Top Ten Tuesday #347-The Christmas Movie Book Tag

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these! I arrived up in Stirling to join my family for Christmas yesterday, and me and Mum spent yesterday evening decorating the tree, which is always one of my favourite parts of Christmas so that was really nice.

Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so I have another Top Ten Tuesday for you guys, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Now this week’s topic is meant to be a Bookish Wishes post where we share our wishlists, but I wasn’t really feeling that topic so instead I’m going rogue (as I always do this time of year anyway!) and sharing a Christmassy themed Book Tag, as has become tradition in the last three years! This year’s tag is The Christmas Movie Book Tag, courtesy of Aoife at Pretty Purple Polka Dots, you can check out Aoife’s post here: https://prettypurplepolkadots.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/the-christmas-movie-book-tag/

Here we go, the Christmas Movie Book Tag:

Elf-Choose a book that puts you in the Christmas mood

I’ll be honest, I don’t really read Christmas themed books much, I tend to watch Christmassy films more, but if I had to choose (and I swear I wouldn’t use She Who Must Not Be Named if I could think of any other options), Harry Potter always puts me in a Christmassy mood because the films are always on TV at Christmas.

It’s A Wonderful Life-Choose a book with a character who goes through some serious character development

All three girls in this book go on quite a journey, but I have to highlight Beth Finch for this prompt. She starts as a painfully shy and withdrawn young woman who is completely controlled by her emotionally and physically abusive mother, and by the end of the book, she is practically a different person, she grows so much in confidence and in her abilities as a cryptanalyst and the moment where she confronts her mother and leaves home was possibly one of the most satisfying parts of the book. Also is this the time to admit that I’ve never actually seen It’s A Wonderful Life? *withdraws slowly and carefully*

A Christmas Carol-Choose a book/series with a character you didn’t like at first, but grew to love

When we were initially introduced to Ali in The City of Brass, I didn’t really like him much, I thought he was uptight and obnoxious and I didn’t really feel like he was going to be someone I could root for. However as the book went on, and we got to know him more, I ended up liking him more and more and by the end he had definitely achieved cinnamon roll, must protect at all costs status.

Home Alone-Choose a book where the parents aren’t present and if they are, they’re not a good influence

Unwind is probably the best example of the WORST PARENTS EVER. Connor’s parents basically decide that they can’t deal with him anymore so the best solution to this is to have him unwound (basically taken apart and all your organs are donated to other people so you’re not technically “dead”). Risa is an orphan, so we don’t really know what her parents are like, but her guardians at the group home she’s in send her off to be unwound so that they have less mouths to feed, and Lev’s parents decide to sacrifice Lev for unwinding as they are religious and believe that having him be unwound is for the greater good. Basically it’s bad parents/guardians all round here!

Frosty the Snowman-Find a book with a snowy cover

This was a no brainer for me, it’s the most wintery cover I’ve ever seen! Plus this cover is so pretty, I take any opportunity I can to share it.

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer-Choose a protagonist you couldn’t help but root for

Eve from The Alice Network is definitely the kind of protagonist that could rub people up the wrong way, she’s quite abrasive but she’s the kind of woman that I absolutely love, she doesn’t care about being liked, she says what she thinks, she’s super funny and brave and determined and I was absolutely rooting for her the whole way through this book!

Polar Express-Find a book where characters travel somewhere cold

I just finished this book yesterday, and the characters travel all over Europe, but one of the places is Iceland which is obviously very cold, so fitted the prompt perfectly!

How The Grinch Stole Christmas-Choose a villain you can’t help but love

I mean I love a good villain, so honestly I could go for like 90% of villains I’ve read here, but I decided on Marcella Riggins because I just loved her so much. She’s got epic “I’m done with men” energy and is just so tired of being underestimated and wants to claim her own power. Obviously this is turned up to 10,000 and manifests in killing people, which I can’t relate to but I can definitely relate to being ambitious and wanting to prove people who underestimate you wrong!

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-Choose a character with a goofy sense of humour

I don’t know if his sense of humour is exactly goofy, but Enrique is definitely one of my favourite funny characters from the last couple of years. He adds a much needed levity to Severin’s crew, and I just have such a soft spot for funny characters, so I fell in love with him almost instantly when reading this book.

Lifetime/Hallmark movie-Choose a book with the cheesiest romance

I’m not really one for cheesy romances, and I read this series a long time ago, but I do remember thinking that the romance in The Princess Diaries series was very cheesy. To be honest, the whole series is quite cheesy (but fun, if you’re into those kinds of books).

So there we go, the Christmas Movie Book Tag! I’ve actually not watched quite a lot of these films, so clearly I’m not as up on Christmas films as I thought I was. What are your favourite Christmas films? What are everyone’s plans for Christmas this year? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week with the last Top Ten Tuesday of 2021, as always talking about my favourite books of the year. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of content planned as ever for this final couple of weeks of 2021, I’ve got my last Quarterly Rewind of the year, I’ll have my End of Year Survey and End of Year Check-In, I’ve still got a couple more book reviews to do…..so keep your eyes peeled for lots more content coming your way in the next couple of weeks.

Merry Christmas everyone and I hope however you’re celebrating, you have a great time!