Monthly Wrapups

What I’ve been up to in December 🎄 Bachelor Thesis Prep & Christmas

Caro @ bookcheshirecat

December 2019 Wrapup

Hello fellow bookworms 🎄 It’s the last wrapup of 2019 and we’re already in 2020 at the time I’m posting this, so Happy New Year 🎇  December was a whirlwind of preparing for my Bachelor Thesis next year, reading all the festive books, engaging in the Christmas cheer and lots of end of the year (as well as the decade) wrapups. The end of the year is always both busy but also a time for reflection and I quite like that. Now that we’ve officially entered winter my soul is happy in my favorite season and ready for some snow ❄ I hope you all had Happy Holidays (however you were celebrating them) and a quiet, relaxing end of the year! Let’s hope 2020 is all a good year for us 💗

I hope everyone is having a great winter 🥰

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whatiread

Theme: Festive Books

🔄 = Reread 💌 = Library Books

🌼 = Moody Reader Challenge 🐯 = #YARC2019 ⌛ = Digital Arc

December was a pretty good reading month. I ended up reading 12 books and participating in several Readathon, as Christmas is my favorite time to do themed reading and join in with all the fun challenges going on – it was impossible to do all the Christmas Readathons 😄 Despite working on my thesis a lot, I managed to read in-between, fuelled by Christmas cheer and the challenge of trying to complete multiple Readathomn prompts. I actually read way less over Christmas week compared to that, but that isn’t surprising with all the festivities and visiting relatives going on. I did manage to finish off the last reading month of the year in a good way and even found two more favorite books, that I had never expected to love, yet here we are! I hadn’t anticipated to completely fall in love with new books so close to the end of the year, yet December surprised me with some last-minute favorites 🥰

Tistheseasonathon Wrapup

I love the Tistheseasonathon, as it’s such a fun week of festive reading with lots of sprints, photo challenges, and Christmas cheer! This year was no exception as I had a lot of fun and read two of my favorite festive books while cozying up in my armchair and lighting lots of candles. In total, I read 3 books and completed all of this year’s reading challenges 🥰

Completed Reading Challenges

  • Snow on the Cover (Let it Snow)
  • Holiday Themed Book (Let it Snow, 10 Blind Dates, A Gift from Bob)
  • Book you received as a gift (A Gift from Bob)
  • Read while eating your fave holiday treat (ate some delicious gingerbread)
  • Book title related to music (Let it Snow)
  • Group Book (10 Blind Dates)

 

1. Let it Snow (Green, Myracle, Johnson) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 💌 🔁

2. A Gift From Bob (James Bowen) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 🔁

3. 10 Blind Dates (Ashley Elston) ⭐️⭐️.5 

OhWhatFunaThon Wrapup

I have to admit that I didn’t engage as much in the Oh What Fun Readathon, as it was a busier time right before winter break. However, I still managed to read 2 books for the Readathon that fulfilled 3 of the NICE reading prompts! So overall, that landed me on the Readathon’s Nice List 😇🎁 I’d definitely do the Readathon again next year if it takes place!

Completed Reading Challenges

  • 😇 Read a book set during winter (Snow in Love, A Christmas Carol)
  • 😇 Read an entire book in your Christmas pajamas (A Christmas Carol)
  • 😇 Read a book published in December (A Christmas Carol)
  • Group Book (A Christmas Carol)

 

4. A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ 🔁

5. Snow in Love (Anthology) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

Magical Readathon Wrapup

This year’s Winter Magical Readathon was a great choose your own path adventure with 5 chapters that opened every Sunday. I loved the concept so much and applaud G from BookRoast for putting so much effort into plotting out all the different paths and stories that you could get, it was truly an amazing experience 🥰  I recapped what prompts I got for each chapter and what book I read, so you’ll see some books for the other Readathons (that I didn’t number)! I also didn’t include Chapter 5 as it only opened on Sunday, you’ll see those books in my January Wrapup 😊

Chapter 1

Prompt: Read a book set in the real world

  • Let it Snow (Green, Myracle, Johnson) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 💌 🔁

Chapter 2

Prompts: Read an Urban Fantasy Book, Read a bookclub pick // buddy read

  • 6. Fantastic Beasts: Screenplay (J.K. Rowling) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐🔁 
  • 7. Fantastic Beasts: CoG Screenplay (J.K. Rowling) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐💌
  • Snow in Love (Anthology) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

Chapter 3

Prompt: Read a book featuring ghosts

  • A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ 🔁

Chapter 4

Prompts: Choose a book at random, read a book recommended by a friend // the bookish community

  • 8. A Very Large Expanse of Sea (Tahereh Mafi) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ 🐯💌

Other Books

9. The Polar Express (Chris Van Allsburg) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 💌

10. My True Love Gave to Me (Anthology) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ 🔁💌

11. Notes on a Nervous Planet (Anthology) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ 🔁💌

12. The Poet X (Elizabeth Acevedo) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 💌

Average Rating ⭐ 4.0

Favorite Book 💕

Let's Talk (2)

whatiposted

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🎄 Festive Readathons TBR’s: Tis the Season, Oh What Fun-athon & Magical Readathon 🎄 Books I’d like to find under the Christmas Tree 🎁

🎄 Snowy Settings ❄ Theme Thursday 🎄 The Jingle Bells Book Tag 💖🎄 Review: Every Last Word ✒ When you can’t get a book out of your head

🎄 Out of Your Comfort Zone 2020 Reading Challenge Announcement 💗🎄 Recommending Books Based on Holiday Movies 🎄

🎄 Favorite Books of 2019 🏆 🎄 Least Favorite Books 2019 🍵

🎄 End of the Year Survey: 2019 Edition 💗 🎄Goodbye 2019 🎇 An Annual Wrapup

faveposts

For this section of my wrapup I’m linking up with the Favorite Blog Posts of the Month Meme that has been created by Kristin @ kristinkravesbooks to showcase our favorite blogs of the month!

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life stuff

December was all about Christmas for me 🎄 I simply love winter much, it’s my favorite season and all the festiveness makes me so happy! I love decorating my flat for Christmas, making festive tea and hot chocolate, eating all the traditional festive treats and of course and consume all the Chrismas media. I participated in several festive-themed Readathons and also watched a ton of Christmas movies. A lot of them were rewatched but there were also quite a few new movies that I loved! I’m usually not a movie person at all, but I make an exception for Christmas movies, which were really the only movies I watched this year. Christmas also meant taking my two-week winter break. I took the week of Christmas off for myself, though I didn’t manage to relax as much as I wanted to. Nevertheless, it was mostly nice!

I did work hard on my Bachelor Thesis 💤 I meet up with the professor at the beginning of the month and we finalized the timetable of my study and when I wanted to start my final project officially. It was a relief to know that I would do the study in January (and not cram it into December) and that I could also start my 11 weeks of Thesis Writing then. That means I’ll finish in late March, so the first three months of the year will be intense. I do feel like I have a better grip on everything though and worked my way through a lot of literature that I want to use for my thesis. I managed to get through all the articles and books I had marked and hope to build up a structure this week so that I can make the actual writing of the thesis easier!

I announced my very own Reading Challenge!! It’s the Out of Comfort Zone Reading Challenge 2020 and I did it on a whim because I really wanted to challenge myself to branch out with my reading next year and thought why not share my goals with others if they want to join in! I’m still both proud and nervous, but hopefully, it’ll be fun! 💗 You can still sign up here if you want to join!

ChallengeIcon
More Information on my Challenge can be found here!

Let's Talk (2)

looking ahead

Welcome January ❄

Unlike last year, I won’t be doing monthly themes again. It was fun in 2019, but also kind of intense at times (especially as my mood reading has gotten more frequent), so I didn’t want to keep up with it this year. Instead, I’ll be making a very short TBR for myself again with priority books – this could be eArcs I need to get to, anticipated releases, books I’ve been wanting to read or books that fit several of the reading challenges that I’m joining (to be announced next week) 🥰 Because the first three months of the year will be full of thesis work (in January I’ll be doing my study, so that involves lots of work and organizing), I don’t have any Readathons planned, though I might be tempted to do one if a great one comes up 😄 I’m hoping to still do blogging and reading even with the thesis going on (I need to take off some time for my own self-care), but I might announce a mini-hiatus if need be!

January TBR

💗 #outofcomfortzonechallenge 💌 Library Love Challenge

🌈 Here & Queerathon ⭐ StartOnYourShelfathon 🐯 #YARC  ⌛ Digital Arc

  • Reasons to Stay Alive (Matt Haig) 💗 💌
  • We Were Liars (E. Lockhart) 💗 💌
  • Belle Révolte (Linsey Miller) 🌈 ⌛

Let's Talk (1)What were you up to in December? Did you have a nice time during the holidays? What was your favorite book this month? 🎄

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Published by Caro @ bookcheshirecat

19 thoughts on “What I’ve been up to in December 🎄 Bachelor Thesis Prep & Christmas”

  2. Wow you sure are the queen of readathons Caro! ♥️👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 You always impress me with how well you fill the prompts. I love Christmas movies too. I’m not normally a theme person but for Christmas I make an exception. It sounds like your first quarter will be super intense but that you have a plan! Good luck, I hope all goes well. And thank you for sharing my spoiler post! 🙌🏻👏🏻🙌🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙌🏻

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    1. Thank you, I love them a lot 😄💗 I love having a Christmas theme as well and it definitely extends to what I’m watching during December 🎄 The beginning of the year will be intense indeed but I hope everything works out 🙂 Thank you!! 💕

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  3. December was quite a busy month for you, congratulations on getting through those reading challenges! I had no idea there were so many Christmas themed ones and these all look so cute 😀 I love The Poet X and We Were Liars, I actually listened to the audiobook a few summers ago and it was one of those books that really stuck with me. Good luck on this month’s challenges!

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  5. Thank you for featuring my post, Caro! I love christmas readathon too, but December was the month that I lost all focus, I guess 😀 I hope the holiday will recharge me as I will start writing my bachelor’s thesis this month too!

    Good luck for us and I hope you’ll have a fabulous January!

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  6. I loved reading this and you participated in a lot of fun readathons this month which is so cool!!
    I’m so glad you enjoyed A Large Expanse of Sea as it is one I would love to read as well!
    I’m so happy that you had a nice Christmas and I absolutely love that you are so enthusiastic about it!! It all sounds so magical!!
    Well done on all your thesis work and I wish you all the best for it in the coming months!!
    I’m so excited for your reading challenge– my post is going up tomorrow and I think it is going to be so fun so thank you for setting it up!!
    I hope you have a wonderful 2020 and definitely take a mini hiatus if you need it!! 🙂
    Thank you so, so much for linking to so many of my posts, it means a lot and I’m so happy you liked them!! ❤

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    1. Thank you so much, Sophie!! 🥰 I’m glad that I could enjoy some great books and of course Christmas towards the end of the year, it helped end the year on a good note 💕 Thank you for the well-wishes, I hope everything goes okay with my thesis and I loved reading your signup post! 🥰
      I hope you have a great 2020 as well!! 💛

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      Reply

  7. So many wintery readathons, I love it! 😀 I’m so glad to hear that you had a wonderful festive season, ate good food and watched great movies, and also read a lot of good books! I haven’t read A Very Large Expanse of Sea, but I hear great things about it and that’s wonderful that it was one of your favorites of the month 😀 And thanks so much for linking my post! Good luck with your thesis and everything else going forward, and I hope your January is fantastic! ❤

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    1. I loved doing so many winter themed Readathons is was great ⛄ It was definitely a good festive season! A Very Large Expanse of Sea is a great contemporary and really impressed me 🥰 Thank you so much! I hope you’re having a great month as well 💕

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  8. Pingback: December 2019 Wrap-Up / The Year in Review – Life and Other Disasters

  9. I am glad you enjoyed December so much and had a good festive season, even if you prepared for your Bachelor Thesis. I wish you the happiest of new years and the best of luck with your very own reading challenge! That is so cool!! I have about 24 physical books on my TBR, so I want to make a dent in that pile, while also getting rid of some ebooks I started in the old year. I guess that will be my challenge haha

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  10. Hello Caro!
    It always amazes me how much you read! Great job on all the readathons you’ve completed! That’s great that you’ve created your own 2020 challenge. I will definitely take a look 🙂
    Good luck with your thesis. It sure does sound like it’ll be a busy few months coming up but I think you can do it! Wishing you the best this month!

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