Christmas snuck up on me early this year. Two books were the kindling and matches that set this Yuletide fire ablaze.
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, I began reading Faith Moore’s new novel “Christmas Karol,” a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” To enhance the mood, I pulled up some holiday songs from YouTube, soothing instrumentals and then livelier vocals from the likes of Amy Grant, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Celtic Woman, and even the Pogues. Before you could say “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” I was belting out songs like “Joy to the World” and “White Christmas” while washing the dishes or tidying up my desk. Happily for the tender ears of others, I live alone most of the time, and the neighbors are too far from me to be harmed by my caterwauling.
