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Santathing: irresistable

Once again LibraryThing has done something fresh and marvelous. This time it’s SantaThing.

“You play Santa to a random LibraryThing member, and buy them up $20 worth of books, based on their library or a short description. Someone else does the same to you. LibraryThing orders the books and pays the shipping, so no addresses are exchanged.”

I signed up within minutes of reading about this. How could I not?

(If you want to do this, hurry: sign-up ends Thursday, Dec. 13, 12 Noon Eastern.)

I don’t have many people on my “git list.” My family isn’t close; a few certificates will handle the holiday chores. Sandy and I will buy each other small presents on a special get-away we’re taking after Christmas, but she has this weird fixation that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and all that stuff, so overall we don’t get carried away with Buying and Shopping. She does allow me to buy a small bottle of Drambuie, and while sharing tots of the golden liquid we tear open many silly stocking stuffers — colorful paper clips and that kind of fun foolery — while the Christmas Eve log burns to embers and another year ticks away.

But SantaThing… that’s too adorable to pass up. How could I not want to find what I hope is the right book for someone else? How could I not want to see how they gift me? The best part is how all these Santas are connected: not through family, or work, or some other exigency, but through the passion of reading. Is there anything more wonderfully subversive?

Merry Christmas, not-so-tiny-Tim. Thank you for all you have done for readers and writers and book addicts everywhere.

Posted on this day, other years:

This was written by K.G. Schneider. Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007, at 8:34 pm. Filed under Librarianship, Writing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.