By Kait Carson

As I write this, I’m waiting for the sun to come up so I can shovel our very first accumulating snow of the year. Shoveling snow is not one of my favorite things, but I don’t mind it too much. Yet. I live in The County. Snow’s a given, so I look at it as a home exercise program. Which is necessary this time of the year because baking is one of my favorite things.

This morning the house is full of the scent of pumpkin bread, chocolate chip cookies, puppy peanut butter drops, and Christmas cutouts. By the time this blog appears, I’ll have added the scent of cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies, and a concoction a friend and I made up that goes by the name of apple do da dey—an apple, walnut, cranberry pie with a butter crumb topping. It’s as delightful as it is decadent, and one of my favorite things.

You might have guessed that reading is another of my favorite things. November is the season of new book releases. Two of my very favorite authors have books out this month. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s At Midnight Comes the Cry, the tenth in the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyen series, releases November 18th. It’s set in the Adirondacks during Christmas, and you won’t want to miss it. The perfect read in front of the fire for the holiday season.

Annette Dashofy’s The Devil Comes Calling released on November 7th. It’s the third of the Detective Honeywell mysteries with the fourth to follow next month. Set on the shores of Lake Erie near the ‘other’ Presque Isle in Pennsylvania, its complex plot will keep you turning the pages. Guaranteed, I read it in one night.

The Friday after Thanksgiving my house will be filled with another of my favorite things. The scent of pine from the boughs I cut before the snow flew. They’ve been hanging in the garage waiting to be turned into wreaths. Last year’s wreathes lasted well into summer.

And feel free to remind me in April, when I’m shaking my shovel to the sky and channeling the language of my sailor ancestors, that I said I didn’t mind shoveling.

Happy holidays. May your home be filled with the joy of friends and family.