Friday, December 26, 2008

Christmas Redux

Greetings! Hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas!

We made lots of merry here at our house, and I'm wholeheartedly satisfied with my gift haul, and more importantly how much everybody else liked the gifts I bought them. Or, at least, how good of a job everybody did of acting like they really enjoyed the gifts I bought them.

I made a concentrated effort to buy at least as many books for gifts as I do most years and quite possibly more. For my mom, who loved Wally Lamb's previous two books, I grabbed a copy of the newest, The Hour I First Believed which she's already started to read. For my dad, we had the old standby, the yearly Odd Thomas release from Dean Koontz, Odd Hours, which he always enjoys. He's badly in need of a new author to love, so I'm trying to get him hooked on Neil Gaiman with a copy of Neverwhere, too. My grandmother, who almost never wants books, kept bringing up the good things she'd been hearing about Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, so naturally, I had to pick up a copy of that for her. Lastly, and my crowning achievement of the year, for my cousin who has just begun learning to read, I grabbed a copy of one of my very favorite childhood books, Animalia and made a severe annoyance of myself until my mom bought her a copy of Mo Willems' The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. It's so much fun picking out cool books for new readers. I hope she enjoys them as much as I do!

As for me, not too many books under the tree, but the quality was definitely there. The first gift I opened was a copy of Leif Enger's So Brave, Young, and Handsome which I've been dying to have since I knew it existed. I loved Peace Like a River, so I'm quite excited about this one. I also got a spiffy new copy of the new ESV Study Bible which the people at my church are simply rabid over, if indeed, it's quite correct to be rabid about a Bible.... Anyhow, it's full of awesome stuff, so I'm quite excited about that, too. My ever-thoughtful 10 year old cousin got me a book light. Now does that kid know me or what?

Another gift I consider to be quite bookish that I'm wildly excited about is my hunter green SLANKET! This is a great gift for when I want to read in my arctic temperature bedroom. As a matter of fact, cozily tucked into my Slanket I devoured the end of How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff last night after the holiday merry making had come to an end (and a few re-runs of House had been watched). Believe it or not, I've actually already written the review, but I'm going to save it for sometime over the next few days because I predict that next week is going to be pretty harsh on the old blogging time because some folks at work are taking some vacation which means that I get pressed into service at all kinds of weird hours. After which, I'll definitely need to drink some of the !wine I won in their mystery holiday giveaway drawing! which is doubly cool because I'm going through a real wine phase right now, which sounds kind of bizarre because I'm not much of a drinker at all.

All in all, a very satisfying holiday. The planets aligned properly allowing everybody to be in a fairly good mood on the holiday. Children were relatively well-behaved. Great gifts were given and received, and a sense of humor prevailed. Can't ask for much more than that. It's about time for me to leave for the matinee of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which will be, hopefully, as good as it looks.

So, what good stuff did you get for Christmas?

3 comments:

  1. I'm glad you had a nice Christmas, Megan. And those are some excellent books you gave!

    I'm quite happy with my haul too. I got mostly books - lots of nonfiction and comics, which are my favourite kinds of books to get because I rarely buy them for myself.

    I look forward to reading your thoughts on How I Live Now. I plan on reading that one soon.

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  2. Nymeth, glad to hear you had a nice Christmas, too. I find that the best gifts are the ones that I really do want but would rarely consider buying for myself either because I consider them too frivilous or I'm just too stingy! Ah, but letting other people buy them, now that's the thing. ;D

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  3. Glad to hear you enjoyed your Christmas, it always helps when people like (or convincingly pretend to like) your gifts.

    I got two great cook books from Donna Hay and Jamie Oliver, a lovely hardback edition of Austen and some bookshop gift cars which I look forward to using. I also bought a few books e.g. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre for my Dad, American Journeys by Don Watson for my sister and Slam by Nick Hornby for my brother.

    I loved Animalia as a kid, so I can understand your evangelical excitement about it.

    I look forward to your thoughts on How I Live Now, as I've read glowing reviews and have it in my TBR pile.

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