January 11, 2018 · 1:00 am

An Update on My Difficulties with Meditation

Wow, it’s been six weeks since I last blogged about meditation. I knew it had been a while when I first began working on today’s post, but I had no idea that so much time has passed.

The last time I blogged about this topic, I talked about the possibility of taking a break from meditation. It turns out that I was far too stubborn for that option.

I didn’t want to make any drastic changes to my meditation habits until I’d figured out if I was going to continue meditating or give it up for a while. There are a lot of fantastic apps and other services out there, but I don’t want to pay for something I won’t use regularly.

If there was a way to begin feeling more relaxed after my sessions again, I was going to keep using my current app until I figured it out.

Now that I have the answer to that question, I have to decide how to change this part of my daily routine.

No, I’m still not back to my regular habits yet, but I am still meditating and I have noticed an improvement over the last two months. Today I’ll share the techniques that worked for me. I’ll also talk about some other ideas I’ll be trying in the near future.

Going Through the Motions

While I know that going through the motions is generally used to negatively describe how someone is performing a certain action, I don’t think of it that way for this particular situation. Sometimes going through the motions is a perfectly valid response when something isn’t working out the way you hoped it would.

There were days, especially back in early December right after What Should You Do When Meditation Isn’t Working? was first published,when I listened to my guided meditation app without consciously trying to clear my mind or participating in the process at all.

As odd as this might sound, listening without trying to participate in any way was helpful. I like the soothing voice of the woman who narrates the sessions on the app I use, so it was nice to hear her talking even if I wasn’t reacting to the routine the way I typically would.

The more I listened to her without expecting myself to join in, the more interested I became in trying again.

Comparing Meditation to Exercise

This section could almost be expanded into it’s own blog post, but I’ve noticed an interesting correlation between meditation and exercise.

Both of them require effort long before you see many results at all. It takes time and dedication to build muscle or lose weight. Even then, there have been times when my progress slowed or even temporarily halted in those areas for any number of reasons. Training your mind requires the same level of determination. There’s no quick fix for it.

The last few months seem like they were a plateau for me in this area of life. Yes, it was frustrating, but once I figured out what was going on I wasn’t nearly as annoyed with the process. I expect it to take a while to notice a difference in many of my fitness goals, after all.

Meditation should be held to the exact same standards.

Remembering What December Is Like for Me

December is my least favourite month of the year for a few different reasons.

One, I live far away from my family, and I miss them terribly over the holidays.

Two, my mood dampens a little bit every year between the end of Daylight Savings Time and the Winter Solstice. My body doesn’t like having that many hours of darkness in a day.

Three, I used to work in a field whose busiest time of the year was between October and the beginning of January with December being the peak of it all. While the actual number of hours I worked in December were only slightly higher than normal, there were multiple times when I stumbled into bed at 2 or 3 am only to go back into work at 11 am the next morning.

The shifts themselves were hectic, too. We dealt with many furious people over the course of the average day, and there was never enough time to do half of the things we were expected to do. I still associate those memories with that month, and it’s not a pleasant association.

Due to these factors, everything is a little tougher than normal for me in December. I should have thought of that when I was blogging about this at the end of last November, but for some reason it didn’t cross my mind until I began working on this post.

Now that I know more about why this plateau happened, I’m ready to start tweaking my meditation routine to see how it can be improved even more than it’s already improved for me since last November.

Other Adjustments I Want to Try

I’ve been doing guided meditation exercises since I first began meditating regularly. My very first attempts at meditation from years ago had been without any guidance at all, and they didn’t go well at all. I quickly became bored and gave up on them. Maybe it’s time to try self-guided meditation again now that I’m better at releasing stray thoughts when they appear?

Right now I’m meditating every evening. As much as I love winding down my day that way, a morning or afternoon session might work better. I’m even thinking about meditating for short periods of time more than once per day to see how they affect me.

If I do continue to use guided meditation, is it time to start exploring other meditation apps, Youtube channels, or other services? I’m using the free version of my current app, and it only offers the same few sessions to people who haven’t paid for a subscription. A few years ago, I signed up for a subscription to my current app, but I didn’t find their premium content worth the expense.

I don’t know how long it will take before I update you on this development in my life again, but I will let you know what I find as I continue to play around with my meditation habits.

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January 8, 2018 · 1:00 am

5 Classic Science Fiction Books That Everyone Should Read

There’s something about the snowy days of January that makes me want to curl up with a classic science fiction novel and not lift my head up again until April.

I’m not entirely sure why I have this urge. Maybe it’s because burying my nose in something that was old and often assigned in English class a few years after I’d read it was exactly how I used to spend cold winter weekends when I was a kid? There is also the joy of discovering a story you’ve heard lots of references to in other places. I was positively thrilled to finally get the real version of the first entry on this list. As interesting as movies and TV shows are, they often make changes to the characters or plot that anyone who isn’t familiar with the original might not even notice.

At any rate, if you haven’t read any of these classics yet, I can’t recommend them highly enough. Yes, I’m playing a little loose with the definition of the term classic in this post. I believe that the more modern books I included are going to be as highly praised a century from now as they are today.

“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley.

Ignore everything you may have heard about Frankenstein from TV shows and movies. Frankenstein wasn’t even the name of the creature that was created by nineteenth century science and ingenuity. That name actually comes from Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist who first came up with the idea of stitching the bodies of various corpses together and seeing if he could bring his creation to life.

What I appreciate the most about this tale is how much attention it paid to developing the characters. No one was perfectly virtuous or villainous in the storyline including the monster himself. Yes, this is part of the horror genre, but it probably isn’t the same type of horror most people imagine when they think about this genre.

All of the fear has a purpose here, and it’s not simply to frighten you. It wants to make you think.

 

“Out of the Silent Planet” by C.S. Lewis.

What if the Earth isn’t the only planet in the universe that contains intelligent life? What if we’re not even the most interesting populated planet out there?

That’s all I can say about this storyline without giving away spoilers, but this trilogy was full of delightful plot twists. C.S. Lewis really knew how to play around with the common tropes in the science fiction genre and come up with a new approach to them.

“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia E. Butler.

I wish Ms. Butler had lived long enough to finish this series. She wrote so many incredible things, and “Parable of the Sower” is honestly one of the best science fiction stories that’s been written in the last 50 years.

Imagine what North America would be like if their societies crumbled slowly instead of overnight like it does in, say, The Walking Dead. (No, there are no zombies in “Parable of the Sower,” though)

The characters in this tale did watch their financial and social prospects dwindle for many years before their home literally burns down and they’re forced to march north and hopefully find a safe place to live.

“Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. 

The warnings in this tale about what censorship and totalitarianism do to a society are as timely now as they were when Mr. Bradbury first released this work.

I also enjoyed the descriptions of how the government in this world got people to stop reading books and thinking for themselves. What I assumed they’d do to shut down the flow of information was the exact opposite of how it actually went down.

There were a lot of reasons why I enjoyed the storyline, but this was one of the biggest ones. I never would have guessed that the average person could be so complicit in creating a new government that wasn’t actually what they wanted at all.

“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.

On a somewhat silly note, the cold, clinical scene that showed how babies are gestated in this society still haunts me. It’s not gory or anything, but it was nothing at all like how humans reproduce in our world. I read that section two or three times in a row to fully understand how it worked the first time I picked up this story.

One of the other reasons why I recommend this tale so highly has to do with how it approaches the idea of prejudice. No one is born with prejudices. They’re something that have to be directly or indirectly taught to a child. How this happened in this society was as creative as it was disturbing.

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January 6, 2018 · 1:05 am

Saturday Seven: Cold Weather Reads

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Since this is the first Saturday Seven, I’ll explain it briefly for my readers. It’s a weekly meme for writers, bloggers, and book lovers in general. Every week you pick any book, writer, or author-related topic you’d like and make a list of seven things that fit it. Go click on the link above if you’d like to learn more about this meme or if you want to read the contributions from other bloggers.

I talk about science fiction and fantasy quite a bit here, so many of my future Saturday Seven posts will probably be related to those genres somehow. If hashtags were a thing in blogs, I’d end this paragraph with #YouHaveBeenWarned. Ha!

It’s been bone-chillingly cold here in Toronto over the past few weeks. Temperatures like -25 C (-13 F for you Americans) have often been our daytime high when you factor in the windchill. We’ve had multiple extreme weather alerts, and our city government has opened extra warming shelters to keep everyone who is living on the streets alive through this cold snap.

I feel very grateful, indeed, to have a warm, safe place to live. While we’re waiting for the weather to warm up a few dozen degrees, I’ve been thinking about books that are best read when it’s far too cold to go outside for non-essential reasons.

1. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

As freezing as Ontario is at the moment, at least we know that our winter weather generally ends by April. The citizens of Narnia had no such guarantee!

2. The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel.

While this is the second instalment in the Earth’s Children series, they can all be read as standalone works. This tale follows the adventures of a teenage girl named Ayla who attempts to survive in a harsh Palaeolithic landscape on her own for years on end. I wasn’t even allowed to ride my bike past a certain point in our neighbourhood when I was her age, so I’m always fascinated by how someone so young survived all of the challenges that came her way.

3. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.

Wang Lung and his wife struggled so hard to survive. I always enjoy reading about how closely their well-being was tied to what the climate was like and how their crops did in any particular year.

4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

The chapters that dealt with Jane’s years as a student and teacher at Lowood School are an especially good read on chilly days. Even something as simple as a cup of hot tea and a piece of fruit feels like a luxury when you’re in that section of the storyline.

5. Robert Frost’s Poems by Robert Frost.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Mending the Wall,” and of course the classic “The Road Not Taken” are a few of the best poems to read from him on days like today.

6. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

While I’m not a huge fan of gardening in real life, I did enjoy the descriptions of how Mary and Colin coaxed the abandoned garden back to life in this story after winter passed. They made it sound like such a magical process.

7. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

This was my least-favourite Little House book the first time I read that series. I couldn’t imagine how Laura Ingalls and her family would survive such a long, snowy, and bitterly cold winter while they were also running out of food. My subsequent readings of it were much more enjoyable, although I still always wince when I reach the scene where Almanzo risks his life to leave town and buy wheat to keep everyone alive until spring.

What are your favourite cold weather reads? I don’t host comments on this blog, but I’d love to discuss it with you on Twitter.

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· 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: January 6, 2018

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comic strips, short stories, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Victorian Advice for a Dry January via MimiMatthewsEsq. I was fascinated by how much the Victorians knew about the dangers of drinking too much alcohol. I’ve always kind of assumed that their resistance to it had been for moral, not medical, reasons.

Healthy vs. Sick Goals. From what I’ve read, this flu season is worse than usual because the dominant strain of the flu is a nasty one and the vaccination is much less effective than usual. Stay healthy, readers! If you do become sick, this comic strip might help you crack a smile.

Perfectionism: The Art of Getting Stuck via ‪thinkspin‬. This blogger had some very interesting thoughts about ADHD, perfectionism, and how we should actually be speaking to ourself.

City Squirrels Prefer Organic Peanut Butter via laura_perras. I’m sharing this with you for one simple reason: it made me laugh.

Romanticizing the Hunter-Gatherer. Confession: I’ve been guilty of this for years. There is something appealing to me about living in a world where you get to spend all of your time with your loved ones working as a team to survive. I’m lucky enough to have a spouse, parents, siblings, a sister-in-law, and niblings (which I recently learned is the gender-neutral term for nieces and nephews) who are all a joy to spend time with.

How One Couple Saved Their Marriage By Asking Each Other a Simple Question. Click-bait headline aside, this article was fabulous.

From Two Years Dead:

When I opened up my OKCupid profile, I was already two years dead.

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January 4, 2018 · 1:00 am

The Cold That Stuck Around (Or Why I Haven’t Lifted Weights in Ages)

Every once in a great while, my body meets a cold virus that decides it likes living in my body and becomes reluctant to leave it. I’m talking about the kind of devotion that some people are never lucky enough to experience once in their entire lifetimes. If it didn’t involve so much coughing, I’d be much more willing to feel sorry for those poor viruses who hang around for as long as they do.

I like to blame this on the fact that I didn’t grow up in Canada as well as the fable that I therefore have yet to mingle with some of the more virulent germs floating around up here. When Canadians emigrate to the U.S., I’m sure they’re occasionally just as surprised by our fierce American germs down there. (I will now wait for my mother, who has worked in the medical field for over 20 years and has no doubt forgotten more about these things than I’ll ever know, to shake her head and laugh at the idea of Canadian vs. American viruses.)

For the past few weeks, I’ve had about as much stamina and energy as the sleeping cat in the picture on the left.

There were a few beautiful naps to be had in the early stages of The Cold That Stuck Around™, and I was grateful for every one of them.

After the sneezing, fatigue, and congestion finally began to fade away, I started thinking about weightlifting again. I miss it every single time I have to take a break from it to heal from an injury or illness.

As usual, I waited a couple of days until after my cough finally faded away before tentatively doing a light bodyweight fitness routine that I normally find pretty easy. I was otherwise  feeling well by this point, and I really wanted to get back into my normal routine before the new year.

Something tells me The Cold That Stuck Around™ was expecting this, because I began coughing at the end of that workout. It wasn’t a hacking cough, but it did bother me off and on for the rest of that day.

The next morning I was still coughing, so I took another couple of days off to rest. Yesterday, I decided to try to reach my daily step count goal without doing any weightlifting. Maybe that fairly small amount of exercise would be acceptable while I healed.

I’ll give you the amount of time it takes to read this sentence to guess how that turned out for me.

Yes, I had another coughing fit this morning. It was milder than the last one, but I clearly haven’t shaken off The Cold That Stuck Around™quite yet.

I otherwise feel perfectly healthy. It’s hard to justify the idea of not getting my normal amount of exercise in, but clearly my body isn’t quite ready for that yet.

So now here I am staring wistfully at my weights as I wonder when I’ll get to use them again. In the scheme of things, it is a very minor problem to have. I honestly shouldn’t even be complaining about it at all, but I’m going be very happy when the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named finally wanders away for good and I’m no longer coughing at all. There are many things in life I can be perfectly patient about,  but this isn’t one of them.

I hope that all of your fitness routines are going much more smoothly!

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January 1, 2018 · 1:00 am

What I Read in 2017

As I mentioned a year ago in What I Read in 2016, every January I blog about what I read in the previous year. Over half of the books I read in any given year are for a review site that I volunteer for under a pseudonym, so I omitted their titles from this post for privacy reasons.

When I first began keeping track of this, I read poetry occasionally. I still enjoy individual poems, but for the past few years my interest in this genre has dropped sharply as far as full books of it go.

The science fiction numbers look like they’ve been decreasing, but that’s because most of the sci-fi I read these days has been for that review site. I’m still as interested in it as ever.

I did read a lot more young adult fiction this past year than I have in the past. That was a fun experience, and it’s something I’d like to repeat in 2018.

One final big change I’ve noticed in my reading habits over the past six years has been when I do (and don’t) read a lot. It used to be fairly consistent, but now I read much more in the summer and the winter when the weather is too far on either extreme to spend a lot of time outdoors.

Biographies, Autobiographies, and Memoirs

“A Long Way Home” by Saroo Brierley

“Gold Rush Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Nellie Cashman” by Thora Illing

“My Life My Love My Legacy” by Coretta Scott King

“The Waiting” by Cathy LeGrow

“The Alpine Path” by Lucy Maud Montgomery

“Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry” by Patricia Skidmore

“Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till” by Simeon Wright

Graphic Novels

“Secret Path” by Gord Downie

History

“The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women” by Kate Moore

“Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners” by Therese Oneill

“Snacks: A Canadian Food History” by Janet Thiessen

“Sick Kids: The History of the Hospital for Sick Children” by David Wright

“A Square Meal” by Jane Ziegelman

Mainstream Fiction

“Clan of the Cave Bear ” by Jean. M. Auel

“The Mammoth Hunters” by Jean M. Auel

“The Valley of Horses” by Jean M. Auel

“The Snow Child” by Eowyn Ivey

“The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion

Science Fiction and Fantasy

“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood

“The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant” by Drew Hayes

“The Ghost Line” by Andrew Neil Grey and J.S. Herbison

“Children of the Dust” by Louise Lawrence

“Sweetlings” by Lucy Taylor

Science and Medicine 

“Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery that Changed Our Human Story” by Lee Berger

“The Discovery of Insulin” by Michael Bliss

The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong and How Eating More Salt Might Save Your Life” by Dr. James DiNicolantonio

“The Case Against Fragrance” by Kate Grenville

“Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats” by Maryn McKenna

“Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures” by Ben Mezrich

“Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story” by Angela Saini

“The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes

“Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Sociology and Psychology

“We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Stand Firm: Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze” by Svend Brinkmann

“Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin” by Anne Katherine

“Dealing with a Narcissist” by Darlene Lancer

“Coping with Your Difficult Older Parent” by Grace Lebow and Barbara Kane

“Why Won’t You Apologize?” By Harriet Lerner

“The Atheist Muslim” by Ali. Rizvi

“Think Small: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Reach Big Goals” by Owain Service

Young Adult 

“The Crossover” by Kwame Alexander

“Allegedly” by Tiffany D. Jackson

“Sold” By Patricia McCormick

“A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness

“The Nest” by Kenneth Oppel

“The Hired Girl” by Laura Amy Schlitz

“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas

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December 30, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: December 30, 2017

Happy New Year’s Eve! Here is this week’s list of comic strips, poems, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

All of today’s links are related to winter or the New Year in some way. Next week we will be back to the usual assortment of topics in Suggestion Saturday posts. This was a fun experiment.

Preparing for Winter. If you live in the northern hemisphere, are you ready for winter?

To the New Year. This is the perfect thing to read after you’ve finished Birthday of the World. They compliment each other beautifully.
New Year’s Resolutions: Nothing Ever Changes but the Weather. Every year I say I’m not going to make another New Year’s resolution, and every year I make one anyway. Haha!
Why I Wish You a Difficult New Year via kpk_newbf‬. Every single sentence of this blog post was fantastic. Go read it, and may all of my followers have a difficult new year.

Birthday of the World. The first stanza of this poem was my favourite one. I’ll quote part of it here for you:

On the birthday of the world
I begin to contemplate
what I have done and left
undone
10 Funny Mexican Traditions for Ringing in the New Year via fabiolaofmexico. The post I shared from Fabiola on last week’s Suggestion Saturday was so interesting that I thought I’d revisit her blog again this week to show you what New Year’s Eve is like in Mexico. The story about the magic underwear was my favourite one!

Why New Year’s Resolutions Can Do More Harm Than Good via KarinSieger.This was another interesting take on whether or not people should make new year’s resolutions and why you should think ahead before trying to change a habit.

99 Reasons 2017 Was a Great Year. What a great way to say goodby to 2017.

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December 28, 2017 · 1:00 am

My Most Popular Posts of 2017

2017 was my first full year of blogging here at lydiaschoch.com. Today I wanted to take a moment to look back at the most popular posts of the year. I’ll begin with the tenth most popular post and work my way up to number one from there.

If you happened to miss any of them when they were first published at various points over the last year, now is a great time to click on the links and catch up.

10. My Blog Won a Liebster Award.

9. The Top 5 Must-Haves If You Want to Start Exercising.

8. How to Survive a Post-Apocalyptic Storyline.

7. 5 Things That People Who Have Allergies Wish You Understood.

6. 5 Reasons Why You Should Read Science Fiction and Fantasy.

5. Things Nobody Tells You About Moving to Canada.

4. Scifi and Fantasy Rules That Should Be Broken.

3. Stuff I Miss About Celebrating Christmas.

2. The Tale of the Coveted Cookies.

1. Why You Should Be Following the Mystery of Tom Thompson’s Death.

I was expecting the post about Tom Thompson to rank highly since I received so much positive feedback about it when it was first published. It came as no surprise to me to see it in the number one slot.

It was nice to see so many of my science fiction and fantasy posts be represented. I don’t always get a ton of feedback on them as far as sharing them on Twitter goes, but it looks like they’re still being read and enjoyed.

There were a couple of surprises on this list.  I wasn’t expecting the post about moving to Canada to rank so highly, though. It was something I wrote on the spur of the moment when none of my other ideas for that week panned out. I’m pleased that people enjoyed it, though.

The Tale of the Coveted Cookies turned out to be far more popular than I thought it would be as well. It was something I typed up mostly for the sheer joy of reliving that memory, so I was thrilled to see it resonating with my readers. This goes to show that you can’t always predict ahead of time what people will find amusing.

I am planning to continue this tradition of exploring my post popular posts next December. It will be interesting to see if a similar mixture of topics dominates the 2018 roundup.

In the meantime, I hope 2017 was a good year for all of my readers. I’ll post the final Suggestion Saturday in two days, and I’ll be blogging about the books I read in 2017 for my normal Monday post on the first of January.

Cheers!

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December 25, 2017 · 1:00 am

5 Christmas Movies That Are Worth Rewatching

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Despite the fact that I don’t actually celebrate any major winter holidays, there are still a decent number of Christmas movies that I could watch every year and never grow tired of. I should warn you that some of the entries on this list are a little unorthodox. Sentimental films aren’t my cup of tea, so I did wandered around in a few different genres to compile this list.

If you haven’t seen any of these movies yet, go watch them now.

A Christmas Story (1983)

I was a kid the first time I saw this film. Ralphie’s wry explanations of what his family was like shocked me a little. My parents never washed my mouth out with soap, for example, and I was used to be surrounded by adults who paid closer attention to my emotional needs than what Ralphie experienced.

It took me a rewatch or two to realize that the narrator was exaggerating certain parts of his childhood for comedic effect, but I loved this tale even more once I figured that out.

 

 

Gremlins (1984)

Sometimes you find the perfect gift for the holidays. This isn’t about one of those times.

Fair warning: this is a horror movie. I loved the part of the plot had to do with the stress of finding the perfect gift. It was also interesting to see what happened when the characters ignored the clear warnings they received about getting gremlins wet or feeding them after midnight.

 

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

One of the things I love about the holiday season is it’s emphasis on caring for your community and including everyone in your festivities.

Despite his sharp claws and strange looks, Edward isn’t a villain and this isn’t a horror movie. He was technically created to be a monster, but his personality is completely wrong for that role. Edward is gentle and kind.

There’s lot of love and kindness in his story after he’s discovered and cared for by a kind stranger as well. The conflict between her and a few members of her community who hate and fear Edward kept me glued to the plot until I knew how it ended.

 

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

What do you get when you mix Halloween and Christmas together? After the leader of Halloween Town accidentally stumbled across Christmas Town, he studied it and eventually decided to take over that holiday altogether.

I can’t say much more about the plot without giving away spoilers, but I loved the creative twists along the way. The ending was quite satisfactory as well.

 

A Christmas Carol (1999)

This was actually one of the first Charles Dickens’ stories I ever read. While I’ve enjoyed all of the adaptations of it I’ve seen over the years, this version included a few scenes from the book that were generally left out of other versions of this classic tale. I loved seeing different groups of people sing Silent Night. It added something to the storyline that was missing.

The fact that Patrick Stewart was involved was another huge bonus. I’d watch him in just about anything!

I’d love to know what your favourite holiday movies are. Hop on over to Twitter to tell me all about them today. Regardless of what you’re celebrating or if you’re celebrating anything at all,  I hope the rest of 2017 is filled with happiness and tables full of delicious food for all of my readers.

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December 23, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: December 23, 2017

Happy Holidays! Here is this week’s gigantic list of comic strips, articles, recipes, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

I have been slowly collecting all of these Christmas, Hanukkah, and other winter-holiday-themed links since last March, so there are more of them than usual. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as i enjoyed finding them for you.

Christmas Field Guide. The reindeer section was my favourite one.

The Christmas Armistice of 2014 via JamesTheo. While this post is a few years old now, the subject matter of it is as relevant as it was when it was first published.

It Needs to Be Said: Holidays Can Really Suck Sometimes. If this is a hard time of year for you, know that you’re in my thoughts.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas via MBTTTR. I can’t stop laughing at this.

We Wish You a Merry Chrismukkah. How do you balance Christmas and Hanukkah in an interfaith household? It isn’t a question I’ve wrestled with personally, but I love this family’s creative approach to it.

Festive Eating. Hopefully none of you will be overindulging this holiday season, but this is a pretty funny take on the problem of having one stomach but wanting to eat more like two or three stomach’s worth of special holiday food.

Authentic Victorian Christmas Pudding via MimiMatthewsEsq. Would I eat this? I’m honestly not sure, but I’m glad to finally know what Christmas pudding is.

The Best Santa Letter Ever. No, this title isn’t an exaggeration. Your mileage may vary, but it was the best Santa letter I’ve ever read as well.

More Thoughts on Santa Letters. Read The Best Santa Letter Ever before you check out this link.

Jolly Secrets You Didn’t Know About Mexican Christmas via fabiolaofmexico. Some of these traditions sound like a ton of fun!

Festival of Reason via 18thCand19thC. What an interesting way to approach the holiday season. I suppose that Festivus is the modern equivalent of this!

Thomas Nast. Why am I sharing the biography of a man who died well over a century ago? Well, Thomas was responsible for the creation of one of the most iconic and recognizable parts of Christmas. If you haven’t already guessed what I’m talking about, click on the link to see what this cartoonist drew.

From How Can You Help a Grieving Friend During the Holidays?:

Grief is hard any time of year, but the holiday season can feel particulary brutal. If you’re trying to support someone you love, this comic is for you. And if you’d like some help educating friends and family on the best ways to support you, this comic is for you, too.

Dear Satan, the short film below, is narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart. It’s about what happened after a little girl accidentally sent her Christmas wish list to Satan instead of Santa. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

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