Advent Reading Challenge Day Eight

Your Dream Christmas Destination

Even as I start typing I’m not sure which book I’m going to write about. What is my dream Christmas destination anyway? Norway? Well, you can read how I feel about Norway over on Jane’s Picture Journal at http://janespicturejournal.com/2019/01/18/loves-cliches/ I love sailing her west coast but I’ve already been there for Christmas. Austria? Perhaps. Elinor Brent-Dyer’s snowy winter books are alluring. Or maybe for something completely different I would choose Australia and a Christmas barbie relaxing in the sunshine. It feels completely wrong, though, to be warm at Christmas.

But that last thought probably comes closest to being my dream destination. I’d only choose it because I have family there. And actually it’s family that is the place I’d choose. So my dream Christmas destination is home. Now clearly there has been no book written about my home so I’m looking for one that captures the essence of what home is to me. And I still don’t know which book I’m going to settle on.

I have options. Taken By the Hand by O Douglas. Charlotte Fairlie, Listening Valley or The Blue Sapphire by DE Stevenson. Anne of the Island or Anne’s House of Dreams by LM Montgomery. Nancy Calls the Tune by Dorita Fairlie Bruce. The Garbage King or The Misunderstandings of Charity Brown by Elizabeth Laird. In the end, though, I’ve selected The Serendipity Shop by Dorita Fairlie Bruce. Look out for some of the others later on in the month however.

The Serendipity Shop is the story of the Lendrum sisters, Merran and Julia. Orphaned as children, they’ve been living with their aunt, uncle and cousins in London, and living happily enough, loved cared, for but not always understood. Both girls have a hankering to return to Colmskirk on Scotland’s west coast (Largs in reality) and are delighted when a legacy makes that possible. I say that The Serendipity Shop is the story of Julia and Merran but it’s just as much the story of a small town in post-war Scotland. It’s not just in the shop and flat above that the girls find a home, but also as part of a community that has never forgotten them and welcomes them back warmly.