Christmas in July

A fun thing to do is to have Christmas in July where you get assigned a secret Santa and exchange gifts. I’ve done it before and it’s really so much fun. (You can read about our other gift exchanges here, here, and here.)

Christmas in July: Who I Bought For

I joined in with the Blended Bloggers and was assigned Katie of The Mishaps and Mayhem of a Solitary Life. I have not met Katie in real life yet since she was not able to go to Las Vegas and I was not able to go to Toronto but if you read her summary of the Toronto trip here, you’ll get a sense of what she’s like.

I also liked reading everyone else’s view of that trip and their take on her. In summary: she’s a fun-loving, big-beer drinking gal who loves the sun! She lives in a small town on an island in New York. With those things in mind, I went shopping. Head over to her blog to see what I got her.

Christmas in July: Who Bought For Me

I was assigned to Alison of Puppies and Pretties. I did get to meet Alison in real life on the Las Vegas trip. In fact we were roomies. She’s the youngest of the bunch, quite tall (but of course to me everyone is tall so keep that in mind), and on the quiet side but very easy going, and when she does say something it’s quite funny!

She’s also very observant and she noticed that I had mentioned I was going to I was going to be in St. Louis over the summer and that I planned to go to The Novel Neighbor while I was there.

Her gift to me was gift certificates to the City of Webster Groves which could be spent at the Novel Neighbor as well as dozens of other shops around town. How cool is that?? She did send me an email alerting me of the gift that should be arriving in the mail so I wouldn’t mistake them for junk mail and throw them away. Smart girl!So it was with extra excitement that I visited the Novel Neighbor since I had a little jingle in my pocket! I fangirled all over the place, exploring every nook and corner… (they have a Modern Mrs. Darcy bookshelf!) and got to meet and chat with Holland, the owner.After all that excitement, I managed to narrow down my picks. Wanna see what I got? Oh good! I’ve been dying to share them with you!First off this book. I’ve never heard of it before. Never heard of the author. I picked it for the title and the cover. Keeping my fingers crossed that it’s good! But since I had more to spend, the final pile of loot looks like this:That cute little button (“I read at night!”) now lives on my totebag. The little magnet “Yay! Novel Neighbor!” was a gift from Holland and the sticker was a freebie off the MMD bookshelf.

I’m loving my bookdarts! Do you know what those are?  (affiliate link provided for your shopping convenience!)They are super thin metal arrows that either mark exactly what line you stopped reading OR it can be a line marker for things you want to find easily such as a vocabulary word or an especially beautiful passage or quote.

I’m currently reading The Year of Pleasures for the TBB Book Club. Since it’s a library book, I cannot underline interesting words or passages.Enter my book darts! I marked a couple of places that I want to be able to refer back to. Isn’t that so cool??

What a great present for a book lover like me! Thanks Alison! This was a fun Christmas in July! Don’t forget to check out her blog to see what she got, and Katie’s blog to see what I got her.

Only 150 more days until Christmas in December! (Bookdarts would make a great stocking stuffer for the book lover in your life! I’d love it if you used my affiliate link provided. Thanks for supporting this blog!)