I think my lists have lists this month. I am sure you know the feeling. Each year I spend a lot of time trying to keep crass commercialism out of the Christmas season. As a family, we decorate a tree for charity. We select a theme and then plot together on how to make the tree reflect that theme. This year, given our family's love of the Outer Banks, we decorated the tree with hand-painted shells. We are calling it OBXmas. It has been a yearlong project since we started collecting shells on our vacation last December. Making these ornaments and seeing the trees that others design ensure that this is one of my favorite holiday traditions.

We know that many clubs this month abandon their usual meetings for special holiday celebrations. Some even have told us that they use this month to plan their selections for the following year. If your club is doing anything special this month that you would like to share with other readers, please drop me a note at Carol@bookreporter.com.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Teenreads.com. Isn't it great to have 4+ days to get out of the routine and relax? This holiday weekend marks the beginning of a rather wild six weeks of celebrating. It inspires our poll question, which is about getting books as gifts.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Here's hoping your celebration makes some wonderful memories. I am just cooking for our immediate family as my parents are off visiting my sister in Atlanta. I love to cook and thus am going through "large gathering cooking withdrawal." Thus I am spending the afternoon at my friend Rachel's helping her cook for her 20 guests. Looking forward to chopping. By the way, I have a killer turkey recipe that I created about 10 years ago if any of you need it. I stuff it with herbs and baste it in butter and red wine.