Worth It, *Holiday Edition*
a best books round-up + gift ideas
Hey! This post is so packed with gifty links that it’s too long for your email, so click through to see the whole thing.
Having spent last weekend amongst the razzle-dazzle (and body odor!) of New York City in December, I’m very much in the holiday spirit. While there, I even learned that roasted chestnuts is a New York thing, which made me excited because the chestnuts roasting song is definitely a top 3 Christmas song, but I felt weird singing it because I’d never even seen a chestnut roasting! Now I have!
So the Between Two Things banner got a little holiday glow-up, and I’m looking back over the books I read this year with gifting in mind (that means lots of links!).
I’ve picked my FAVORITE 15 BOOKS and sorted them by hypothetical gift recipients. If you’re not sure, ask me in the comments and I will play literary matchmaker. If you buy someone a book from this list and they hate it, just blame it on me. I am prepared to defend my choices—with citations!
For your fun co-worker who sends you tiktoks all day:
Pineapple Street or Romantic Comedy
(for total indulgence, pair it with a tub of white chocolate peppermint Jeni’s)
For your spicy, almost-middle-aged lady friend:
Amazing Grace Adams, Nightbitch, The School for Good Mothers, Momfluenced
(to make the patriarchy go down smoothly, pair it with some Basil Hayden)
For your brother-in-law who makes a point of knowing who wins the Pulitzer:
Demon Copperhead, Cloud Cuckoo Land, or The Remains of the Day
(pair it with a hand-crafted nightstand book holder—because if they would read these books, they would use a nightstand book holder)
For the armchair-philosopher cousin who listens to nerdy podcasts:
(pair it with a bulk package of these very good pens)
For the lovable aunt with lots of big feelings:
We All Want Impossible Things or You Could Make this Place Beautiful
(pair it with the world’s best “at-home” pants)1
Note: At-Home Pants pair well with Night Cheese!
For the reluctant reader who needs pages to turn themselves (and can handle some gore):
All the Sinners Bleed or Sharp Objects
(to light their pages, but also to help them look under the bed for bad guys, pair it with the best of all book lights)
More non-book recommendations below!
Among my greatest life accomplishments is that I have parented for eleven years without buying an Elf on the Shelf. Every year the children ask, and every year I say no. This year, in a moment of inspiration, I told the twins that the elf had to choose the children it wanted to visit, and it had not chosen them.
Were they crestfallen? Yes.
Did they question their inherent worth as human beings? Maybe.
But did I have to stay up late WRAPPING MY OWN TOILET? No. No I did not.
Anyway here’s a v funny lady (
) saying all the things I’ve ever wanted to say about Elf on the Shelf. Be free, mothers!I want to tell mothers everywhere that you DO NOT have to spend Christmas Eve dipping Cheerios into chocolate and sprinkles and pretending they’re tiny donuts for elves. Drink a glass of wine and howl at the moon. Walk down the central reservation of the M62 in a Victorian nightgown. Drive to the nearest forest, then live in the forest forever with some squirrels. None of those things would be as batshit as this.
My kids are 7, 7, 9, and 11, and this silly game is hitting the spot this year.
It’s not Christmas in my house until we’ve busted out the watercolors and done some Jenna Rainey tutorials.
(Important: Splurge on real watercolor paper or it won’t work and you will think you are terrible but really your paper is terrible!)
We make these every Christmas and give them away. They are soooooo easy but people love them! We call them Ritz-Rolos?!
Here are two of my favorite holiday songs you probably haven’t heard:
When the weather cools, some families are bonded by their strong opinions about football teams. Mine is bonded—and divided—by our strong opinions about blankets.
We have tried them all. We have wearable blankets (like these) that my more bookish children wear for 48-hour stretches on the weekends, even while hoverboarding around the house with a book open. We have fuzzy blankets, fur blankets, knit blankets, lightweight blankets, and outdoor blankets (like this one, which holds at least 4 of us at a time). What can I say? We are a family that appreciates coziness. We do a lot of snuggling. With the exception of my husband, we all understand that unless you are fully protected under the cover of a blanket, something bad might happen to you while you are relaxing.
We are always making rules around the blankets. I declare one blanket the Living Room Blanket and one the Playroom Blanket, and I insist that they never, ever leave the boundaries of those rooms. Sure enough, that very evening, someone shows up to dinner in the kitchen wrapped in the Playroom Blanket, which follows them when they go upstairs at night. Three days later I find it on someone’s bed and yell about how this is NOT THE BEDROOM BLANKET and we start the whole cycle over again.
It’s maddening. So, at least once a year, I buy a blanket and declare it MOM’S BLANKET. No one may take it outside, drag it on the floor, leave it on the porch, or use it to build a fort. It goes where Mom says it goes, because it belongs only to Mom and should be touched only by Mom. This year, this is that blanket.
The day it arrived, I gave my family a whole speech about how it belonged to ME. I found it, I read reviews about it, and I paid for it. It was mine.
I left town for the weekend, and when I came back, it was on the kitchen floor, and the dog was on top of it. When I questioned them about the blanket, the kids ganged up and told me it was my greatest blanket purchase yet. They said I should be generous with my things. They said don’t you always make us share?!?
I haven’t seen it since.
Happy gifting / snuggling / crafting / playing / reading!
P.S. If you read my last post, a bleak, quasi-unhinged rant about dystopian entertainment, you may be confused to find that I am a lifestyle blogger now. I am large, I contain multitudes!
YES THEY ARE ONE-HUNDRED-DOLLAR SWEATPANTS! IF YOU ARE AN EXPERT AT SITTING, YOU NEED APPROPRIATE SITTING GEAR!
Dipping Cheerios into chocolate? Good grief. I’m glad I missed that one.
It took me a few days to get to it, but that was very fun to read. Thank you for the inspiration and ideas. I really liked seeing the list of all the books you read. Please let's just plan on being neighbors in heaven. K?