Homemade Christmas Gifts

Plus a short review on The Safe Man by Michael Connelly

The family collectively decided on making homemade Christmas gifts instead of a Secret Santa drawing. When I say “collectively,” what I really mean is that I came up with the idea and didn’t give anyone else a choice.

The issue with our Secret Santa is that my immediate family comprises 70% of the drawee names because we don’t include other, more extended family members (such as our kids’ cousins).

What ends up happening is that we (meaning me and The Husband) are then required to give everyone a gift, except one person. Because despite Secret Santa, our children still expect us to be The Parents, aka, we give them (purchased) Christmas gifts.

In an effort to combat said problem, I made the decision that every person should make every other person a homemade gift. Homemade gifts also include food, such as cookies or brownies.

I thought this would go over fairly well. Our children don’t have a lot of money, and homemade gifts can sometimes (albeit sometimes deservedly) have a bad rep for being cheap. I also have too much stuff, and I don’t want anymore. And I buy better Christmas gifts for myself, anyway.

Except, this idea did not go over well with The Children.

“I have to make how many cookies for everyone?”

“How am I going to have enough time to do that?”

“Why can’t I just get things and not have to give anyone anything?”

Okay, so the last one I made up. This is what I heard, like a little mini-recorder of their voices strung together like an AI voice generator. (In case you want to try out a voice AI, give Snoop Dogg’s voice a whirl. I am going to pre-record my own funeral eulogy using that AI voice.)

Snoop Dogg says homemade gifts are the greatest gift of all, fo shizzle my nizzle.

The Promos

This week, we have two book giveaways. Pick up something fun to read!

Spooky Stories Halloween Giveaway … not sure why I scheduled this for November, but it’s still here.

Let’s Think Our Way Out of This: An All-Genre Giveaway for Stories with Intelligent Characters … if you love a smart protagonist.

A Short Book Review on The Safe Man by Michael Connelly

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Safe Man by Michael Connelly is a something completely different than his Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer modus operandi. By “something different,” I mean it’s like giving homemade Christmas gifts when you’ve done Secret Santa in the past.

Originally published under another pen name, this short read is about Brian, who shows up at the door of a famous writer, Paul Robinette. Paul has a daughter. Brian has a pregnant wife. Paul wants Brian to open a safe. The safe is in Paul’s house, which was recently purchased from an estate.

I’m not going to tell you what will happen in the book. It’s such a short read, you can probably knock it out in an hour. But what I will tell is: it’s a supernatural book.

The thing is, I really dislike it when authors all of a sudden come out with this short book, totally outside their genre. 9.5 times out of 10, I don’t really read the description if the book is from an author I really like. (Victor Methos did that recently in Devil of Black Creek, and I hated the book.) That’s not to say that authors can’t venture into different genres. One-offing a new genre is cheating imho.

The Safe Man was not a scary book, or even a thriller. It was somewhat slow paced for my liking in paranormal. But if you’d like to see how Michael Connelly did being Stephen King, then have a gander.

Happenings

I love Brussels sprouts, so I made up a Thanksgiving side dish for it. Also, bacon. Just sayin’.

If you are looking for some homemade Christmas gifts of your own, I made a family calendar using a CD jewel case and key fobs.

See you in December, as next week is a break. :)

Miss Lady

One of the newsletter readers sent a picture of her gorgeous pup, adopted from a local shelter. Hurray! Miss Lady found her fur-ever home.