Easy read. Well written characters and funny in parts. Didn't love it but did like it. Would read more from this author.

I always love reading Nina Stibbe’s books - they’re funny, insightful and very descriptive.

This is a short collection of Christmas essays. I enjoyed most of them, except for the odd non PC reference, which I felt could have been left out.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

An enjoyable collection of short stories for the season with humour, traditions, and family memories.

An easy read, this is a funny and honest look at Christmas, in all its amazing moments and its flaws. Very entertaining and the perfect gift to a light-reader at Christmas.

Enjoyable read full of short stories for the Xmas season. Whether yours ends on the 5th or 6th of January.
I was given this book by Netgalley and the publisher. This is my voluntary and impartial review.

I really enjoyed this festive ode to the craziest time of the year! Most of the family anecdotal stories were full of fun and very heartwarming – some occasionally fell as little flat.

I am sure many will relate to the tales of crazy family Christmases recounted in this book. The book inspired my own walk down Christmas memory lane which was lovely at this time of year.

Short and festive anecdotes of family life at Christmas - largely autobiographical, the author gently pokes fun at the whole festive chaoticness. This is funny in parts although I found it lacking a little in empathy. Still, a book to dip into at Christmastime and possibly identify with!

Who doesn't like a good Christmas book? I try to read a different one every year around holiday's time. This year I've choose "An Almost Perfect Christmas" by Nina Stibbe because I was in the mood for a stress relief and non fiction book.
Nina brings the reader different and funny stories from her Christmas memories and reminds us why this time of year can bring such a love/hate relationship to everybody. Because of course we love the blings, the charity spirit and the willingness to make all around us happy and complete. But we also can't forget the screaming, the last minute changes, the skipping ingredients after the shops' have closed and all the plans and preparation which most of the times doesn't have any other function that never being followed. Her mother and the story about the Christmas Turkey is a perfect example of that!
With different approaches and intentions, some of Nina stories were hilarious, others were insightful, some created empathy and others the desperation and empathy of having been there before. Nevertheless it's a great book to relax around this time and a good reminder of what's missing in our lives or in our Christmas preparation list.
I must say I've enjoyed some of the chronicles more than others, as you probably imagined. It's not difficult to imagine why, since we all have our own personal stories. Searching through these pages, I found some moments I could identify with and I laughed with the author because of them. In the end, who never had a big drama around Christmas gifting in their families (Nina's family is way better imagining thematic and justifications for shifting the gifting rules!).
It's a light read we all can appreciate on these busy moments we are going through, but don't deceive yourself. Nina's life it's not perfect and she doesn't have any problem showing it. I guess the nostalgia takes also part on these amazing Christmas cocktails and, of course, it couldn't be missing here.
If you are looking for some reading suggestions, try this not so perfect Christmas, as they all should be

I should have liked it but I found it a bit dull. This collection of short stories about family Christmas was trying for heartwarming and affectionate humour. For me it all fell a little flat.

Enjoyed reading this light hearted book about the trials of gift buying and assorted issues of Christmas

This may be a little unseasonal now, but if you want to recapture some of that Christmas magic then Nina Stibbe is your girl. I absolutely adore Nina's work, and have done ever since I picked up her first book 'Love, Nina'. She has an adorably British way of phrasing things, both honest and eccentric, and she manages to capture the absurdity and the true joy of the Christmas period. From the struggle to create the perfect Christmas playlist, to the saga of trying to cook a non-dry turkey (complete with advice from our favourite celebrity chefs) and the rules of regifting, this is a really lovely little read about one of the most bonkers times of year.

Sat and read this over the christmas period. It was light hearted and fun and i really enjoyed it.

Any product featuring the word 'Christmas' in the title comes under rapid suspicion of being targeted to cash in on the peak gift-giving period.  So much so that one almost wonders if when A Christmas Carol hit the shelves, perhaps a host of Victorian readers rolled their eyes in the same way that one does now when Michael Bublé cranks out yet more Yuletide-related yodelling.  Yet despite my cynicism, I found An Almost Perfect Christmas to be a fun festive read and a lovely return to Nina Stibbe's observational wit which made Love, Nina such a fun read.  It may be too late for me to 'gift' this to my nearest and dearest for this year, but I will definitely be keeping it in mind for the future.

Part memoir, part seasonal survival guide, part short story collection; like the author herself, the book evades definition.  The question of how far we take her Christmas confessions literally is an open one - did she really run into her estranged father dressed up as Father Christmas in the Leicester branch of Fenwicks?  Apparently so.  Less hard to believe is that she was once called upon to use a hairdryer to help defrost a turkey bought at last minute from Iceland.  Covering everything from playlists to presents to puddings, Stibbe lampoons the core traditions of Christmas and tries to navigate a path through.

For all its lightness of tone, Almost Perfect really got me thinking about the institutionalised insanity that is the festive season.  As she puts it, 'My mother is not a foodie. But for as long as I can remember, once a year, she becomes possessed of a profound and desperate need to serve up a perfect roast turkey'.  The competitiveness and consternation which come forth with each Christmas - why do we put this on ourselves?  My personal favourite though was Stibbe's thoughts on Christmas puddings which I realised chime in with my own - I like the dish in theory and for its decorative properties far more than I actually enjoy eating it myself.  Yet still, Stibbe put it far better than I ever could.

Stibbe serves up so many pitch perfect summaries of Christmas customs - there's her verdict on round robins as 'the sitcom you never planned to watch - you'd heard of the characters, but didn't watch the show'.  I can think of several people who I have never really met but whose lives I have followed via this medium.  There's also the way that even though you think you hate Slade's 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday' because it's over-exposed, as soon as it's put on, all is forgiven.  I particularly enjoyed the glossary which closes out the collection, full of sly observations such as how television viewing 'must be meticulously planned in advance using the Radio Times' (the only time of the year when my family ever buy that publication.  I also enjoyed Stibbe's description of the the various different approaches to Christmas shopping - like Stibbe, I tend to start mine mid-September, buy around two gifts and then think I'm doing really well and then think no more about it until approximately December 5th when I panic and buy everything in sight.

In the chapter describing how best to go about gift-giving, Stibbe explains and warns against the 'bulker-upper' presents, reasoning that they are liable to mount up to be just as expensive as the 'core presents'.  She then then cheerily admits that this book is likely to be useful for just that stocking filler function.  Stibbe's humour has always been the main part of her appeal and Almost Perfect feels like a real window into her worldview.  Strangely, I cannot imagine her material working as well in stand-up form, she is simply a very gifted comic writer.  She encourages us to roll our eyes and even question festive fashion but she never gives in to cynicism, remarking that the truest Christmases for her were never the ones where she went 'all out' but rather the ones where she got to catch up with friends and family at home.  No matter how far she veers into the ridiculous, her stories contain a kind of truth and it is that which makes Almost Perfect such an enjoyable read.

An Almost Perfect Christmas is a really pleasant read. Nina Stibbe talks about her own family Christmases in a series of essays starting with her reasons for not cooking turkey. There are also a few short stories in amongst these essays. When I was reading the stories I did sometimes forget it wasn't the author's own voice, so a little confusing, but altogether a nice little read.

It took me around 90 minutes to read this book. At 163 pages it's a quick read but not lacking in substance. There are seven essays, four stories and a glossary of Christmas at the back. The glossary didn't do much for me, I must admit, but the essays in particular were great to read.

My favourite story was A Present for Teacher which actually had me clapping my hand over my mouth in a kind of mixture of hilarity and horror. The book as a whole is full of the author's dry wit and whilst I don't particularly relate to her feelings about various aspects of Christmas, I did understand them and found them amusing to read.

This has been the perfect book to read just before Christmas but I think it would also be good just after, whether or not you have had a perfect or almost perfect Christmas yourself.

I did wait until Christmas week to read this book and I was glad that I did. As Stibbe herself admits, this is the sort of book that is likely to be bought as a christmas gift or stocking filler, but that is the real joy of it. Fans of Stibbe's writing will know that there is a knowing and warm sense of humour that runs through her tales of Christmas past and present. There is a gentle hearkening back to a Midlands childhood in the 1970s and the perennial issues of Christmas and the family within the separate but linked tales. At times laugh out loud, at times nostalgic but above all this book is a celebration of seasonal family times.

This book is full of short and very funny essays on Christmas and I loved them. The author’s narrative is very easy going but she has a remarkable talent to make the mundane interesting and laugh out loud funny. Most British readers will understand references to frozen turkeys, sprouts and Slade since they're part of the culture of a traditional British Christmas. Her observation and the stream of one liners kept me chuckling. What seems a simplistic collection is sharp and funny and I really enjoyed it. It was down to earth, warm, festive and memorable. My thanks to Net Galley for my advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

It was ok, very short anecdotes. One story I completely didn’t know who the characters were. One story I really liked and the rest were a bit hmm ok.

Thank you Netgalley for this review copy.

I'd love to say that this was an almost perfect book to get you in the mood for Christmas - unfortunately it wasn't. I have to admit that I felt a bit low and sad after reading this as Christmas's described in this book were a little bit depressing and the author was a little bit condescending in parts of the book. There were a few humourous stories but nothing that I would remember

We all have our own Christmas traditions. Mine include eating my body weight in Quality Street, suddenly becoming a morning person on December 25th and constantly refreshing the Lush website on Boxing day in a bid to get that elusive 500ml bottle of Snow Fairy in the sale.

The wonderful Nina Stibbe has also had her own Christmas traditions throughout her life, some of which include avoiding the Christmas pudding at all costs, writing to Santa yet fretting that an sneaky elf would never deliver the letter and doubting her love for Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade, only to decide it's actually the best Christmas song ever written (especially after 15 renditions of Silent Night.)

In this gorgeous anthology Nina shares these traditions plus other hilarious anecdotes which will have you guffawing with laughter and nodding your head in recognition.
Whether it's reminiscing over her mothers obsession with the turkey not turning out dry, her deciphering of thank-you notes or her ultimate guide to Christmas shopping - Nina has all of Christmas covered in this wonderful collection which is also interspersed with brilliant short stories (A Present for Teacher was my personal favourite.)

Nina is a great writer. She is naturally funny and her sense of humour is spot on whilst ensuring that she doesn't take herself too seriously. Her essays are short, sharp and will resonate on so many levels.
Nina is no scrooge. She loves Christmas just as much as the next person, yet sometimes her organisation doesn't quite go to plan (and let's face it - we've all been there...) Whether it's food, family or fairy lights, Nina manages to make even the most disastrous of events funny with her dry wit and sarcasm.

I loved this book and only wish it were longer. I could have read many more of her hilarious yet charming Christmas stories and they certainly put me in a festive mood.
As someone who is already a Nina Stibbe fan this was an automatic read for me anyway, but if you find yourself panicking about where Great Aunt Joan will sit on Christmas day or running out of heritage carrots, then I highly advise you take some time out and sit down with this delightful ode to the festive season. It will make you smile, relax and generally feel much better about Christmas and life in general. I guarantee it.

This is just the kind of book I would be super excited to find in my stocking and is something that you can go back to and enjoy over Christmases to come.

So don't panic if your turkey is dry - you can always 'chill with a chop' and as Nina herself proves, you can never have enough versions on Silent Night on your playlist...

Thanks to Penguin Books UK and NetGalley for the ARC.

I requested this book because I wanted something Christmassy to read in December and well, the hint is in the title. However, I had no idea what this book was about. This book has a collection of short, festive stories from how to cook the perfect turkey to buying presents.
This would be a perfect stocking filler (as predicted by Nina Stibbe) for someone who wants a laugh about all the irrational things we do in the festive period to get the "(almost) perfect" Christmas.