Kat with a K

Welcome to THE CHEER FACTORY!

Thanksgiving is officially over, and I'm more or less ignoring Black Friday, which means . . .

Time for CHEER! A few of you have asked exactly what I mean by that. Basically, it's short for Christmas cheer or holiday cheer, but this particular usage of "cheer," and the spreading of, originated, I believe, with author Maureen Johnson. You can read her blog posts on the subject here.

So this year, I will be following her lead and devoting the blog to spreading CHEER from now until New Year's. I have a variety of plans, and have outlined them below, but if you have any CHEER REQUESTS, please let me know! What would make YOUR holiday season more CHEERful?

1. Holiday cards for all! Yes, the real, paper kind. If I don't have your address, email me! And most of the cards I have are secular Christmas cards, so if you'd be offended by that, please mention. I have a few Hannukah cards left, plus some non-holiday winter CHEER cards and some religious Christmas cards.

2. MORNING CHEER. This will be like Morning Coffee, but different. I will give you a holiday song to listen to each morning, plus, if I have time, some links and general commentary.

3. Gift Guide Extravaganza!
3a. Remember the gift guide review I wrote last year? (Did I only do one? I thought there were others. Hm.) Anyway, I'm going to try to do a few this year.
3b. And I will write my own gift guides! Definitely a few about books for various demographics, and maybe some other stuff.
3c. I will also write you PERSONALIZED GIFT GUIDES. I did some gift coaching on Twitter last year and enjoyed it, so I'm going to put it here this year. I can recommend books for practically anyway, and can do music or movies or other stuff for some people. So send me the specifics of your hard-to-shop-for person (at least age, gender, any known interests, whatever else you want to tell me) and I will suggest things. Also, let me know if I can answer publicly here or if you just want an email back.

4. Music! I have very definite opinions on holiday music, and I will be sharing them. Lucky you. I will give you at least one iMix for iTunes users, and probably some album suggestions here. (If I see you in person, I am also liable to start shoving CDs at you, as Caitlin and Bobby can attest.)

5. Lists! I love lists. I'm working on a list of favorite holiday movies and one of holiday books. Any other lists you'd like?

6. Recipes! There will be baking. You'll get a recipe or two.

7. Answers! I know a lot of random holiday stuff, and I love research, so if you have QUESTIONS about holiday history, traditions, etc., let me know! Or about what I do for holidays, or, I don't know, whatever. I also give pretty good advice, so if you have a weird holiday situation with your family or friends or something, I'd be happy to give an opinion.

That's all the categories of CHEER I can think of right now. Do you have others I should add? Tell me!