I haven’t been very good about getting around to other folks’ blogs to be social and cheer on their reading progress, so I’ll work on that tomorrow.

Day 2 Progress: I finished a second book! Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas by Stephanie Barron was my audiobook during December. I finished the last couple hours while washing dishes and knitting (not at the same time) during the first few days of the year. I hadn’t read this series in a while, and jumped way ahead for the seasonal book. But while the series is tied to Jane Austen’s life and career, it is mostly episodic, so one story doesn’t necessarily build into the next. I seem to remember having an earlier book in the series unfinished somewhere in the Burrow, so I’ll have to track down its whereabouts.

Day 3 Progress: I’m reading Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star, which was my first book of the year. I also read the first chapter of Sherryl Woods’ A Seaside Christmas, which I suspect may be as far as I feel like going into it right now. I’d picked it up as an impulse grab off the library’s Christmas display, in part because it was set on the Maryland shore, but it may be too cheesy for the mental state I’m in right now. (It seems to be the equivalent of a bad Netflix Christmas chick flick.) I may give it the rest of the second chapter to see if I care enough about the main characters to keep going, but otherwise it’ll head back to the library later this week, since I can’t waste eye-rolling on fluffy novels this month.

I love when my knitting matches my reading. I cast these on back in October, when I was coordinating my yarn with a different book cover.

I’m down to the final two rows in Mum’s Christmas shawl, but it seems unfair to show that to you now. There was an error in the antepenultimate row of the pattern, which meant I ripped back 337 stitches unnecessarily. So fun, but at least I realized it was the pattern, rather than me, before ripping back a second time.

Last month I took part in the bookish holiday Secret Santa event that The Broke and the Bookish, #TBTBSanta, runs every year.

Gina of Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers was my awesome Secret Santa. As you can see, she was remarkably generous, offering me gifts to open 12 days in a row. I do love surprises:

Paddington arrived with 12 numbered parcels. While I was oohing and aahing and hunting for package #1, Paddington raided the cupboards, since he was feeling a little peckish from his journey.

Once he was feeling like his normal, growly self, he gave me a hand with opening the presents.

The packages contained all sorts of goodies, from cute Japanese stationery …

… to adorable stickers, which Paddington thought we should immediately use on the Christmas cards.

There were a lot of books! Paddington loves a good story and is spending much of his time getting caught up on some fun books:

Eventually he started inviting others in the household to join him for story time:

(I could totally have edited out the vacuum cleaner, but a) real life and b) then you’d have missed Corey lying there on the floor, waiting to hear what’s going to happen next.)

Thank you so much, Gina! This was a wonderful package and I had such a fun time opening every single gift. I can’t wait to start reading! Now I just have to choose which book to begin with!

(And thank you to Jamie at The Broke and the Bookish, who organizes this international gift exchange each year. It really is a blast!)

Once again, I’ve signed up to participate in the Bout of Books readathon. If you also love books, you can still sign up through 11:59 p.m. CST today! What is Bout of Books, you ask?

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 2nd, and runs through Sunday, January 8th, in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 18 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

My goals for this readathon are nearly always the same: I’d like to read every day. I’d like to finish a couple books or a couple hundred pages. And I’d like to participate online in some way each day, either by posting an update here, by participating in the online challenges, by commenting on others’s progress, or by sharing updates via Twitter.

Day 1 Progress: Success! I finished Kelly Link’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon early this evening. The length of time it took me to finish the book does not remotely reflect the quality of this magical middle-grade novel about the consequences of a witch accidentally feeding a baby moonlight (rather than nourishing, but benign starlight) during a rescue mission.

I also took part in the #BoutofBooks Twitter chat, which are always fun, if fast-paced. One of the questions reiterated the day’s challenge, which was to describe yourself in six words. I opted for “Quadragenarious knitting reader. Pissed off liberal.”