We hope you enjoyed the November 2025 issue of This Awful Awesome Life. Many thanks to Orlando Bartro for his contributions to the magazine. We’re almost at the end of the year. How are you feeling about the future? With the cost of almost everything continuing to go up, remember; we are a free publication.
This month we’re tackling gift-giving in a tough economy and finding gratitude in an ungrateful world. We’re also highlighting December holidays, celebrations, and observances.
December 2025 is bittersweet. Celebrating while so many are suffering seems selfish and out of touch. Being kind should not be optional depending on the hat you decide to wear or how you express your religious preferences. Sick and starving people around the world denied food and lifesaving medicine, documented and undocumented immigrants, and U.S. citizens being detained in horrific unsanitary and overcrowded detention centers ripped away from their families and their jobs does nothing to make our country great. Telling nurses and medical technicians, speech pathologists, and physical or occupational therapists, accountants, educators, social workers, and architects that they are not professionals even though they hold professional degrees and must complete continuing education programs to remain certified is wrong. Denying them the ability to afford additional training to further their careers is wrong and dangerous. Shrinking the size of food and drink containers and telling us we’re winning because you’re not raising prices is insulting. Buying less and spending the same is not winning.
The holiday season should be a time to pause and reflect on our many blessings. Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah (the Jewish Festival of Lights), Bodhi Day – celebrating the life and teachings of Buddha, Yule Day/Winter Solstice – observed by many Pagans and Wiccans, or Kwanzaa, a celebration of African and African Americn heritage and traditions, embrace the spirit of the season. What can you do this holiday season to make someone else’s life a little better? We have a few suggestions this month.
Orlando Bartro discusses two kinds of acceptable implausibility.
My December poem deals with loneliness, a common feeling during the holidays. My short story is about traditions and fresh starts.
For our column, “Happy Birthday,” celebrating the birthdays of famous writers, I selected the Soviet and Russian author and dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
For December 2025 in “The Twelve Months of Fruit,” we are featuring cranberries and apples. When these two winter favorites combine, get ready for a taste of heaven. You can put them in salads, pies, and relishes, but we found a fun and easy recipe for Cranberry Apple Crisp.
This month, I reviewed The World Central Kitchen Cookbook: Feeding Humanity, Feeding Hope by Chef José Andrés. It’s so much more than just a collection of recipes. Andrés shares stories of the regions they have cooked for, the foods of each culture, and the chefs and volunteers who cook for people who have experienced natural disasters or the ravages of war. This book makes a wonderful gift for foodies and 100% of the profits from sales go to help finance the work of the World Central Kitchen.
I also reviewed Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You: Poems by Misha Collins. I enjoyed this book so much because Collins’ poems are so beautiful and relatable.
Our reading recommendations for kids, young adults, and adults feature an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction.
Our December 2025 Rebus Puzzle Quiz features items associated with December.
We’re constantly updating our Author Page to include the latest published works of your new favorite authors, and we’re adding authors. Being able to give authors a free place to display their work is a dream come true for me, so please check every month to see who’s new and what’s new.
Don’t miss our new Artist Page where we will be celebrating creatives and providing their contact information. We will be updating and adding to the list during this month and the following months, so keep checking our new page.
Elizabeth Meitzler has a new book out, The Assist (Book 2 in the Ballantine Boys series). Be sure to visit her on our Author’s Page.
Tony Valerino recently published his second book. Pivotal Moments That Shaped America, History of the U.S. from the Boston Tea Party to the War of Terror is available in e-book, hardcover, and paperback at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Also check your favorite local bookstores. Valerino will be featured in an upcoming issue of This Awful Awesome Life.
Everything in Between is now available as an audiobook and in hardcover or paperback. The narrator, Louise Porter, does a wonderful job bringing Sabrina and her story to life. I can’t wait for you to have a listen. You can purchase the audiobook for Everything in Between on Amazon, iTunes, or Audible. https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Everything-in-Between/dp/B0DDR8GRWS/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TV0J0HCWYT7T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tdRKc5MxwdOobXZOLckDvQ.0BXe9QYH3JnZOn9j0LC6Yy6gCG9UI3lIcRu4KlRnIPs&dib_tag=se&keywords=everything+in+between+by+frances+joyce+audiobook&qid=1725234363&sprefix=everything+in+between+by+frances+joyce+audiobook%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-
I’m incredibly proud of this novel. If you enjoy my writing, you should definitely check it out. Independent authors can’t afford splashy book launches and expensive PR campaigns to make the public aware of their work. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Adults can and should be able to disagree without threats, name calling, spreading misinformation, or lying. Can the leaders you support do this?
Now more than ever, I encourage you to watch C-SPAN and get to know the members of Congress, the members of the president’s cabinet, and the leading experts who testify at Congressional hearings. Listen to what they are saying and what they refuse to say out loud. Do they actually care about the Constitution and the people of this country?
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Happy Reading,
Fran