Hello! It is I, your festive bookshop babe and this is another live update from the bookshop. Thanks for all the love on the double-issue special last weekend, you were great company. I’m just here today this week, but there’ll be bonus Receipts in the run up to Christmas when I’m working loads of extra days and everyone is going feral for last-minute gifts. Can’t wait.
Loads of new subscribers this week so Hello if you found me via my chat on Steven Lenton’s podcast Studiomate Steve, and big thanks to all the folk who upgraded their subs this week to read my 12 Things of Christmas. Remember, ‘tis the season for giving, and shares, re-stacks and recommendations are all on my Christmas list. Ta!
First things first - rifle through all the customer orders and see if there’s anything I want. Second things second - open the door and actually let some customers in...
Want to see today’s advent door in the window display?
A gaggle of school children pass the bookshop and the teacher explains that the new book that gets delivered to their classroom each month comes from this very bookshop. Wow, are they not impressed. I don’t know where they’re on their way to but they don’t come in. One of them says Hello to the Christmas tree in the window even though I, a human, am right there, waving.
There’s a note in the diary about which customers I’m to hide things from should they come into the shop. Mr X’s order is Christmas gifts for Mrs X so don’t let her see them if she comes in. And she will, because she’s also ordered some books… which might be presents for Mr X? Let’s hope they don’t come in together.
“I feel like Scrooge saying it though”.
(Wonder what he said? Probably something like “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead, but if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”)
Sold both the miniature Elmer the Elephant finger puppets, which I’m a bit sad about because I’d made friends with one of them and hoped to buy him before Christmas.
Business Mum, if you are reading this - WE HAVE A TEABAG CRISIS!!!!!!!!
Well, the weather is being really unreasonable. It’s flippin’ raining! No one is going to go Christmas shopping in the rain! That’s not what Christmas shopping looks like - with hoods up and brollies and all the damp paper bags, urgh. No, no, no, this won’t do. I’m going to eat this Mini Roll and it better be cold and crisp out there by the time I’m finished. Honestly! We’re trying to run a business here…
*eats a Mini Roll* Are these good, or are these awful?
It has stopped raining! A few people come to collect their orders. Nothing much very exciting happening. I suppose I should read a bit of this month’s book club choice because I haven’t started it yet and the discussions are on… Monday, crikey, where did the first half of December go? I should probably buy some gifts. I’m getting everyone this.
A lady comes in, picks up the Private Eye Annual and brings it to the till. She starts to enquire about another book and then gets her phone out and says “I’m going to have to leave it - I’ve had a message!” and leaves the shop suddenly. Obviously, I hope it wasn’t some sort of terrible news but I feel from the way she left that it was not, so let’s instead imagine the nicest message you could get that would stop you from buying the Private Eye Annual. ‘My waters have broken!’ or ‘I’ve just roasted a chicken, do you want to come over for a sandwich?’ or ‘Come and see this dog, it’s wearing a hat!’
Speaking of dogs, I’m keen on this new book in the shop. Sara Ogilvie is really great at illustrating dogs. Of course, there is not a rough collie, because there never is, but I won’t hold it against this lovely book, which is the perfect gift for any toddler that likes cats, I mean dogs!
Oh god it’s 4 pm and it’s been such a dull afternoon I’ve forgotten to write to you. Business Mum texts to remind me I have not updated a photo of today’s window advent to Facebook. Fans of small wooden toys in boxes are on the edge of their seats, waiting to hit Like! Of course you guys already know from the video above, that today’s treat is a Nutcracker, which is a good opportunity to show you this book that I might get for my daughter or maybe this book and also remind you the ideal gift for any young ballet dancer at Christmas is A Dancer’s Dream by
andI congratulate a customer on the colour of their credit card (it is neon orange), for goodness sake, I am the dullest person who ever lived.
I’m selecting some funny picture books for a postal customer today, and because I want them to have the really good ones I keep discounting them to get them under budget. Really, this is a terrible business model.
My tiny bookseller colleague has arrived to help me cash up spend money. But before we make our purchases and close up the shop, she’s just got to re-enact the whole story from One Christmas Wish with some decorations off the Christmas tree. Sigh. (This is another gorgeous festive illustrated book that we’d heartily recommend, by the way.) Her antlers have flopped, so I guess it’s time to go home!
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I will avert the tea bag crisis in the morning.
"One of them says Hello to the Christmas tree in the window even though I, a human, am right there, waving." Actually laughing out loud :)