*A-Ztec: A Bilingual Alphabet Book by Emmanuel Valtierra *Xolo by Donna Barba Higuera and Mariana Ruiz Johnson *Hopeful Heroes: More Poems About Amazing Latinos by Margarita Engle and Juliet Menendez
Middle Grade
*The Girl and the Robot by Oz Rodriguez and Claribel A. Ortega *A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez by María Dolores Águila
Young Adult
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins *Love, Misha: A Graphic Novel by Askel Aden *Red Flags and Butterflies by Sheryl Azzam *You and Me on Repeat by Mary Shyne *Best of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel
Grownup Fiction
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 3 by Beth Brower Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand
Grownup Nonfiction
This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Lifeby Lyz Lenz
I appreciated this analysis of the author’s marriage, especially the section about women changing their last name when they get married. I think we are still far from having truly equal marriages and things seem to be getting better only incrementally. Conversations about the topics raised in this book might help.
Letterboxd (it’s like Goodreads for films) sends a yearly summary to all their subscribers. Here are highlights from mine.
My films logged is 158, but at least 15 of those are the Oscar-nominated shorts. So I’m guessing my actual number of feature-length films is around 143.
It’s not surprising that Josh O’Connor is the most-watched actor; he was in a ton of stuff this year. And I’m glad that Agnés Varda is my most-watched director, but that means I’m not doing my quarterly director’s project evenly.
This lists is called Most Watched Films. But I think this means films that were logged on Letterboxd. I’m not really sure of the order.
I only had 3 weeks where I did not watch a film. The big outlier in February is the aforementioned Oscar-nominated shorts
This list is always fun. What five films did I see Josh O’Connor in??? La Chimera, that was the first one; the Mastermind; Wake Up Dead Man; and what? [checks IMDB] Oh yes, the History of Sound, plus he had a tiny part in the Mixtape. I saw Wendell Pierce in four films, and I think most of them were superhero films.
Joseph Cotton is thanks to the Filmspotting’s Filmspotting Madness: 1940s. But he was great in Shadow of a Doubt, which is my new favorite Hitchcock film.
My quarterly director’s project is to watch at least one film every quarter by Agnés Varda, Howard Hawks, Akira Kurosawa, and Spike Lee. Between that and the Filmspotting Madness 1940s list I’ve been working through, you can see how that affected this list.
I found it interesting that Jingle Bell Rocks was the most obscure. The Venn Diagram of Kanopy fans and Letterboxd users must not be as big as I thought. I can heartily recommend the shortest film, which was one of the short films nominated for a live-action Oscar. I also like that my viewing years spanned 1926 (thanks, Howard Hawks) to 2025.
Here’s the whole list from finish to start:
This is my movies I recommend list, sorted from shortest film to longest film.
I didn’t do a great job with directed by women, only 25. The quarterly directors and 1940s bit into that. Here’s to more in 2026.
I like this list the best, I think. Because I like to list the theaters I visit. This year I managed three in Boise (on a three-day visit) (Meridian counts).
We shall see what the 2026 movie landscape brings.
People who attended the first week’s 70mm screening of Marty Supreme at the Hollywood got to take home not only a poster but also a box of Marty Supreme orange table tennis balls. (Never wear black again.) So. Much. Fun!
There was also a local table tennis club tabling, so I brought home their flyer.
All of this went to my friend S. North, who actually plays ping pong.
After dropping Matt, Linda, and Rick off at the airport, I went to Ikea, and then I had planned to hang about Hollywood for a bit of time before my 2:30 move showtime.
I discovered that unless one is eating (or seeing a movie, but it wasn’t yet time for my movie) there’s not a ton to do on a Sunday in Hollywood. The Rite-Aid closed and turned into a Planet Fitness and the antique mall is closed on Sundays, Ray’s Ragtime isn’t where it once was, and the clothing store I thought I would check out had gone out of business and were moving their naked mannikins into a U-Haul.
I ended up wandering slowly through Trader Joes and then took a tiny street behind the Hollywood Theatre that I hadn’t walked down before.
And what did I find? Lockbuster? What might this be?
In the tiny storefront was a huge display of VHS tapes. When I got closer, I saw that the labels were top-notch. Who wouldn’t want a “vaguely British/Hitchcock” category.
Or a “holy pursuits” category that included both Excalibur and Monty Python’s the Holy Grail.
This label elicited a bark of laughter:
And I also enjoyed the “movies that look like this” category as that packaging was very familiar to me and I had forgotten its existence.
On a return visit to this window, a passerby informed me that this is an escape room, pulling the “Lockbuster” name into focus.
Matt had the idea to go to Peacock Lane for our date this week, and I thought that was a great plan. I hadn’t been since I was in the single digits.
Peacock Lane is a few blocks of houses in southeast Portland where every house decorates big. This has been going on since the 1920s.
Here are some pictures from our walk.
For shear tons-of-stuff delight, this display of many unicorns was my favorite house. Some houses have elaborate themes (as you will see); but I liked this unicorn-centered house. Unicorns don’t even have anything to do with Christmas, but they were magical all the same.
Matt and I in front of the unicorns.
People live in these houses as we were reminded by this pair who were clearly standing at the door on business. I wonder how it is to try and drive in and out during the two weeks with the lights. There is a lot of car traffic (though it’s slow) and a ton of pedestrians. Do people just stay in? Park their cars on other streets?
Anyway, that was the Harry Potter house, and here we are walking through Platform 9 and 3/4.
The Home Alone house has a lot going on. It starts with this little shadowbox.
And includes several life-size depictions of characters from the movie.
The Star Wars house is nicely minimal. I liked that there were three distinct zones: red, Darth Vadar; white, Princess Lea; and green, Yoda.
A nice sentiment at this house:
And a fun homage to ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas at this one:
The Peanuts house was fun, including Woodstock on the Zamboni.
And here’s a nice greenery and white lights display:
On the way home, we stopped at our own Kenton neighborhood display:
I like to call it “I’ll have one of everything, please!”
We had a good time celebrating Christmas at Linda and Rick’s new house. I had seen it just after they got the keys, but this time there was furniture! And a fun meal.
From left to right: Mary Stenaros, Pat Stenaros Matt Johnston, Larry Glass, Patricia Collins, Linda Johnston, and Rick Thalhammer
We also opened stockings, as you can see from these low-light action photos.
Many scratch-off tickets were scratched.
The tree ambiance was good too.
And here’s a picture of the Yule Log cake I made. It was my first one, and it turned out well.
Did we win our very own Hallmark Keepsake ornament of Prince Dastan from the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time? We sure did!
We won because we answered a specific question correctly, rather than for our high score, but I’m happy to win any prize at the Movie quiz.
And here we are again ranked number 17, holding up the bottom of the middle.
I enjoy that the top four winners all chose holiday-themed names: Miracle on 30 Farts Street; Menstrual Krampus; Porch Pirates of the Caribbean; and The Grinch Who Stole Quizmas.
Mark was our Father Quizmas, and a great time was had by all.
(Except our teammates Greg and Renee. They forgot to attend)
Sara sent this lovely postcard that she picked it up at the NCTE conference.
Sara reports that she is done with classes and that it was her day to work from home. Plus a WFH day with no meetings, which means the requirement for putting on work clothes is not in force.
It had been a few years, so Matt and I went to check up on the Bakelite Santas and see how they are doing. The riddle mentioned the old Pepsi factory, and I knew exactly where they were. I didn’t even need the words “sandy shore” to solve this particular riddle. Because the old Pepsi factory building is a thing of beauty:
While it did have some Santas in it, it didn’t have the Bakelite Santas.
These Santas were portraits painted by Terence Healy for the first year. You can see that one is a daytime version, and the other a night-time version.
The Bakelite Santas were across the plaza.
I agree with the write-up of the Santas; that you can see them glow from far aways is one of the coolest things about them.
This was a fun place to have them displayed because there were windows on three sides. This made it easy to spend some time looking at them.
They were standing in rows with packing peanuts serving as the snow.
I neglected to get any shots from the front, alas.
