I thought. This is an author who I absolutely have got to share with all the Cozy Mystery  site’s readers.

Those were my thoughts, until I got to about the second to the last chapter in the book. Doggone it, I thought. NOT AGAIN!!!

It is at this point in the mystery that everything got jumbled-up and sped up to just about ninety miles an hour. What was going on? What happened to the author’s writing style that I had (just about) committed to reading through the next books in her series?

I’ll tell you what happened! Apparently she ran out of paper, anyway that’s what I think happened. The author simply started throwing details at me, literally going so fast that I thought I might have to take notes.

She had (perhaps) made her word quota, and decided that she had to wrap the mystery up, using one of Hercule Poirot’s techniques. Get all (and by that I mean ALL) the characters together for a party and have the sleuth explain all sorts of new clues to the other characters (and reader) so that the mystery could be solved. It works when Poirot does it, but that’s because the reader has had access to the clues throughout the book. Unfortunately, it’s doesn’t work for the reader when the author just decides to start making up clues >>> anyway not for this reader!

So, at this time, I want to ask you all, have you ever read an author (without naming any specific names) who rushes the conclusion of the mystery so much so that the clues are simply made up in the last few chapters? Have you ever read a Cozy Mystery book that you are enjoying a whole lot until you get to the rushed conclusion?

If so, please post a comment, and again, please don’t name specific authors when being negative.