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Happy Thanksgiving!

My family has a somewhat unorthodox Thanksgiving tradition. We're spread out all over the country, so every year we meet at a central point: Las Vegas. We get breakfast in the morning then participate in a poker tournament then we do a buffet for dinner, no cooking or cleaning for anyone! It's a ton of fun.

For those who celebrate it, what're your Thanksgiving traditions?

That's really awesome, Kara! It sounds like a lot of fun. I hope you have a wonderful time reuniting with your family!

My extended family is a little crazy, so my parents and I have recently started staying home. My mom is an excellent cook, and I'm her assistant, so together we make a little bit of the traditional Thanksgiving spread. It's so relaxing and low-key with just the three of us. We don't have to clean the whole house for company, and we can eat whenever we want (and whenever it's done).

My parents house is the gathering place for our Florida family. We start off with the local Turkey trot and spend the rest of the day with food and board games and football. It's wonderfully cliché and I love it! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'm in the UK so we don't have Thanksgiving but today is my first Christmas. My dad is deployed abroad for Christmas so we're having a family Christmas today (which also coincides with my little brother's 10th birthday). Happy fake Christmas everyone!

Happy fake Christmas, Stefani!

I'm glad you get to spend time with your dad, Stefani. Happy fake Christmas to you and your family!

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! And seasons greetings to the entire group! May you be surrounded by love today, and at some point, get to curl up with a good book:)

For those who like Kristin Hannah and have kindles/use the kindle app, Amazon has six of her books for $1.99 today for the daily deal!

Great tip, Megan!

How did those who celebrate it enjoy the holiday?

My fiancé and I were in Dallas (his extended family lives there), and we do Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. We had a great time!

My brother and his family came to the main land and spent the holidays over here with our family that lives here. It was so nice to see them. It is fun to have Christmas morning with young kids.

Hi Nicole,

I am currently reading The Rosie Project and really enjoying it. I feel like I am reading a whole book about Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. It is really funny.

In the UK it is only nine hours until 2015! That means only nine and a half hours until I dive right in to reading all the books I've got planned for the year.

That's awesome, Stefani! It's still before noon on the 31st here, and I'm hoping to finish The Princess Bride to complete my monthly challenge, but I've been itching to get started on all the great books I have planned for next year.

What will you read first?

Good luck finishing that before midnight! I think my first reads will be the ones I've just started, When the Devil Drives and Wildfire Volume 1. The first one I'll read that I haven't started this year will either be the sequel to When the Devil Drives which is Bred in the Bone: A Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod Novel or my January buddy read which is Dark Places.

What are you planning on reading first?

I'm planning to finish Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. I'm actually slowing myself down because I've already hit my 2014 goal, and I'd like this one to count for 2015. :)

I think I'm going to read Clariel by Garth Nix. I really enjoyed the Abhorsen trilogy several years ago, and I'm crossing my fingers that this prequel will be just as good.

My first book for 2015 will be The Golem and the Jinni. I just started it last night, it's great so far!

Only 15 minutes to go and it's 2015 in Finland!

Happy New Year everyone! :)

My first book finished in 2015 will likely be a re-read of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or Eldest.

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy new year!

My first book finished in 2015 is hopefully A Clash of Kings. I started it last summer and got bored with it but now continued..

I just finished The Rosie Project. Still just the afternoon here. Will start the new year reading Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm starting 2015 with Tender Is the Night by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. I've intended to read this for ages, and now it's up for a January group read in another group, so I decided to finally give it a try.

Happy New Year everyone!

Nicole wrote: "Can anyone recommend me a book to start a fresh year?
I am 14, and I like any kind of books except for the really heavy ones (what I mean is those with a lot of words I might not know and difficult..."
What are your areas of interest?

Happy New Year everybody! Greetings from Krakow... Hope everybody has a great beginning of the year. I will start my year with two books This Is How You Lose Her and The Gremlins: The Lost Walt Disney Production, A Royal Air Force Story by Flight Lieutenant Roald Dahl. I am really exited by both of these books. The first one because is my first TBR twins of the year and the second because it was a book quite hard to find for me (I live in Poland, so what is not kindle tends to be expensive and sometimes difficult) but last month I was working in Spain an I found in Amazon a used copy for just 6 Euros and it turns out that it looks brand new. I love it because this is not an easy book to find....

Just curious... Does anyone else continue to read books by authors that you don't exactly love but can't get enough of? I was thinking about Chuck Palahniuk in particular for me. I typically only rate his books a 3, but I can't stop reading him. Even though the books aren't that great they are just so twisted and weird that I have to read more. He is one author that I would like to read all of his works even though I usually end his novels thinking, WTF. Sometimes a good WTF, sometimes it's just a WTF. Haha

Alisia I feel the exact same way about Chuck Palahniuk. I started reading him back in high school because it seemed like the 'artsy' thing to do :). Now that I am thirty I still read his books and always sit there thinking WTF am I reading? Yet I read on anyway. It has been a long while since I read one of his and I know he has some new ones out. I may add him to my list for February

Hah! I gave up on Palahniuk just after Rant, as I recall. I loved that book, but after that, everything he published just... no longer appealed to me. I read an advance-rader copy of Beautiful You recently and was thoroughly bored.

Marina wrote: "I'm starting 2015 with Tender Is the Night by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. I've intended to read this for ages, and now it's up for a January group read in another group, so I decided t..."

I loved this book almost as much as The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of my favorites!! :)

I see there is another group on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ with the same name as us. We have more members and our threads look more organized. They have over 1000 members, I don't want to steal their thunder but what if our mods reached out to see if they wanted to join us and combine the two groups? Just an idea. They may be just fine doing their own thing.

Hey guys what book is good to make a book report

Ddyona wrote: "Hey guys what book is good to make a book report"

What age group?

Hi everyone!!!! Its cold here tonight in Missouri! I am curled up with my kitties surfing Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ! Lots going on in the lovely group, hope I can keep up!

I start calling weather cold (during the winter) when it gets maybe below -20 degrees Celsius, so I always have to check what other people think is cold... Now it's again unusually warm, around 0 degrees. Where's our winter?!

0° C is about what our temperature in my part of Texas is right now and we are sick of being so cold. On the other hand I don't think it is very hot outside until it's at least 100° F and that would probably be a serious heat wave in Finland.

We have had sometimes about that. Then again we don't usually have A/C at home and the sun shines practically all day, and I mean almost 24 hours, so you can really feel it. I didn't open my curtains last summer at all because of that. I don't mind it but it's difficult for those in poor health. -40 C isn't rare, especially at north, and sometimes it has been -50 C. Then it gets a bit difficult to live normally. So we can have -40 C in February and +30 C in May or in July at the latest.

I call anything below +5 cold. Anything below 0 is far too cold for me.

Its about -6c here right now. Not too bad considering the far below freezing temps we had this last weekend. So looking forward to Spring when the leaf buds and flowers come back!

The best winter weather is around -10 C. Then it's not too cold, you can wear normal clothes, the sky is often clear, usually there is snow that makes everything white and bright and when there's snow it's not too slippery to walk, either. These warm winters are so not nice. And come summer the hottest place in Europe is sometimes the northern part of Finland. That's weird. I think it happened last summer, too.

We have surprisingly not had much snow at all here so far this season. But the cold gives me a reason to stay bundled up with my blanket and my kindle!

I live in South Florida and it's been low 80's and humid the last few days. Quite annoying as we would really like a break from humidity in the "winter".

Right now I would take your humidity and 80° over our freezing temps any day. Fortunately we are about to warm up into the 50s. I hate cold weather.

Record low in Michigan today! Good thing I'm in Arizona.

I'm so glad that I live in mild Seattle, WA. It may rain frequently, but our temperatures rarely get very far below freezing. Today it is a sunny(ish) 42 degrees F!

Cassandra wrote: "I'm so glad that I live in mild Seattle, WA. It may rain frequently, but our temperatures rarely get very far below freezing. Today it is a sunny(ish) 42 degrees F!"

Yep. Like Seattle, the extremes in Portland warrant very little to complain about.

Well I like that we have all four seasons. You can have different hobbies and the nature is beautiful. And we have warm houses, I don't even need to keep all the radiators on at the moment. I have also slept outside in a tent (or a lean-to) during the winter, it's quite nice when you have a stowe or a fire.

I also had a relative who was in the long range reconnaissance troops during the war: deep behind enemy lines for days or even weeks, even during the winter time when it was -20 C or colder, long distances to ski (or walk), not always chances to rest or to have warm food, no tents, always on the look-out for the enemy. Well they did have amphetamine, that was probably useful sometimes, but still... Those guys were tough. I'll start complaining when it gets to -30 C, then I start to having troubles with my shoes.

Cassandra wrote: "I'm so glad that I live in mild Seattle, WA. It may rain frequently, but our temperatures rarely get very far below freezing. Today it is a sunny(ish) 42 degrees F!"

Cassandra we are almost neighbours! I am a mere 2-2.5 hr drive away. I think we get the same rain you get. Except right now I am a cool 3 degrees Celsius.

Are you in Vancouver (or thereabouts)? I really need to get my passport so I can go visit Canada - I've never been before.

I am pretty close to Vancouver, about 30 minutes east. I live between the Peace Arch Border and the Truck Crossing in Lynden. You should come to Vancouver, especially since the Canadian dollar is doing so poorly right now ;)

Hah, a few US Marines are training in Finland at the moment. I guess they got exactly what they were looking for because it has been -39 C at the coldest. A couple of pics here: