As I write this, I am in the airport waiting for a flight to Florida where I am meeting up with my friend Starr for a weekend of catching up at the beach. Okay, I confess that this is a trip purely to hit Gold Status on Continental, a quasi "mileage run." I was 1,200 miles short of the required 50,000 miles to "go gold" and decided to do a short trip for pure fun to hit the goal.

The tree is up, the house is decorated, the cards have been designed --- and shockingly even ordered --- and I am moving on to holiday shopping. According to the results of our most recent poll, 78% of you are planning to give books this holiday season, and to the 7% of you overachievers who already have your shopping done, I so envy you. Both of my boys want books, which makes me smile.

As I write this note, the entire sky outside looks fat and white. You almost can see the snow trapped back there waiting to start falling onto us. My younger son is running from window to window waiting for the first flake. I tried the "watched pot never boils" line on him, but it went right over his head. He has new snow boots and new snow pants, and he is eager to wear them both. For me a snow day means that the phone rings at 5:30, and since Fridays I write and work from home, today will be all about interruptions. As if this season already did not have enough of those!

Happy >Turkey Day!

Are you getting excited for the holidays? At Kidsreads.com we love the holidays! To get yourself in the mood, be sure to check out our annual roundup of winter reads that you'll want to curl up with. We have also come up with a list of some great books that you might want to put on your holiday wish list. Remember, grownups always feel great about getting you books. You can see those titles in our What to Give/What to Get Guide here.