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I don't know about you, but I heard this phrase spoken quite a bit in the past few days and weeks as we consoled each other that Christmas was going to be so very different this year.

Of course we were unable to celebrate together as we have come to expect but I hope that your Christmas was special nevertheless and that you were able to mark the day peacefully, warmly and safely, cherishing memories and cultivating hopes for the future.

Next time I write, we'll have embarked upon 2021...!

We'll all be longing for much better times but, if we've learned anything this year, it's to make the most of every day. So, while we are uncertain of what the future has in store, there's something to be said for taking things a day at a time. And rather like the Bear family (see my review for 'Just One of Those Days'), there'll be good days and bad days, so let's keep hopeful!

Never forgetting, of course, that we have books which invite us to step into other lives, times and places, enriching and equipping us, getting us through.

Happy new year, and thank you for reading.

So much has changed in the past few days. Even if our plans for Christmas haven't been affected by the recent government guidelines, we're all likely to be feeling rather uneasy and unsettled by the latest turn of events.  

I've been reminded of the rather surprising book choice by the castaway on last week's Desert Island Discs.

In addition to the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the president of the National Farmers' Union, Minette Batters decided to take 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'.

This classic and much-loved story by Michael Rosen, and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, had been a favourite bedtime story for her young children, but Minette Batters says its moral has also proved a mantra for her own life.

"We can't go over it, we can't go under it," is the refrain, she says, "so we'll have to go through it." The family in the story are pictured tramping through long grass, wading through the river and squelching through the mud as they search for the bear. In life, Minette says "there's not always a way over or under and you sometimes have just got to crack on and go through it."

While we might have liked our Christmas festivities to have been different this year, there's much we can be grateful for as we seek to remain safe, cosy and warm, and hopeful. 

If you are looking for ways - other than reading - to pass the time enjoyably in the next couple of weeks, there are some very creative ideas available online using materials that may already be close at hand...

...my particular favourite comes from Ordnance Survey, urging us to get crafty with maps. Garlands and bunting, cards and wrap, stars and baubles, even the tree can be made from maps in these easy-to-follow guides.

...or something that looks a little more involved, and mathematical, why not log on to a class in book art led by Emma at Haverhill Library, Suffolk. Looks amazing. I'd love to give it a try, but need to find an old book and some patience.

...and there are plenty of activities and story times for children on the Bookworms Bonanza site from Lavenham Literary Festival. Learn how to draw Fergal the Dragon or make Gaspard the Fox cupcakes, listen to story times from James Mayhew or Michael Morpurgo, and take part in the various quizzes.

However you will be spending Christmas this year, I wish you a safe, peaceful and creative time, and thank you for reading.

Technology has served us well this year, but I'm still hoping for lots of cards and letters in the post. There something special about having something to open, to touch and to hold and, with Christmas cards, to decorate the mantelpiece, particularly this year when we can't be together.

There's something different, too, about handwritten messages compared to an email or printed letter. I do enjoy catching up with distant friends in their Round Robins (I've just read one family's letter listing twenty things to be positive about in 2020, which seemed a valiant effort!), but I prefer a handwritten note.

A personal and individual letter indicates a close connection, of course, not least by acknowledging the time and trouble that has been taken in keeping in touch.

The sender can benefit from writing, too, though. Researchers say that putting ink on paper stimulates an area of the brain associated with learning. Students who completed essays with a pen rather than a keyboard wrote more, faster and in more complete sentences than those who used a computer and some scientists believe that the act of writing with pen and paper exercises the memory and key skills which keep us sharp as we age.

Many novelists prefer longhand, even prolific writers like Stephen King and James Patterson. The physicality, sense of space, and the opportunity to think harder about one sentence forming it as you're writing it, means it's crafted better, it's said. There's also a freedom - being able to write wherever you are - on a train, in a cafe, at an airport.

If you came along to hear Patrick Gale talk about his novel a couple of years ago, you may remember him showing us his work in progress in Moleskine notebooks in which he wrote with caramel ink. He'd develop the story in the front of the book and would jot down ideas at the back.

Simon Edge, who this year published the comic novel 'Anyone for Edmund?' says that because his day job involves sitting at a computer, he likes to have the distinction of writing with pen and paper for his novels, unleashing the creativity. 

After composing your messages to friends and family at this time, though, you might like to pause and ponder as you address the envelope...

'The Address Book' by Deirdre Mask is a remarkable and fascinating social history which explains how addresses present and reflect identity, class, race, and power. There are wonderful stories showing the often bizarre progress of how addresses have been developed. There are also stark reminders of historic events and how these have influenced so much of what we take for granted today. Your house number, street name and postcode has never been more intriguing! 

Traditions, rituals and habits have all been disrupted this year and now that Christmas is imminent, we probably need to be a little more inventive and self-sufficient when it comes to entertainment and celebrations at this special time.

The national message is to support the high street and boost the economy by entering into a - socially-distanced - spending frenzy, but the past few months might have left us wanting to be a bit more discerning in our purchases.

In all that we've experienced, many of us have appreciated our natural environment afresh (listen to The Stubborn Light of Things podcasts by nature writer Melissa Harrison if you'd like to relive the highlights of the summer). But we have also been confronted with the fragility of our existence like never before. So perhaps our spending habits will change this year.

We'll be getting adventurous with the cooking at home rather than partying, and completing jigsaws rather than pulling crackers, maybe. And the newspapers, magazines and television programmes are urging us to be more creative with our giving, too: parcel up homemade biscuits, knit socks, blankets or a woolly hat, make decorations from paper and recycle magazine pages for wrapping.

There's much to be said for the simpler things in life, says TV presenter Kate Humble. Her new book is called 'A Year of Living Simply' (see below) and it's full of great ideas and inspiring stories of people who've stripped the trappings of their lives down to the essentials. She describes how the experience has left them empowered and liberated. The decisions made aren't for everyone, and Kate Humble isn't berating us or campaigning that we should all sell up and follow suit. Instead, these joyful examples are inspiring and encouraging.

So this is yet another book which I think would make a perfect present (because books are the best presents of all, in my opinion!). I've put together some suggestions here and will be adding more as we move through the month.

But I was reminded of an Icelandic Christmas tradition this week. It's called Jolabokaflod, which means Christmas book flood. Books are given to loved ones on Christmas Eve, so that friends and family can stay in together reading, listening to stories and drinking hot chocolate. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

It's been quite a year and already the papers and magazines are filling their pages with retrospective features, highlighting the key events of the past twelve months. So much of what we've experienced this year is unprecedented and here's another first.

The Oxford English Dictionary will not be declaring a word of the year. Instead, 2020 has been described as "a year which cannot be neatly accommodated in one single word".

The rival dictionary, Collins, opted for 'lockdown' as its word of the year. And there were many other contenders - 'unmute', 'bubbles', 'key workers', 'staycation', 'face masks', 'circuit breaker', 'coronavirus', of course, and 'pandemic'.

The extent to which scientific terms have been adopted in ordinary conversation has been notable this year, the OED team has said. We have all become armchair epidemiologists as we have debated 'bringing the R below 1', 'flattening the curve' and 'community transmission'. And 'following the science' has increased in usage by more than 1,000 per cent compared with 2019.

"I've never witnessed a year in language like the one we've just had," said the president of Oxford Dictionaries, Casper Grathwohl. "It's both unprecedented and a little ironic - in a year that has left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other."