The festive season is coming closer

Now I’m sure you would all like to know that December 25th is seven weeks away. That’s right – seven weeks today Thursday November 6th is Christmas Day. Lots of stores have been decorated for a while now and it will get worse as the weeks go by.

I don’t go overboard with presents for the grandchildren these days but one thing I do like to give them are books. For Birthdays and Christmas there is at least one book wrapped and given with love from us.

Apart from picking up the odd special interest one in good condition from Op/Thrift/Charity shops Dh and I love to go to a warehouse in Collingwood- Dirt Cheap Books – that sells new books for $5 or less.

Last year they started an email listing of customers and would let us know when they got new stock in etc.

Normally only open at the weekend last month they opened during the week just for their email clients and were offering children’s books at 3 for $10 – couldn’t have come at a better time.

After printing off the email – a necessity or no sale – we zoomed off to the city for a couple of hours of pleasure. Doubled when we got there and found they had also included adult books as well.

So not only have I managed to buy Chrissie stuff but have also been able to get some of those ‘’heres a little something for you ‘cose I love you’ gifts for during the next year.

For example one of the girls has started to take an interest in The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. Even tho’ these are not brand new publications, by that I mean they have been in print for several years, our top price bookshops are charging about $12 a copy for them; Big W and Kmart charge about $9.

So I have been able to get 3 in the series for $10 which is close to the lowest price available to me retail.

One of the boys is starting to read Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer and they are even more expensive so I almost whooped for joy when I found a couple I knew he hadn’t read.

I suppose some would say it wasn’t a cheap visit – we paid $100 altogether – but I came out with 21 children’s books and Dh picked up some to keep him going for a little while.

I do put some cash aside each month for the grandchildren to get their Christmas presents so ‘my bill’ was already budgeted for lol