Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: Blogmas

  • On the First Day of Blogmas…

    On the First Day of Blogmas…

    It’s December. It’s Christmas Time!! And I have so many plans already. I have 2 Secret Santas, a drag show, a parade, a spooky craft show, an Elf beer tasting, a Holiday Pirate Party, and more… I am so excited.

    December is always a little weird for me as I get super anxiety, but I love the holidays so I am trying to stay upbeat and positive. I am doing my 25 days of sockmas again this year and will be sharing here. I will also be sharing some of my favorite holiday things, thoughts, memories and such. I hope you will join me for the month.

    Christmas Dinosaurs is kind of a theme for me.

    Today in the mail we received our first holiday card from Seth’s parents, Mark and Sarah.

    And…I got my Krampus pallette from Widow Witch Cosmetix. Did I need this pallette? No. Did I want it badly? Yes. So I ordered it. I have a couple of their other pallettes (She Creature and Halloween) so I know they have great makeup, and this pallette made up of reds and greens was a must have. I swatched it tonight and I cannot wait to use it.

    Welcome to December!!

  • On The Third Day of Blogmas:

    It’s that time of year…when I watch copious amounts of holiday movies and shows. Here are some of my favorite new holiday offerings.

    Dash & Lily (Netflix) – Based on the YA book Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn (which I have not read) the series follows Dash and Lily as they pass a red journal back and forth in a series of getting to know you entries and interesting dares. Set in a magical holiday New York the series features mochi classes, underground Jewish punk shows, The Strand, and red majorette boots. I have watched the full series 3 times.

    Holidate (Netflix) – Emma Roberts stars in this rom-com about two people who agree to be each others holidate, a person you are not dating but take to holiday events so you can avoid the awkwardness of the holidays. Kristen Chenoweth makes an appearance as Emma’s perpetually single and serial dating aunt and is hysterical. The movie doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it is a good time and made me laugh.

    The Happiest Season (Hulu) – I had high hopes for this queer Christmas story. It had an amazing cast, director and writers, but something in it just didn’t sit completely right to me. Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza shine, and Kristen Stewart is grounded and charming, but I am not sure how I feel about the resolution. All I know is that Jane is the best thing, and she deserves better. Watch it, but be prepared to dislike some of the plot and how it plays out.

    Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix) – This is a fun musical journey with amazing costumes and an interesting plot. I was impressed with many of the singers and greatly enjoyed the whole experience. The very thirsty mail woman is a fun standout and a power house singer. I have a crush on Forest Whitaker now.

    Have you watched anything new this year? Have you watched any of these? What did you think?

  • On The Second Day of Blogmas:

    On The Second Day of Blogmas:

    What is your strangest Holiday tradition? Mine is that for the last several years (I seriously don’t know how many.) I have been carving stamps to print my own holiday cards. I can remember doing a Yule Log, Snowflakes, Ornaments, Cookies, Mistletoe and I am sure there are a couple more. I try not to reuse or repeat a design.

    This year I carved two stamps to create my cards. I wanted to be able to easily use multiple colors. I am not going to spoil my card since they haven’t gone out in the mail yet, but I am really excited about them. I am mailing out 85+ cards this year. Once they are in the world I will reveal the design here.

    Do you send out Holiday Cards? Do you like to receive them? Is there a particular design you prefer?

  • On The First Day of Blogmas:

    On The First Day of Blogmas:

    Happy December!! The year is almost over. The holidays are upon us. I am looking super festive today while working from home.

    Picture of me wearing a green sweater with a red undershirt, a red and green jingle bell headband, christmas tree earrings, green eyeshadow and red lipstick.

    It is the first day of Sockmas for me on Instagram so if you are interested you can check out all the socky goodness over there.

    Today I wanted to share my Holiday trees for 2020 which went up this past weekend. In my foyer is a 9ft pencil tree with blue and white lights which is holding our “special” ornaments which are a mixture of our collectibles and the various ornaments we have gotten from ugly ornament exchanges over the last couple of years. This year my little sister surprised me with two new Muppet ornaments from Hallmark one of which is from my birth year! (1981)

    In the living room is my Pink and Glitter tree, inspired by the song “Pink and Glitter” by Tori Amos. I ordered my incredibly bright pink tree from Michaels. Some of the ornaments I owned and some came from Target. The owl tree topper was found at Joann’s. I am madly in love with this silly tree.

    I hope you enjoyed my tree tour! See you tomorrow!

  • November Finally Ends…

    November Finally Ends…

    I had such great hopes for November. I would roller skate. I was going to write a poem a day. I had just started a new job and I was learning my new position well.

    And then I was diagnosed with Covid-19. I spent a little over two weeks in quarantine and 10 days in complete isolation. Covid made me so tired some days that I would barely move. I lost and regained my sense of smell and taste. It was an unusual time and other than watching an inordinate amount of tv and movies on my laptop and reading a couple of books I did not accomplish anything during this time. I wrote a couple of poems for school, but none just for me. It was not my most productive time.

    And now November is over and December is about to begin. On December 1st I am going to begin Blogmas. I have a couple of weird challenges for December that I am planning to participate in on Instagram and then I want to share the best of December here.

    Here’s to a better December than November. See you Dec 1!

  • Gruss vom Krampus!

    Gruss vom Krampus!

    Columbus has over the past couple of years really embraced the darker side of Christmas which has led to a prevalence of Krampus related activities. This year the first day of December was marked with the second annual Merry Krampus craft show and the Fourth Krampus Walk sponsored by a local pagan shop, The Magical Druid. The International Wenches Guild Local 73 decided to plan an invasion of the Krampus events.

    The Merry Krampus was held at Strongwater and featured many alternative craft vendors. I had splurged and bought early bird entries for myself and Seth which gave us an hour of shopping before the show was opened to general public. I bought a beautiful hand printed calendar from Midwest Mermaid and an amazing wrought iron wand from Rust Wolf. I ran into some friends who were vending and selling chain maille and knives. My Madame of Vice, Sarah, and I got our pictures taken with Santa and Krampus.

    We then headed down to Clintonville to participate in the Krampus Walk. We had a pretty good turnout of wenches, and had a wonderful time parading down the street all dressed up. We were photographed a lot, and made quite an impression. Obviously I chose to go for more of a Krampus look, and I had a great time.

    General consensus is that we are mostly naughty, but a really good time. Happy Krampusnacht!!

  • Skatemare Before Christmas

    Skatemare Before Christmas

    On Saturday the 30th Seth and I went out to support Ohio Roller Derby (OHRD) at their fundraiser/ exhibition bout Skatemare Before Christmas. This bout pits team Halloween, The Roller Ghouls, against team Christmas, The Jingle Belles. They also premiered their rookies dividing them into team Candy Corns versus team CandyCanes. I came out to represent team Christmas this year, so Seth decided to root for team Halloween.

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    The rookie game was up first. The Candy Canes came out strong scoring in the first couple of jams, but soon enough the Candy Corns had tied things back up. In the second half the Candy Canes came back and they would win! Score one bout for Christmas.

    During the time between the rookie bout and the main event there was a show put on by a local break dance school. The kids appeared to be between the ages of 5 and 13. They were adorable and some of them were so talented!

    The final bout was much more fast paced. Once again the Jingle Belles came out strong at first, but then the Ghouls got a good run and took over the lead. It was a good back and forth battle for a while, but in the end the Jingle Belles came out on top.

    Team Christmas wins for this year!

  • My Favorite Things – Holiday Books

    I have certain books that I read/ listen to on audiobook every year around the holidays. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas/ Yule without them.

    Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris – This book includes the famous Santaland Diaries and is a must read if you haven’t. I highly recommend getting the audiobook because David reads most of the stories himself and is joined by his sister Amy as well. Sure to make you laugh.71t0yJrW7UL

    Hogfather by Terry Pratchett – Pratchett’s wonderful tale about the discworld equivalent of Santa and what happens when someone puts out a hit on him. Death steps in and then it starts to get fun. Death’s granddaughter Susan proves herself to be a badass in her own right. Has a wonderful albeit cynical quote about the importance of belief.

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    The Life and Adventure of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum – The author of the Wizard of Oz penned this charming and strange origin story for Santa complete with woodland fairies. Baum tries to answer some of the important Santa questions. Good to read aloud with children.

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    The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore – The unusual town of Pine Cove is celebrating Christmas. An angel comes and grants them a Christmas “Miracle” that leads to a zombie uprising. Oops.

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    T’was the Night Before Christmas or A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore – A Christmas classic. I have had it memorized since I was little, and I love to read/ recite it every year. It is still fun to do. My favorite line is “The moon on the breast of the newfallen snow gave a lustre of midday to objects below.” I love good rhymes.

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    Do you have a favorite holiday book? Have you read any of these?

  • Welcome December…Blogmas Day 1 on Day 2

    It is officially the holiday season!! I have been making little purchases here and there for a month, but now it is here and the decorations can finally go up now that Santa has paraded into Herald Square in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Here is a small collection of things that I purchased before I consider it acceptable to do so, lol.

    I realized coming into Thanksgiving that I have 39 pairs of holiday socks. How? Why? So this year I decided to do 35 days of holiday socks beginning the day before Thanksgiving and going through the end of the year. So far I have worn brown stripey reindeer socks, snowflake socks, rampaging holiday dinosaur socks, Santa riding a unicorn socks, Argyle with a fleece cuff and holiday sloths.

    The day after Thanksgiving Seth and I headed down to my hometown Newark (30 miles east of Columbus) for the lighting of the courthouse. Newark has a beautiful historic courthouse, and they go all out when they light it. Santa and Mrs. Claus are given a ride to the courthouse square on a firetruck, and then they lead everyone in carols for a bit. When the time is right they ask the children to make as much noise as possible to light the courthouse. It almost always takes three tries somehow. Now for the before and after.