“That is part of the beauty of literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Imagine this: a cold winter’s evening. It’s not quite dark outside, and through the veil of curtains, you glimpse a flock of birds in flight. There’s quiet instrumental Christmas tunes playing off your laptop in the corner. Imagine sitting in a cozy chair in the corner of your room, swaddled with blankets. There are twinkly lights (of course), a steaming mug of candy cane green tea, and a favorite comfort book within arm’s reach. You have nowhere to be. The evening is all yours. You pick up your book and begin to read, lost to the world outside, as your imagination colors the story to life.
So guess what I did this weekend?
I MADE A READING NOOK!
It’s all the fault of the Christmas decorations, really. When my mom and I set up the Christmas tree in the living room, we had to reshuffle the furniture arrangement. In the end, we found ourselves with an extra reading chair in need of a temporary home. I dragged the chair into my room and moved my clothes rack into the closet to make space. With this whole corner freed up, I arranged the chair right next to my filing cabinet.
The nook needed twinkly lights—naturally—so after much digging through boxes, I found these ice-blue curtain lights. A few tiny nails later, it was all coming together. The twinkly lights are lovelier than I imagined, because they look like the lights of glowing stars and crescent moons.
On the filing cabinet side table, I set up my Himalayan salt lamp for optimum moody lighting, along with the winter edition of Bella Grace and my Bible. Drape a blanket over the chair and—voila! A cozy reading nook, complete with a perfect view of the windows during rainy weather.
A few more ideas to personalize your own nook:
- Make it into a journaling space. A reading nook of your own is the perfect place to sit and think, with no expectations. Keep your journal and a basket of pens nearby.
- Cater the reading nook to whatever creative activity you love the most. Use it for drawing in your sketchbook for hours at a time. Fill the table space with inspiring quotes or a scrapbook or pictures in frames.
- If a canopy is your style, drape some curtains to seclude your reading nook from the rest of the world. If you do it right, it’ll feel like a hidden blanket fort.
- On a rainy day, settle into your comfy chair and grab a pair of headphones. Make a new playlist of your favorite songs and listen—really listen—to the lyrics and the melody. Turn up the music until it feels like a warm hug.
It’s only a matter of days now until Christmas, and only a couple weeks until we wrap up this decade and launch into 2020 with all its rosy gold possibility. But today, wherever you are, I hope you make some space to quiet your soul and get lost in a good book.
Wishing you a merry little Christmas,
<3 Olivia Grace
