Christmas already?!

So, after all the drama I had this weekend, I figured the rest of the week would be cake. And then I found out that my great-aunt died. She was 101 years old; she lived a very full life! The funeral was yesterday and I was somewhat hesitant to go, mainly because the last time I took a day off my fourth period class took advantage of the sub and went completely crazy. This time, I went overboard - silent reading, ten pages of worksheets, and I asked another teacher to look in on fourth period for me (he has planning that period, and we have a lot of the same students, so he was happy to oblige). The funeral was nice, under the circumstances; I rarely get a chance to see my dad's side of the family, and I enjoyed the chance to catch up and reminisce about Aunt Hazel . And my classes, by all accounts, were well-behaved and worked hard.

Now, on to the Christmas-related postings. I signed up for two Christmas swaps this year:
Dewey and Nymeth have organized the 2nd annual Book Bloggers Christmas Swap. Details are here.
And The Friendly Book Nook is having a Christmas Book Swap. Details are here.

Not Christmas-Swap-related, but still a good idea:

I'm actually pretty low on cash this season (who isn't?), so the majority of my gifts will be homemade. For my "big" purchases, though (family and close friends) I will be buying books, and you should think about doing it, too. The Buy Books for the Holidays Blog has more info and bookish gift ideas.

And with all the drama from this weekend, I completely forgot all about last week's Weekly Geek post. I will get around to announcing a winner soon.