Christmas Came Early This Year

I am pretty sure Christmas came on a Tuesday this year. Tuesday, December 15th. It was the day of my team lunch at work and our Secret Santa exchange. It's my favorite meeting of the year. And not because my Secret Santa made me homemade brownies and filled my gift bag with tootsie rolls. Rather, it's the only real opportunity my team has to get away, just us, and set the shop talk aside. I am blessed to work with such a great group of people. Sure, we get on each others' nerves sometimes, but at the end of the day, we wouldn't have it any other way.

Full of the holiday spirit after a fun afternoon, I decided to swing by my mailbox on my way home. I had three packages waiting for me. Well, two were for me. One was for my husband. In the corner of one of the boxes was a note saying it was for the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. I also noticed that according to the sticker, it had arrived the week before (but I won't let the fact that I was at my mailbox last Friday evening and was told I didn't have anything ruin my day--I'm in too good of a mood for that). The other two packages were from Amazon and I just knew they were from the SantaThing exchange (hosted by LibraryThing). I signed up my husband this year too, not wanting to leave him out of the fun of receiving a book in the mail. He hadn't a clue so was much surprised when he got home from work that evening.

Try as I might, I couldn't wait until my husband came home to open my Book Blogger Holiday Swap gift. Such wonderful presents awaited me! The snowman stocking was overflowing with goodies and then there was a rectangular shaped package that looked and felt an awful lot like a book.

My Secret Santa this year was Pooch from Yarn-Knit-Read-Lit and did she ever spoil me! She gave me heavenly smelling candles in a beautiful cloth bag, lavender lotion, note cards, a journal, a Christmas magnet, and an ornament for the tree. And then there was a book, Midnight Never Comes by Marie Brennan. I let out a squeal of joy at the sight of it! It's been on my wish list for awhile now.

I cannot thank Pooch enough for her thoughtfulness (thank you, Pooch!). Everything is perfect.

Parker insisted on getting in the photo. If you look closely in both the above pictures, you can see Anya under the glass of the coffee table.

As hard as it was for me, I did wait for my husband, Anjin, before opening my SantaThing package so we could open ours at the same time. My husband's Santa, Clue, sent him a copy of Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & 40s. It's the perfect gift for him. He loves noir and enjoys reading short stories. My Santa, Boblinfortino, sent me copies of Anne Rivers Siddons' Off Season and The Girls by Lori Lansens. Both are new-to-me authors, and I look forward to giving them a try. Many thanks to both Clue and Boblinfortino for the books!

It was a good day, that Tuesday, the 15th.

(Note: I was assigned to send a gift to Teresa of Shelf Love this year. I had such a fun time shopping for her. She received her gift this past week. I'm happy to say her cat Sophie liked her gift as well.)

---

© 2009, Wendy Runyon of Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved.
If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.