# We like books as Christmas gifts, what do you like to receive?



## Raven (Nov 29, 2014)

Sometimes we get a gift certificate to use at a book store and sometimes we get books
for Christmas.
Our family know that we both like to read mystery and suspense.
There are two new books out in time for Christmas by well known authors,
they are Gray Mountain by John Grisham and No Safe House by Canadian author
Linwood Barclay.
I look forward to new books to read during the bleak month of January.

Do you like a book as a gift or something else, maybe new warm slippers?


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## Fern (Nov 29, 2014)

I would love to get a book for xmas, I did when I was a kid, but that was sooo long ago. I think I need to put out some 'hints'.


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## Pam (Nov 29, 2014)

Book vouchers would always be welcome. 

I like Linwood Barclay, so does my eldest son's partner so might consider getting her his latest book for Christmas.


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## hollydolly (Nov 29, 2014)

I am an avid reader so I get books every Christmas as well as right throughout the year!!


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## AprilT (Nov 29, 2014)

Money, I want the money, I like the money, loads of cash money.  Just kidding.  

If someone gives me something that took thought, that's a gift that I never forget, it could have cost one dollar and it's only happened maybe four times that I was overwhelmed by a gift, 

the first was a plastic tea set I received at around age Five.

a calendar a friend gave me with something relevant to a conversation we had previously had months and months, I was so taken that she remember enough to gift it in such a way.  Meant a lot, we had a long standing friendship for many years thereafter.  

The birthday cake my dad bought me for my 6th birthday, he bought one with pineapples in it.  I hatted it, I don't like fruit mixed in my cake or ice cream, except for strawberries or bananas, but just the fact that he went out of his way because he knew how much I liked pineapples, as a little girl, my heart was full.

My 50th Birthday, the party as a gift, I don't remember the actual packaged gifts. One of my friends, we call each other lil sis, big sis, lil sis reserved tables at a dance club and threw me one of the best parties I ever had in my adult life.   She doesn't know it, but, her birth sisters have a huge party planned for her 50th that's coming up in Jan, something I couldn't ever have put together in the manner in which they have planned.  Family and friends from all over the country will be flying in for that.  She's going to have a heart attack.  This will take place late Jan 2015.

At the moment, those are the only ones that come to mind quite easily without even a blink.

Anyway, I appreciate thoughtful gifts, but will be grateful for money if one insist.


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## crochet lady (Nov 30, 2014)

I like gift certificates to book stores!! Love to read and buy most of my books at a second hand book store. Every time you donate books for this store to re-sell they give you a store credit coupon for those books. So, I just bring my coupons in next time and purchase books, DVD's, etc. with my coupons. Great system and it's a profitable way to rid my bookshelf of books I've read.


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## Raven (Nov 30, 2014)

Thanks everyone for your interesting replies.
The first hard covered book I ever received was a Christmas gift when I was ten years old.
It meant so much to me and started me on a love for reading that is still with me today.

My mother, who passed away in 2003, made me a birthday cake every year of my life until she
had to go to a nursing home.  That's many many years of home made cakes and she did it with love.
I was fortunate to have a caring mother.


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## AprilT (Nov 30, 2014)

Raven said:


> Thanks everyone for your interesting replies.
> The first hard covered book I ever received was a Christmas gift when I was ten years old.
> It meant so much to me and started me on a love for reading that is still with me today.
> 
> ...



Sounds like a wonderful mother, I had a very loving mother as well, rest her soul.  I only mentioned the one cake, because of the pineapple, it was a big deal, I can't really explain how much of an event it was for my dad to take time to get out of work and make such a fuss to get that particular cake.  As a young girl, I always felt special where mom was concerned, at least till my heathen younger sibs came along. j/k sorta.   

On another note, other gifts that I would find nice, gift card to a nail salon of something of that nature, I've received them in the past and that was nice.


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## Raven (Nov 30, 2014)

April you have a touching memory of the pineapple cake and for a Dad to go buy a special
cake made it a birthday for you to long remember.
It's strange how some things stay in our memory all our lives while other occasions are quickly
forgotten.
I like gift certificates too, like to my hair stylist or a nice restaurant.


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## oakapple (Dec 1, 2014)

I usually get a couple of books as Christmas presents, or an Amazon Kindle voucher [as I read books in both formats.]Books are a magical escape aren't they? I love most genres [with the exception, now that I think about it, of horror, westerns, or romance.]
I like historical fiction, particularly by C J Sansom and Hilary Mantel,  but usually just what is called modern fiction.I have just read The Luminaries by E Caton [set in NZ] marvellous writing.


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## Lee (Dec 1, 2014)

You come to a stage in life where you have all that you really need....I'm there.

But hubby was making fun of my ratty mitts and scarf and telling me that I really should wear a hat so I think I know where he's going with this


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## Jackie22 (Dec 1, 2014)

I agree, Lee, I really have everything I need too, Christmas gifts are nice, but not a big deal to me. I just enjoy getting together with my family and trying to make it a good day for every one, especially my 94 tear old mom.


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## Bullie76 (Dec 1, 2014)

One year I got a small red and white golf bag light with an umbrella as the shade. I used it to light my closet. I would be more than happy to just receive money, but rarely get it.


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## jujube (Dec 1, 2014)

I did my shopping at The Karma Store this year.  Everyone's getting what they deserve.....


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## RadishRose (Dec 1, 2014)

Books are good, but I wish for cologne or perfume since I rarely treat myself to those and love fragrance. 

I had a cousin in Pennsylvania that still heated with coal. Her oldest daughter had a naughty year and while "Santa" did give her gifts, my cousin filled her stocking with coal, while the others got candy & trinkets in their stockings.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 1, 2014)

Gift cards to restaurants are nice to receive (or give).


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## ClassicRockr (Dec 1, 2014)

Wife and I aren't the "intellectual" type, so getting a book for Christmas would be boring to us. Nothing against "intellectual" type people, but we are just a "wee bit" to WILD to be that way. And, one of the last places anyone would find us would be at a library. 

What would we want........a good action-packed DVD movie, a good Classic Rock DVD concert, anything in Star Wars and some clothes.


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## jujube (Dec 1, 2014)

I remember we always got a tangerine in our stockings.  Back then, tangerines were only available at Christmas....at least at our house.  Eating tangerines still take me back to Christmas.   

My grandfather was born in the late 1800's and grew up in the mountains of Virginia.  He said every year some benevolent ladies from a big church in Charlottesville came to his little town and gave presents to all the children, usually socks, gloves, etc.  The highlight would be a small bag of hard candy for each child (the proverbial "hard candy Christmas" of song). One year, they gave everyone an orange. He said he and his siblings brought the oranges home, put them on the table and looked at them.  Nobody had any idea what you were supposed to do with an orange....peel it? eat it peel and all? cook it? make a pie out of it?  

Growing up poor made him appreciative of anything anyone gave him.  Like clockwork, every Christmas, we kids gave him the biggest bottle of Old Spice we could find and he'd exclaim over it and declare that it was EXACTLY what he had hoped for.  Then he'd go upstairs, put last year's bottle away and enthrone the new bottle on the shelf.  It wasn't until after he died that we found out that he hated the smell of Old Spice.  I found at least a dozen old bottles of Old Spice packed away in the closet after he died because he never threw anything away we kids gave him.  Now *that's* the true spirit of Christmas.


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## AprilT (Dec 1, 2014)

Very nice story about your grandfather Jujube.  

Tangerines and all kinds of nuts were plentiful around our home during Christmas as well, I used to keep tangerines on hand during the season for many a year.


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