Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Advent Calendar
Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay, Shena McKay
36 posts | 1 read | 5 to read
An Advent Calendar opens on the sights and sounds of an ambulance arriving at the scene after a man chops his finger off at a butcher shop. A hapless customer, John, who takes home an order of minced beef to his ailing Uncle Cecil, is overwhelmed with guilt and horror when the butcher arrives at his door looking for the missing finger. John, who is out of work, his wife Marguerite, and their two young children move in with Uncle Cecil and the adults struggle to find equilibrium and satisfaction in lives filled with longing and unfulfilled dreams. Marguerite has a brief affair, an escape from the seemingly relentless poverty and boredom of her life. Her lover, Aaron, arrives at her back door one night after everyone has gone to bed. Marguerite's young daughter, Emily, walks into the kitchen where they sit drinking and smoking. Uncle Cecil lives in squalor with a goat out back. John's sister, Elizabeth, a schoolteacher, befriends a troubled student, Joy, who is seduced while baby-sitting for a middle-aged poet. The story takes place during the twenty-four days of December that are depicted in dime-store advent calendars. It culminates at Christmas, not exactly with a Hollywood ending that rights all wrongs, but with redemption and absolution, as is sufficient unto the season.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 21 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is this pin that you can put on your shirt. It‘s cute.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 20 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a bookish ornament. I‘ve never had one before.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 19 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is some holiday stickers. They‘re very cute. I like stickers. It‘s going to take me a while to use them up because there‘s a lot of them in here.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 18 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is book darts.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 17 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is these tags.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 16 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a keychain.

blurb
BookmarkTavern
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Congrats on finishing a 2nd week of #Adventathon ! Today, I‘d like you to share a line that has moved you. Something that made you laugh or cry.

From Something Extraordinary, this exchange made me laugh out loud while I was at work.

“I would flee with you.”
“Not to undermine your display of devotion, but that would be absolutely the least you could fucking do after inciting me to shoot our friend who is literally a duke.”

41 likes1 comment
blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 15 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a pencil eraser.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 14 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is coasters with recipes on them.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

#wintergames #photochallenge

This is a picture of my #adventcalendar. I ordered it from Thrift Books. This is my first time doing this. I‘ve been enjoying opening the gifts each day. This might be a fun tradition to do each Christmas.

#christmaschapterchasers #xmaschacha

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 13 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is temporary tattoos. They‘re cute.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 12 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a coffee cup sleeve. I‘ve only seen coffee shops use these for hot drinks but I‘ve never used one before. I went to Google and asked what the sleeve on a coffee cup is called and it said,”Some other actual terms for it are coffee clutch, coffee cozy, Java Jacket, and paper zarf.”

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 11 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a bookish sticker. I like stickers. I like using them to decorate homemade cards. My favorite type of stickers are the ones that come with address labels that I‘m not going to use. I cut the address off and just use the little image and then at the bottom of the card inside, I line the images up and stick them on there and it makes a nice little decoration at the bottom of the card.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 10 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is gift tags. They‘re really cute. I like them. These will come in handy when my mom and I are wrapping presents at our house. There‘s also a lot of them here so it‘s going to take a while for us to use them all.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 9 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a magnet with cats on it. I wasn‘t sure if that‘s what it was at first until I looked on the back of it and then stuck it on the refrigerator and then took it off of the refrigerator. I don‘t know which way the magnet should be facing. It would probably look fine either way but I‘ve never had a magnet like this.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 8 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is tabs that you put in books if you want to take notes or annotate. I don‘t have any interest in annotating my books but I like tabbing up my big books by adding a tab to the beginning of every chapter so I know how many chapters I have to read.

Texreader Great idea! I‘ll try tagging chapters too! 2w
20 likes1 comment
blurb
BookmarkTavern
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

We are one week into #Adventathon and it has been a delight to see everyone‘s reads!

So introduce us to a character that you‘ve met in the last week that has made you smile or laugh out loud.

William de Worde in Terry Pratchett‘s The Truth is my favorite right now. I just finished listening to the part where William talks to Vimes & Angua, & I was giggling at work.

5feet.of.fury Not a lot of LOLs in my recent reads but Adriana & Prince Gluttony have been 2 of my faves! 2w
Traci1 Ooh I love Vimes. I've had a run of less funny stuff, but I did read the latest Stephanie Plum, and Herbert Slovinski was really (unintentionally) funny. 2w
See All 15 Comments
TheAromaofBooks Not really laugh out loud funny, but I thoroughly enjoyed this holiday romance - super cozy and fun!! 2w
willaful Some very funny moments in An Almost Perfect Christmas, though the funniest of all were quite dark! 2w
willaful Could you add me to the tag list please? 2w
willaful also listening to Thank You For Listening and it has some cute funny banter. 2w
sblbooks I really enjoyed Jack a character in Waiting For Christmas. He is an 8-year-old boy that everyone assumes is an orphan. He runs away to find his father and baby sister. I like his spunk, he doesn't let anyone stop him. 2w
BookmarkTavern @willaful Delighted to have you with us! 💖 2w
Vansa Please add me to the tag list too! 2w
BookmarkTavern @Vansa Happy to! 🎉🎉 (edited) 2w
Nelnjali I'm reading You're the Problem, It's You and I love all the characters, but I'd love a book about Parker, who is just a side character in this one. He's wonderful! Runs a secret gentlemen's club/safe haven and is such a loving and wonderful personality. 2w
BookwormAHN I just finished Fire and Blood and the historical accounts by the dwarf Mushroom are quite entertaining 🐉 2w
Vansa Is there a prompt for Week 2 of #Adventathon?! 6d
BookmarkTavern @Vansa Just posted it! 5d
39 likes15 comments
blurb
Kshakal
Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay, Shena McKay
post image
Eggs Excellent 👌🏼 2w
29 likes2 comments
blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 7 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is stationary tape. It has this cute little winter scene on it.

StayCurious I love cute advent calendars! 2w
22 likes1 comment
blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 6 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is this bookmark that has a quote on it from Oscar Wilde.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 5 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a pencil that says,”Books are magic”.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 4 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is a refrigerator magnet that says,”Books are my cup of tea.”

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 3 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is wrapping paper.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 2 - #adventcalendar

My gift today is gift tags.

blurb
kelli7990
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Day 1 - #adventcalendar

I bought this Advent Calendar from Thrift Books last month and I almost forgot to open up my calendar. My gift is a stamp. This is my first ever Advent Calendar. I‘ve been seeing these for a while and I wanted to try one out. This could be a nice tradition to do for myself every December. I like the idea of it. This one has 25 gifts in it.

blurb
BookmarkTavern
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

It‘s that time of year again!

I love this time. The snow, the family time, the decorations, the lights, the music. It‘s all just so lovey, and I can‘t wait to start #Adventathon for #WinterGames2024 ! ❄️📚❄️

Traci1 Are there any rules with this one? 3w
BookmarkTavern @Traci1 Not really! This one is usually more focused on just sharing what brings you joy while you‘re reading. 👍🏻 3w
PuddleJumper Yay! 🎄🎄 3w
57 likes3 comments
blurb
BarkingMadRead
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

As the mom of the house in charge of everyone else‘s gifts, I started getting myself advent calendars each year 🤣 has anyone gotten any cool bookish advent calendars? Looking for suggestions!

kspenmoll 🩷 1mo
AnnCrystal 😍👍💝. (edited) 1mo
dabbe I don't know if you like jigsaw puzzles, but there are a lot of cool jigsaw calendars I saw on Amazon. Every day there's a certain part to put together. 🩵❄️🩵 1mo
Sharpeipup @dabbe we gifted that to my MIL and she loved it 1mo
dabbe @Sharpeipup 🤎🍁🧡 1mo
49 likes5 comments
blurb
ravenlee
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

The top two are already gone, but this is our book advent calendar! It‘s a mix of mostly Christmas favorites and some new books (this year mostly continuing series we‘ve gotten behind in).

kspenmoll What fun! 13mo
dabbe 🤩🤩🤩 13mo
LittlePixels I love this! 13mo
Hooked_on_books That‘s awesome! 😍 13mo
42 likes4 comments
blurb
peanutnine
Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay, Shena McKay
post image

#DecemberDreams Day 1 #Advent
I don't have this advent calendar but it looks so fun! I got the ultimate reading challenge from this company last year and the goodies were so great! 📚
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs #WinterGames #SantasBookshELVES

Roary47 Ooo that looks fun 😍 13mo
Eggs Beautiful ❤️💚❤️ 13mo
26 likes2 comments
blurb
Lizpixie
Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay, Shena McKay
post image

#DecemberDreams #Day1 #Advent I would love this advent calendar one year! So Santa, I‘ve been a good girl this year!🙏 #TeamEvergreen 6pts

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks This looks cool!! 13mo
Eggs Looks wonderful ❤️📚💚 13mo
38 likes2 comments
blurb
Kshakal
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

I got the babies their own advent calendar this year!

JenReadsAlot Cute! 2y
32 likes1 comment
blurb
BethM
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

Another #holidaytradition growing up was our advent calendar. Ours was simple and you just moved a character each day. Wes is building a nativity and loves it! #wintergames #teamgamesleighers @StayCurious

BookBabe How cute is this! 😍 I grew up with advent calendars too but it was the chocolate ones. Where can I get one? 3y
BookBabe I answered my own question ha ha. 😄 I searched on Amazon and found it right away. 3y
31 likes2 comments
blurb
ravenlee
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

I didn‘t get much reading time this weekend - lots of cooking/cleaning/various projects for everybody else. One of those was wrapping the kiddo‘s book advent calendar, a combination of Christmas favorites and new goodies. Now she‘s anxious to start unwrapping!

blurb
LeahBergen
Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay, Shena McKay
post image

Thank you so much for the wonderful #JolabokaflodSwap gifts, @ShelleyBooksie !

I‘m absolutely delighted that you chose a relatively obscure book from my TBR (👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻) to send to me and the chocolate is one of my faves. Happy Holidays to you! 😘

Thank you to @MaleficentBookDragon for all the hard work that went into this simple and lovely swap. 😘

ShelleyBooksie Yay!! I am so glad that you like my choice :) 5y
LeahBergen @ShelleyBooksie It‘s absolutely perfect! 😍😍 5y
thegirlwiththelibrarybag I love the cover! 5y
MaleficentBookDragon 🎅 🤶🎁🎄🍫 📚 Happy #Jolakabodflod 5y
73 likes2 stack adds4 comments
blurb
teebe
An Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay
post image

This is the closest thing to an advent calendar in my house: I buy festive dog treats and my dog (and my siblings‘ dogs if they‘re around) get one treat per day. This year is pumpkin pie, and turkey-cranberry treats, and I popped them in a fun cookie box. #WinterGames #TeamFestivus #FestivePhotoChallenge

wanderinglynn Super cute idea! 👍🏻⛄️🐶🎄 1 pt participation 5y
Clwojick Adorable ♥️ 5y
Linsy So cute! 5y
teebe @wanderinglynn just saw your comment on slack. This is also a #HolidayTradition 5y
wanderinglynn I added 20pts! 👍🏻⛄️ 5y
39 likes5 comments
review
Moray_Reads
Advent Calendar | Shena Mackay, Shena McKay
post image
Pickpick

Wow, the humour is black as tar in this one. Shena MacKay creates a brilliantly textured story of people struggling to make ends meet and paints a grubby but affectionate picture of north London. There's not much Christmas cheer but there are plenty of dark chuckles

LeahBergen I just read the blurb ... it sounds fantastic! 😆 6y
batsy Yes, what a blurb! 6y
37 likes2 stack adds2 comments