It's mid-morning on Christmas Day. We’ve unwrapped our presents and we're in the living room playing a Wii game Mum gave me.



The door bell rings. I sprint to open it. My brother, Callum, and his wife, Casey are standing on the doorstep.


"Merry Christmas!" Callum calls. He is holding a huge basket in one hand. He gently places it on the floor. "We've brought our cat, Mo with us." He opens the lid of the basket to reveal a ginger kitten.


"Aww!" Gemma-Rose sighs. "He's so cute!" We've never met Mo before.

Casey picks Mo up and passes him to Gemma-Rose so she can have a cuddle. A grin spreads across Gemma-Rose's face. She loves animals.


Mo is excited to be in a new place. As soon as Gemma-Rose (reluctantly) puts him on the ground, he rushes off to explore. Soon he discovers our three cats, Sammy, Jenny and Poppy.



He approaches them carefully. They're over twice the size of him. Sammy takes one look at him and bolts. Poppy and Jenny follow suit. For some reason, they're terrified of Mo.


Mo spots some fairy wrens through the window and jumps onto the windowsill to watch them. The birds fascinate him, and he doesn't move for ages.


"He's so cute!" Gemma-Rose says again. Casey smiles.


Eventually, we leave Mo so that we can have Christmas dinner. He doesn't move the whole time we're eating.



After Christmas dinner, we all head back into the living room. I settle down in an armchair to do some colouring in.



Mo pads into the room and looks around. He approaches my seat and looks up at my lap. His muscles bunch up, and he jumps onto my lap. He loses no time in making himself comfy. Soon he's fast asleep.


Through the course of the afternoon, Mo sleeps on nearly everyone's lap. We all get a turn at holding him.

I pull out my camera and take a few photos of him. He is photogenic and isn't bothered by the clicking of my camera's shutter.



By the evening, Mo has woken up and is wanting to play. Gemma-Rose teases him with a piece of curling ribbon, waving it in front of his face. Mo leaps and pounces around the room, trying to catch it.


 Mo's energy starts to wear out. He yawns.

"We'd better let him have a rest," Casey decides, scooping Mo up into her arms. Gemma-Rose's face falls, but she doesn't complain.


It's late when Callum and Casey take Mo home. We all wave goodbye. It's been an amazing Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas! Did you have a good Christmas? How did you celebrate?

Summary: Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.
Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

Click to read my review!

What books did you enjoying in 2015? What books are on your reading list for 2016? Have you read any of these books?

It's starting to look like Christmas in our house. Sunday morning my older sisters, Imogen and Charlotte, vanished into the garage to search for our Christmas tree.


They appeared a few minutes later with a massive cardboard box containing our tree.

"I feel like we're carrying a coffin," Charlotte joked.

I snorted. They looked much too merry to be coffin bearers.


Imogen and Charlotte lowered the box to the ground. Gemma-Rose, my younger sister, and I pulled branches from the box. We sorted them into piles for Imogen and Charlotte to connect to the trunk of our tree. We all knew what we were doing. We've put our tree up this way for years.

Sammy, one of our cats, noticed the piles of branches and lay down on them. He was most upset when we needed to use the branches he was resting on.


It didn't take long for us to assemble the tree. Imogen and Charlotte moved onto the next task: wrapping the tree in lights and tinsel.


Imogen has been putting the lights on our Christmas tree for years. It's the hardest part of decorating the tree, but she knows all the tricks and didn't have much trouble.

My camera was snapping away as everyone was working.



"Are we going to find embarrassing photos of us short people trying to decorate a tree on the internet?" Charlotte asked me from the seat she was standing on. (She can't reach the top of the tree without it.)

I just smiled. They don't care what photos of them are on the internet.


"How does the tree look?" Imogen asked Mum. She flicked the power switch and the tree lights came on.

"It's beautiful," Mum said. "Well done!"


Now all we've got to do is hang our decorations on the tree. But we won't do that today. We'll save that for another day.

Have you decorated your tree yet? What is your favourite part of preparing for Christmas? Are you ready for Christmas?