I don’t know if you guys have heard, but Hallmark and Country Living joined forces this month to release a special edition “bookazine” dedicated to Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas. If you haven’t hit your newsstands yet to get a copy, I highly recommend you go out and find it before it is no longer available. It is fantastic.
BRIAN WOODCOCK
I’ll admit that I was initially disappointed because the ‘zine billed itself as being very Hallmark-centric, but really there are only a handful of things within it that speak to Hallmark fans. I’m not typically a magazine reader, and I’m certainly not a super crafty or creative person when it comes to my house, so when the magazine seemed to be filled with recipes, craft ideas, decorating and gift-wrapping ideas, I was a bit miffed. But then when I actually began looking through all of the ideas and recipes – well, this bookazine has inspired me to step up my game this holiday season.
First, I’m going to make it my mission to try some of the recipes that were in the bookazine. The one that looked the most enticing to me was the Peppermint Icebox Pie (click for recipe). The recipe seems super-easy to follow, and it looks delicious. The bookazine also had some decorated sugar cookies that looked like something I could actually try and not royally screw up. My husband and I throw a huge Christmas party every year, and so my plan now is to add a couple of the recipes from the bookazine into our list of Christmas desserts for the night of our party.
And don’t get me started on gift wrapping presents this year. Now I’m the first to admit that I am NOT creative when it comes to wrapping gifts. I’m lazy – give me a gift bag and some tissue, and consider it done. But the bookazine has these amazing gift wrap ideas and they all seem easy! So this year, my family is going to experience shock and awe with my gift wrapping abilities.
As for the Hallmark stuff included in the magazine, there are cute little messages that you can photograph and post on social media. I posted this one over the weekend:
What’s funny is that since my husband rarely watches TV, I pretty much get the remote every day, but he knows better than the expect it once Countdown to Christmas starts!
The magazine also has the complete list of airdates for the movies, a brief synopsis of what some of the Hallstars do for the holidays, and a Hallmark bingo game card.
A couple years ago, I had the bright idea to create Hallmark bingo cards and sell them. But then I saw people were offering them for free online and realized that I’d make no money attempting to sell holiday movie bingo cards. So instead, come back this Friday, when I will be offering 15 free bingo cards for readers to download. This way you can play along! My plan this year during Countdown to Christmas is to play bingo along with each movie. While this will not be counted as part of my scorecard for ranking the movies, I’ll give the movies a separate “Bingo Card Score” this year.
As for the bookazine, I’m glad I got a copy of it, and I highly recommend you go out and find a copy as well!
