what i (kier) am reading

So, The Girl Who Played with Fire - AMAZING page turner.  You should read it.  I finished it in less than a week.  I've decided on a more light-hearted book for my next read - John Grisham's Skipping Christmas.

I think this sounds like a plan for Nic and I this year!  We've already decided not to exchange gifts this year with anyone and we are hunkering down and celebrating Christmas, just the two of us, in Washington - so maybe we could go on a cruise!

(c&p from wikipedia)

The story focuses on how Luther and Nora Krank try to avoid the frenzy traditionally experienced during the Christmas holiday. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the two bring their daughter Blair to the airport, where she departs for a year-long assignment in a remote area of Peru with thePeace Corps. Nora bemoans the fact the upcoming Christmas will be their first time they are separated as a family, prompting her husband to calculate how much they spent celebrating the holidays the prior year. When he realizes they have little to show for the $6,100 they invested in decorations, gifts, and entertaining, he decides to skip all the hubbub at home and surprise Nora by booking a ten-day Caribbean cruise aboard theIsland Princess.

It doesn't take long for Nora to adjust to the idea of no Christmas shopping, no Christmas tree, and no Christmas Eve party they host every year. To the couple's amazement, their neighbors on Hemlock Street strongly object to their decision to boycott the holiday, because their decision not to decorate their home will jeopardize their winning the coveted prize for best decorated block in the neighborhood. The local Boy Scout troop is dismayed when the Kranks refuse to support them by purchasing a tree, the police are angered when they decline to buy a calendar, and the stationer is upset when he loses their annual order of engraved greeting cards. Luther and Nora find themselves the objects of derision and anxiously await their departure on Christmas Day.