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    Contest alert — The gift that keeps on giving …

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    I haven’t done a contest in a while. And hey, it’s Christmastime. So let’s do a contest. I’ll give away the following:

    1) Copy of Karma Girl and T-shirt

    2) Copy of Hot Mama and T-shirt

    3) Copy of Jinx

    How to enter: Just leave a comment on this post telling me about the worst or best Christmas/Hanukkah/birthday/other present you’ve ever gotten. I’ll draw the winners on Wednesday and announce them on the blog.

    So what’s the worst Christmas present I’ve ever received? An olive tray.

    Yes, Virginia, there are things called olive trays. You use them to serve olives at parties. They are long, skinny dishes, just wide enough for olives and nothing else. It still boggles my mind that someone, somewhere, decided to create a dish just to serve olives — and that I ended up with one of them.

    Why was this a bad present? For starters, I hate olives. Hate ’em. Hate ’em. I can’t stress that enough. The tray itself was fairly harmless, sturdy white ceramic. The only problem was that it was an olive tray — which meant you could only put olives in it and nothing else. It wasn’t even wide enough to put Hershey kisses in, unless I lined them up just so.

    Of course, the person who gave me this had no idea that I didn’t like olives, which is why she also gave me a jar of olives to serve in the tray. Sigh. You know it’s a bad present when you tear the paper off the box and start hoping that it’s really an umbrella inside.

    So what happened to the olive tray? Well, every year at my newspaper, we gather up all the items people have sent us (we can’t accept freebies), hold a silent auction for the newspaper staff to bid on whatever they want, and donate the money raised to our Santa Pal charity. The olive tray got donated to the cause. And someone at the newspaper actually bought it. I don’t know who or for how much, but it went home with someone that year.

    Still, I think about the tray every Christmas — and how people reacted to it. My boss at the newspaper was practically crying with laughter when I brought the olive tray in for the action and told her that I’d gotten it for Christmas. Several folks looked at me and said “Um, that’s different,” in strained voices. Other people looked at me like I was making up the whole story — like I’d actually bought the tray for myself. Sigh.

    What about you guys? What’s the worst present you’ve ever gotten? Share in the comments for a chance to win. Or just to vent. 😎

  • Two weeks and counting down …

    3 Comments

    Do you guys realize it’s only two weeks until Crimmus? I’m so not ready. Must … wrap … more presents … :rolleyes:

    What about you guys? Are you ready to deal with the holiday madness yet?

  • 916 and counting …

    Finished The Moneypenny Diaries by Kate Westbrook.

    This is a James Bond-related book, focusing on M’s famous secretary, Miss Moneypenny. Basically, the book is a year of journal entries from Moneypenny’s point of view during 1962, when she became involved in the Cuban missile crisis, among other adventures.

    The book manages to weave in quite a bit of the Bond lore from the Ian Fleming titles while still making Moneypenny an independent character with her own adventures. During the course of the year, Moneypenny finds out what happened to her father, is asked to be a double agent, and falls in love with a man who may or may not be an enemy spy. I found it interesting to read about Bond’s world from the point of view of someone else.

    For those who might not be so familiar with the Bond novels, there are plenty of footnotes about various characters and events mentioned (and yes, Bond himself does appear throughout the book). The footnotes are helpful, but after a while, they started to annoy me simply because there were so many of them. Having to read them interrupted the flow of the story for me.

    Overall, I’m giving this one a thumbs up, but really, Bond fans will probably enjoy it more than other folks.

    Up next: Warsworn by Elizabeth Vaughn.

    Books in my TBR pile: About 10.

  • For a good cause …

    Lots of authors (including yours truly), editors, agents, and others have donated books, critiques, and more goodies for the For Jo Leigh auction. The auction will help author Jo Leigh with medical expenses related to her husband’s passing.

    I’m offering Karma Girl and Hot Mama T-shirts and signed copies of all three Bigtime books. Here’s the link to my stuff. Hope you can check it out. :ww: