Christmas Party Recap

On Sunday we had our annual Christmas Party complete with good food, good friends, and lots of books!

For this meeting everyone got to read a book of her choice. Most of our discussion took the form of Book Reports. Here's a list of who read what and what they rated the books.

• Beth: Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley - 9


• Nancy: Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham - 8


• Melissa: Official Guide to Christmas in the South (or If You Can't Fry It, Spray Paint It Gold), by David. C. Barnette - 8


• Cyndi: The Christmas Promise, by Donna Vanliere - 5, but a good 5


• Jessica: The Paper Bag Christmas, by Kevin Alan Milne - 8


• Carrie Ann: Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris - 8


• Cynthia: Run, by Ann Patchett - 9
  (Cynthia is Jessica's mom - she was visiting with us for this meeting)


• Amy: The Dog Who Saved Christmas, by Alan Sullo - 5, but a cute book


• Heather: The Cole Family Christmas, by Jennifer Bryan & Hazel Kendle - 8
  (I reviewed this on my blog)


• Nicole: The Red Tent, by Anita Diamante - 8

After the book reports, we did our Book Exchange. It was lots of fun! There wasn't all that much stealing going on but ONE book did get stolen several times: The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao.

A big thank you to Jessica for hosting our Christmas Party!

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Here's a list of upcoming meeting dates:

Monday, Jan. 26th - location TBD

"Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri

Saturday, Feb. 28th @ 1pm - Beth's house

"Change of Heart" by Jodi Picoult

Monday, Feb. 23rd - Cyndi's house

"The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver

Books for 2009 (January - March)

At our last meeting we voted on the books we'd like to read over the next few months. Here's what we decided on:

January

Interpreter of Maladies

by Jhumpa Lahiri

nominated by Melissa

February

Change of Heart

by Jodi Picoult

nominated by Kara

March

The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingsolver

nominated by Bev

We'll be setting meeting dates at our Christmas party on 12/21 so please remember to bring your calendar. And feel free to read ahead if you want to!

Christmas Book Swap: The Rules

In preparation for our upcoming Christmas Party, I give you ...

Rules for SdelleS Christmas Book Swap

Each gal should bring a new or gently used book to swap. Books must be wrapped or bagged so that no one can tell what is inside.

Playing the Game:

• All wrapped gifts are put in the center of the room.
• The gals draw numbers from a hat to determine the order in which we pick gifts.
• Gal #1 chooses a gift from the center and opens it, and shows it to everyone. That is the end of her turn ... for now.
• Gal #2 chooses a gift from the center, opens it, and shows it to everyone. She may then swap her current gift with Gal #1 or keep the gift she has.
• Gal #3 chooses a new gift, opens it, and shows it to everyone. Gal #3 may either keep the gift she opened or swap it for another Gal's opened gift.
• We continue like this until each person has a gift.
• Gal #1 may then swap her gift with any other gal.
• That’s the end of the game!

Note: There is no limit to the number of times a gift can be “stolen” ... good luck!