I got books.

GKC

Yes.


Also my wife, daughter and SIL got books.

Likewise, an absent board member I can vouch for.

GKC

I never get books for Christmas, and it isn't from a lack of trying. But I didn't get anything else, either, unless you count the rocking chair I got for my wife.

Christmas titles?

I thank you for asking. Will reply when I return from the family gathering at my wife's mother's house. For whither I am almost in in transit.

GKC

This is the first Christmas in years I didn't get a book. (What I asked for was out of stock)
I got cigarettes instead, but that's okay because we got to re-read The Blessing of Christmas by Benedict.
Love it!!!!

IDK what I've got. I had to leave for work at 7:00 this morning, and I dont get off for another hour, plus about a 45-minute drive home. When I left, everyone was still asleep. I left a breakfast casserole in the crockpot, apple cider simmering on the stove, and instructions to go ahead and open presents without me. I'll open mine when I get home.

But I did let my sons open my gifts to them at midnight because I wanted to see their reaction. My younger son normally sends a wish list about mid-October to cover Christmas and his birthday in January, but I didn't get his list this year. When I saw he'd bought his girlfriend something from Amazon, I got him $100 worth of gift cards to Amazon and iTunes. I know he'll put it to good use.

For my elder son, he asked for a "classy" (as opposed to sporty) watch. I found this REALLY nice Danish-made titanium watch on Overstock.com for a song; the moment I saw it, I KNEW it had DS written all over it. Sure enough, he beamed from ear to ear...not an easy reaction to get from him. Mission accomplished.

Books I got.

BLACKETT'S WAR/Stephen Budiansky. Story of British Boffin who honchoed the scientific effort against the German U-Boats in the Atlantic. Good match for THE TIZZARD MISSION. An ironic book for me to be interested in, given Blackett's actions immediately post-war.

CATHERINE HOWARD/ Lacey Baldwin Smith. Bio of Hank's worst wife.

THE LIONS OF IWO JIMA/Haynes and Warren. Story of Marine Combat Team 28.

OPERATION ICEBERG. Oral history of battle of Okinawa. The most gut-wrenching of the Pacific Island battles, and the most portentous. As seen in more detail in TENNOZAN/Feifer.

CHURCHILL'S BOMB/Graham Farmelo. Early British program and subsequent interaction with the US on the development of the atomic bomb.

ZULU RISING/Ian Knight. Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift.

A HIGHER CALL/Adam Markos and Larry Alexander. Story of two pilots and two planes. And some unexpected action.

COME AND TAKE THEM/Tom Kratman. A libertarian flavored military SF series' latest title. By an author I like, but would not generally recommend here. Molo labe..

THE LAND ACROSS/Gene Wolfe. For obvious reasons.

COMMAND AND CONTROL/Eric Schlosser. Not as complete an account of nuclear incidents as I had hoped, I'm afraid.

SWORDS OF EXODUS/Larry Correia and Mike Kupari. A shot in the dark. A military techno-thriller. I like Correia's other two series, but they are not of the same genera.

ALGER HISS:WHY HE CHOSE TREASON/Christina Shelton. I grew up on Whittaker Chamber's WITNESS. Always like to take another look at the dark side of Hiss.

FORGOTTEN ALLY:CHINA'S WORLD WAR II 1937-1945/Rana Mitter. Wondering how they can make China look.

1920: AMERICA'S GREAT WAR/Robert Conroy. SF military alternate history, by an author I'm growing to like as much as Turtledove.

So far.


GKC

Who would have guessed?

I got some gift cards from my sister and one of my brothers, Assasin's Creed IV from my brother, and new shoes from my parents (I technically got the shoes the day before, since I had to try them first). And money from my grand mother (which will be spent on a ecclesial conference I attend every annually, in January). I also have a tradition with my cousin. We eat and catch a movie. He pays for the food one year, and I pay for the movie. And the next year we switch.

But this will probably be the last Christmas at home. Next year I will probably be working as a priest (Church of Norway).

I got some books too.

A good sign.

Titles?

GKC

Handmaid of the Lord.

Hmmm.

Yes, I've read that.

GKC

I'm reading Das Lied von Bernadette, all in original German.

How did you get so multilingual capable?

GKC

I travelled around the world.

Ah. Perhaps explains why I am monolingual, plus only a little.

GKC

Well, I got:

Grant and Cheape's Periods in Highland History. Necessary for one of my ilk.

Shingleton's High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt. Purportedly given to expand what the giver believes is a deficit in my lifetime study of the American Civil War. I think it is a clandestine attempt to indoctrinate me into sympathy with a reprobate Rebel.

Prados' Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun. WWII, Pacific, Marines -- what else could one wish for in a book? Purportedly a bit revisionist. But it's about the Solomons, so it has to be pretty good.

Not one of these was other than secondhand, gifted to me by the one of whom we shall not speak, but equal in number to all other gifts I received. So the gift has to be pretty good.

Oh, and a hologram of Marse Robert.

Plus, Longellow's, The Song of Hiawatha. Illustrated by Frederick Remington. Which I bought for myself; meaning I got something I've been wanting for decades.