Happy Hump Day, Friends!

I hope you are having a great week.  We are slowly still getting back into routine after having almost a week off of school for Thanksgiving Break and an unexpected (but so glorious) snow day!

The snow is slowly starting to melt and it’s making me sad.  I’m already ready for another huge snowstorm!  I just love winter so much.  Everything is so breathtakingly beautiful here right now, I could never live in a place that didn’t get snow!

What I DON’T love is the fact that my town apparently has some new kind of fancy LED stoplights and they don’t melt the snow when they are covered (insert face plant emoji here).  I live in a large town!  In a suburb of CHICAGO!  This is not the first time we’ve had snow in this area…It’s insane. There have been tons of car accidents over the past few days while the fire department is apparently trying to manually clear them off.  How crazy is that?!  It’s been scary to drive around here…but not scary enough that I was prevented from picking up Chinese food for dinner last night.  #priorities #favoritefood

I have such a great giveaway for you today!  But first..Day 2 of the Quotes Challenge:

3 Days 3 Quotes Challenge

Thank you so much Facing the Story for nominating me to take part in the 3 Days, 3 Quotes Challenge! Here are the rules:

RULES:

• Thank the person who nominated you.
• Post one quote per day for three days.
• Nominate three blogs per day to take part in this challenge.

I don’t post every single day but I am taking part in this for 3 consecutive blog posts. You can read my favorite quote of all time that I posted on Day 1 here: SNOW, My Favorite Quote, and a Book Review: Little Fires Everywhere {Celeste Ng}

And for Day 2, here’s my favorite quote that perfectly sums up the relationship between my 3 best friends and I:

“Here’s to the nights that turned into mornings with the friends that turned into family”

There isn’t a better quote to describe us!  I’ve actually been saying this quote to them for years.  Love you, girls (you can read more about our special relationship here: 4 Best Friends, 1 Alma Mater)

I tag:

Mud and Stars

Asha-A Cat, A Book, and a Cup of Tea

Cennins Book Reviews

And now…a GIVEAWAY!!!

I absolutely LOVE this book.  Like…really love.  The message behind it basically is for kids to leave toys they no longer play with in a bag for Santa.  Santa’s elves can fix them up to be like new again and can give them to other kids so they can have presents on Christmas.  Santa takes the toys but leaves the bag behind so kids can fill it up year after year.

Each book comes with this awesome (large) bag for children to fill with toys that they no longer play with and can leave for Santa:

This would be a perfect book for any parent, grandparent, or teacher.  As a former teacher myself, I can easily imagine the wonderful class discussion about charity and generosity that could occur after reading this aloud.  My students would have loved this book!

As a fun bonus…check out the adorable way this book and bag were shipped to me!  When I opened my mailbox, I was greeted by the cutest and most festive packaging.  If you win this giveaway, yours will also be shipped from the author in this adorable packaging!  If you don’t have children at your house, this can be shipped to another address where a child can be greeted with this adorable package.  I couldn’t wait to rip it open!

It’s such a cute book with such an important message.  Teaching children about the importance of charity is a year round lesson but especially during the holiday season.  The illustrations are wonderful, the rhyming is wonderful, everything about this book is wonderful.  I absolutely loved reading it.  The icing on the cake is that a portion of each book sold goes to Toys for Tots.

A Conversation with Kendra Esbrook, in her own words:

Briefly give a description of your book:

Christmas is just around the corner! David and Will are busy making their list for Santa. Suddenly a troublesome thought enters their minds; what if the Elves can’t make all the toys?  The boys have a brilliant idea, one that will help Santa get toys to everyone when the elves are behind.

How did you create the idea for your book?

I’m a stay-at-home mom who wanted a better tradition than Elf on the Shelf. I wanted my kids to understand the joy of giving. So when I saw all the personalized bags from Santa to the kids being sold I asked my friend to make us one from the kids to Santa, and we started leaving old toys for him. I couldn’t believe no one else had written about it yet, so I did!

What audience would be most interested in your book?

Anyone who believes in Christmas magic.

Where can your book be purchased?

Amazing page to come… for now just here:

 

Use 3 adjectives to describe your book:

Heartwarming, merry, inspirational

***GIVEAWAY***

Would you like a chance to win a copy of this adorable story?

I have THREE copies of A Bag for Santa to give away!  THREE!

The autographed books will be mailed directly to the winners (US only for this giveaway).  To be entered, please complete these 2 simple steps:

1. Follow and/or subscribe to my blog

2. Leave a comment below telling me your favorite thing about the holiday season

**You must complete both of these steps to be eligible for the giveaway**

Giveaway will end Friday morning at 6:00 CDT and the 3 winners will be randomly chosen and announced in Friday morning’s blog post.

Make sure you check back on Friday to see if you’ve won (you will have 48 hours from the time I post the winners to email me your mailing address.  If I don’t hear from you, I will pick a new winner).

If you already follow and/or subscribe to my blog, you are still eligible…just leave a comment below to be entered 🙂

Good luck!  Can’t wait to read your comments!

It would really help me if you could follow/subscribe to my blog.  Also, please “like” my Facebook page (www.fb.com/bookcoffeehappy),  follow me on Twitter@bookcoffeehappy, and follow me on Instagram (@bookcoffeehappy)!