Hi all! Thanks so much to Jana for asking me to be part of her Christmas event! :) I love the season!

Let me introduce myself: I’m Daisy from Between the Pages and The Broke and the Bookish, and I call Nijmegen, a city in the Netherlands my home. Which is useful information considering Jana asked me to talk about how we celebrate Christmas here ;)

We actually have two gift giving events in December here. One is Christmas and another is Sinterklaas (which another Dutch Blogger, Debby @ Snuggly Oranges, explains in this post), Sinterklaas is celebrated on December 5th every year and there are actually a lot of Dutch people who don’t exchange gifts for Christmas. But because my brother was REALLY afraid of Zwarte Piet (Sinterklaas’ helper), we’ve always celebrated Christmas and got gifts from Santa, which always sorta made us the odd one out, but I totally love it!

I actually only found out last year that you guys in the US only have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, here in The Netherlands we have the first day of Christmas and second day of Christmas and both are national holidays. Which comes in handy if more than one set of parents is expecting you for a Christmas dinner ;) I’d always thought it was the same worldwide!

I love Christmas. It’s my absolute favourite holiday and I was really annoyed when I had to work the night shift on Christmas Eve last year. I just love the feeling of sitting around with the family, exchanging gifts, having a pretty Christmas tree in the house with all the little lights and eating lots of yummy food. Cause let’s be honest, there’s always a lot of food going around. So by the end of the second day of Christmas, I’ve usually gone into a serious food coma. One thing that also happens here is that on the second day of Christmas, people go to clubs or bars after dinner to party. I’ve never really been a fan, cause after all the food and lazing around I don’t really want to stand around and put ut with drunk people, but a lot of people like it.

I’m one of those people who want everything to be special for Christmas. I can spend ages planning my outfits (I LOVE putting on a pretty dress for Christmas!) and what to eat if we’re making something (though ‘gourmetten’ is really popular in Holland as well, which is basically sitting around the table with a grill in the middle and everyone can put whatever tiny piece of meat they want to eat on it) and definitely what books to bring with me to read in between all the food and gifts and games and such! Some perfect Christmas reads for me were Anna and the French Kiss and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I will forever link both books to Christmas and love them even more for it!

I guess that when it comes down to it, Christmas for me in the Netherlands isn’t all that different from the rest of the world: it’s filled with family time, lots of food, good books and just the Christmas spirit of being nice to each other. I love how everyone is cheerful and dressed nicely and just relaxing!

I’m getting all warm and fuzzy feelings just writing about this! I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas in advance! And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to light all the candles in my home and feel cozy and Christmas-y :)

Today, I have a treat for you! I’m so excited to have Kaley from Books etc. on the blog today to talk about Christmas love stories of all kinds! I LOVE Christmas romance novels and movies, so this post is right up my alley. She makes some great recommendations for titles I’ve already gone out and purchased.

I adore Christmas. To me it means family, friends, snow (I’m Canadian so Christmas isn’t Christmas without the white stuff), decorations, lots of food and gift giving, and tons of holiday themed television, movies, and books.

I like all sorts of Christmas movies and TV shows. There are the classics I like to watch every year – Ruldolph, Frosty, Miracle on 34^th Street (I own the new one but the original is delightful). I also love The Santa Clause (the first is the best but as of last year I now own the trilogy) and The Polar Express. I love Elf and thought Bad Santa was amusing. What I really love, though, are the romancey Christmas movies. I’m a sucker for them. Not surprisingly, Love Actually is my favourite with The Holiday running a close second. Then there are the really cheesy made for TV movies. I love love love these. Think movies like All She Wants for Christmas, Mrs. Miracle (which is based on a romance novel), Santa Baby (let’s not talk about the weirdness of Santa Baby 2), Eve’s Christmas, Borrowed Hearts, His and Her Christmas…I could go on and on! These movies are perfect for nights when you want to curl up with a blanket, a big mug of hot chocolate, and Christmas goodies. Bonus points if you have a fireplace, too!

Every year I try to read as many Christmas books as I can. Back when I was in university, I loved Christmas because it meant a total break from school before the second semester started in January. I used this time for pleasure reading to devour all the Christmas books my mom had picked up from the library. Since I’m the faster reader, I would fly through the anthologies and tell her which order she should actually read the stories in. These days I’m finding it harder to read a ton of Christmas books since I’m a blogger and have so many other books I need to read and review. When I can fit in a holiday book, I always go for the romances. Romances that take place in a small town are even better! I also always hope that the story will actually take place over Christmas…I’m always disappointed when I get a book I’m expecting to be all Christmas all the time and then the holiday is hardly mentioned.  I like that a lot of authors will write anthologies because they’re quick bursts of all sorts of different characters and lifestyles. One of my favourite anthologies is A Season to Remember by Sheila O’Flannagan because all the characters are staying at the same inn in Ireland over Christmas and their stories are interconnected. A favourite from last year has gotten a makeover with a new publisher this year (and a gorgeous new cover). One Sweet Christmas by Darlene Fredette was just that – sweet! Author Talli Roland has some fabulous Christmas novellas (Mistletoe in Manhattan is so fun) and Sarah Pekkanen also wrote a novella, All is Bright, that is a great atypical romantic read. I haven’t yet read any Christmas books this year but I’m hoping to change that soon!

So what makes me love the romance aspect of all these movies and books? I think it’s because I have such a romantic notion of Christmas itself. I don’t have a huge family so I don’t have the crazy logistics to worry about…all I have to do is get myself from my home to my mom’s. Bonus: the boyfriend and I are from the same town so we don’t even have that “whose family will we see when?” stress. I love all the family time I get with my bitty family. I love that my hometown is in northernish Ontario and we almost always get a white Christmas. I love that my sister will make gingerbread cookies with me even though she doesn’t like them because we have so much fun decorating them. I love our unique Christmas tree topper (it’s a penguin!) and all the baking my grandma used to do (health issues for the two of us has meant a smaller amount of goodies in the past couple of years, sadly). I like traditions when it comes to Christmas and I find that the romances play into that, even if they’re not actually traditional. There’s just something about these stories and movies that leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, which is exactly how Christmas makes me feel.

Now that I’ve shared my holiday reading and watching habits, what about you? What are your favourite Christmas movies? Do you devour Christmas stories, too?

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season filled with all of your favourite things! Merry Christmas :)

Find Kaley on her blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads! She’s really fun, so you definitely should.