SantaThing 2022!

It's that time of year again—this is our SIXTEENTH annual SantaThing!

Important links
- SantaThing page
- SantaThing Help/FAQs
- Blog post
- Donations thread

You can edit your SantaThing entry at any time by going to the SantaThing page, and scrolling down a bit to "Your SantaThings." Each entry has an "(edit)" link to the far right of that line. Click on the member name next to a SantaThing profile to read about their preferences and leave suggestions!

Any questions? Post them in this thread, see the SantaThing Help page for FAQs, or email me directly at kate@librarything.com.

The most exciting time of the year. :)

Wow, what a surprise!

Yay! SantaThing!

Unfortunately I will not be able to participate this year, since I won't have time to properly sit down and pick books for my santee. But I wish everyone a merry SantaThing nonetheless!

Will we be having the holiday card exchange this year? I think I'll sit out of SantaThing as I've gotten donation each year and have enough books. I would like to do the card exchange though.

I may change my mind, but at the moment I don't plan to participate (for the first time ever). I found SantaThing more stressful than fun last year with the changes in the program which are continuing this year.

I'm glad it's starting early. I too am less glad that the hardest part - carefully picking appropriate books, is again shoehorned into only a few days. But I'm very happy it's here and remains a fun part of LT.

>7 reading_fox: >6 thornton37814: >4 Petroglyph: Thanks for the feedback, y'all. We hear what you're saying and we've decided to push the deadline to pick books to Monday, December 5 at 12pm EST. We hope this helps!

Are there some rules again this year for selecting items for our Santees? Such as selecting books from a series, etc? Last year there were some rules I did not know about and my selections got over ridden by LT staff. That made SantaThing picks not my choice but LT staffer choices, very stressful for me. Please be sure to tell us all the rules before we start.

>8 katemcangus: Fantastic to have a bit of extra time for book picking, thank you! I was contemplating how feasible it was to select books while travelling overseas for work, this makes all the difference :-)

So happy you do this every year. Can't believe it is that time of year already. Hope everyone has a fun time!!

Are we able to request donations to participate this year?

>9 LadyoftheLodge: I don't remember any specifics of what we changed last year, but I'd say as a general rule in regards to series, don't choose a book from the middle of the series, unless your Santee has already noted that they've read/own the earlier titles in the series.

Generally speaking though, we do reserve the right to make changes to the picks last minute.

This is never something we *want* to do (for one thing, it makes the ordering take more time, and we're always under a time crunch!), but sometimes we have to, if the items selected have changed in price, or availability, or if we note that the member has already listed the pick in their LT catalog (and we don't want to buy duplicates).

>12 DominiqueMarie: Absolutely! You can read more about it here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/345664

Is it an option for future years to add an ebook store other than Kindle? For those of us who have different ereaders and are outside of the USA, that would be great! I understand if it's impossible because of technical reasons, but I thought I'd ask :).

>1 katemcangus: I signed up and paid for SantaThing, but I don't really understand how it works. The instructions say "You pay $15–$50 and pick your favorite bookseller. We match you with a participant, and you play Santa by selecting books for them. Another Santa does the same for you, in secret. LibraryThing does the ordering, and you get the joy of giving AND receiving books!"

There was no option for me to be matched with a participant -- the choices were for me or for a friend (with name and address required). I don't mind buying a SantaThing book for my friend, but would like to know how it would work for you to do the matching instead.

>16 fasterhorses: Once registration finishes, LT will match people. You will get a name of a user to select for and what budget and bookstores to work with (and other comments they added - but not their address - LT keeps that). Someone will get the details for you and pick for you.

You select the books for the Santee assigned to you from their bookstore and submit them on a page here in LT. Other users can also comment with recommendations and ideas. Once all selections are done, LT will order the books based on the selections (and if needed the recommendations) - it may not be the books selected if they become unavailable or the prices go crazy or you have them in your catalog - but usually the order is similar to what you Santa selected for you.

>16 fasterhorses: Just thought I'd add, you are paying for your own books. But someone else (as explained by >17 AnnieMod:) is using that amount along with the bookstore you've chosen to pick books for you.

>16 fasterhorses: You find out who you've been matched with after registration by visiting the SantaThing page. I don't think anyone mentioned you have to go to https://www.librarything.com/santathing.php to find who you will be picking for. After Christmas, LT opens up the SantaThing page so you can view who picked for you.

Once Upon a Time in LT Land:

1. Santathing signup begins
2. Member1 fills out the form and says "I like ghost stories, here is $10".
3. Santathing signup ends. LT elves make matches.
4. Member2 receives an email saying "since you like ghost stories, please pick a book for Member1".
5. Member1 receives an email saying "since you like ghost stories, please pick a book for Member3".
6. Book picking ends and LT elves work their magic to place all of the orders.
7. Books start arriving and Member1, Member2, and Member3 all get to read about ghost stories.
8. Christmas Day is here and LT elves reveal the user name of Member1, Member2, and Member3 so that "thank you" messages can be sent AND LT elves open up the order forms so that Member1, Member2, and Member3 can see all of the recommendations that other users left about ghost stories but that the LT elves didn't have enough money to purchase.
9. Member1, Member2, and Member3 send "thank you" message to LT elves for a great Santathing 2022!

The End.

So if the Santa ends up not selecting any books, Librarything staff does it themselves? So everyone is guaranteed to get SOMETHING? I mean I've seen Secret Santa exchanges on other websites where it's not until January 1 that a secondary exchange has to be arranged because Member1 and Member6 never received anything. So for THIS particular Secret Santa, that's not an issue - if nobody's selected anything to give to Member1 and 6 by a certain time, the staff will just do it? Am I understanding that correctly?

This sounds super fun but I can't even scrape $15 this year. I have to keep it in mind for next year, though! It's fun to get gifts even if they're 5 things out of a list of 15 that you told the giver you wanted.

>21 momelimberham: if someone doesn't get picked for, they unlock them do anyone at the end can pick for them
No one gets left out.

>21 momelimberham: There's a link in the first post to a Donations thread where you can request for someone to cover the cost of participating for you. There are many generous folks here at LT who volunteer to do this every year, so don't be shy!

I honestly don't remember hearing about this last year or years prior but I love the idea. I do have a question, though. Can you create a list of wanted books for your Secret Santa to choose from? I have a vast collection of actual books and over 5,000 Kindle titles so it would easier to offer actual suggestions. If that's possible, I would totally be interested in joining. Thank you.

>24 smmolloy1105:

Yes! You can point your Santa to a particular collection (people often use the Wish List for this) or tag for choosing from. You can also say whether you want them to pick only from the wish list, or if something else might be okay too.

Then I assume it is okay to select something from the person's LT Wish List, correct?

>26 LadyoftheLodge: yep, it would be okay.

LT said that they didn't order some books because they were already in people's collections. I wondered if they went down far enough to see if they might have been in the wish list instead of other books owned since they were managing such a large project. I think I'd want to see something from an official LT person before assuming they don't just automatically assume someone owns it if it is cataloged in LT.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/345664#n7981238 if anyone would like to donate, we could use some more donations this year. :) Message me if you'd like too! :)

>28 thornton37814: We absolutely check to see how the book is cataloged in someone's library, not just that it's cataloged.

>30 katemcangus: That's reassuring!

Got it to work, probably a glitch on PayPal

I'm having issues paying with paypal - it first took me to the general account page, with no information about the transaction, now its telling me the page doesn't exist - I'll try again later today, but does anybody have a solution for this? Thank you!

>5 WeeTurtle: I would also really like to see the card exchange again. SantaThing is a little outside my holiday budget, but I always enjoy the card exchange.

>5 WeeTurtle: >33 Literate.Ninja: We do the Card Exchange every year, signups will open after SantaThing signups close! Next week. :)

>34 kristilabrie: Yay! Thank you, I look forward to it every year!

>34 kristilabrie: Great! Thanks, I couldn't remember when it usually started.

Guess I am not the only one who dislikes the short, very short period allowed us to find our "Santees" books.

Several Santa's ago I had a Santee who had 10k+ books in one account and had (I think) 2 other smaller
accounts. Trying to find non duplicate books was quit difficult! His interests were separated and distinct
over the various accounts, though there was some overlap. But I had to check each account.

Hmm. It was a bit hard :-(

But Fun.

Guido

>37 guido47: We ended up extending the picking period from Friday, December 2 to the following Monday to give folks a weekend to pick for their Santees. Hope this helps.

>25 karenb: Okay, strange question. Where is the Wish List option? I know I've been there before but I can't find it now to save my soul. LOL! Thanks!

>39 smmolloy1105: It's one of the default Collections.

Look at the Your Books page in list format. In the top bar (just below the brown menu bar), the first thing is the Collections drop-down list. It usually shows "All collections".

Help/wiki with image of the top bar:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/HelpThing:Your_books

I have managed to sign up but PayPal is glitching all over the place so no payment has been made. Sorry! I don't quite know what is going on.

When is the last day/time to update our preferences? I received a donation but can't do my preferences and update my bookshelves tonight.

I think you have till noon tomorrow.

>41 holly_golightly: I'll message you directly to discuss options.

>42 litwitch: Registration closes at noon eastern Tuesday!

>1 katemcangus:

Amazon’s Restrictions on E-books

I have been part of SantaThing most years since the beginning and enjoyed picking books for others and receiving books. Unfortunately my eyesight has reached the stage where I can only read E-books. I can adjust the font size on them. It annoys me very much that Amazon only allows people registered to Amazon.com to receive books through SantaThing. They are certainly more than willing and happy to take money year round from us Librarything members who purchase through Amazon.ca, that is Canada, and other branches of Amazon around the world. It is because of them that I am not part of this year’s
SantaThing.

>46 pmarshall: that sucks. I’m finding I can only read ebooks too but I’m not in Canada. So you can’t get amazon Canada ebooks?

We still have plenty of donations to go around! Please feel free to come by the donation thread and ask if you are in need! :)

>47 dianeham: you can buy Amazon books in Canada, but you cannot gift ebooks. I have tried many times to buy an ebook as a present, but it is not allowed.

I'm so excited to receive my Santee and get picking!
Thank you, @katemcangus , @ablachly , and elves!
I look forward to this all year long!

I know this has been asked and answered before in the past, but I can't find the answer: If we're shopping through Powell's, and there are used options available, may we select those? Or are we limited to new books only?

"Do not select used books. LibraryThing has nothing against used books, but there's no way to guarantee prices or availability. Always base your selections on the pricing for new copies."

From the faq at https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/SantaThing

>52 dianeham: Thanks! I knew it was somewhere around here.

May I request a new Santee?

The one I was assigned 1) has a PRIVATE Library
2) Wants e-books (I assume) and I have never bought an e-book
3) wants genres I know absolutely NOTHING about...which coupled with 1. means problems.
Imagine buying a fantasy lover (if you know nothing about fantasy) say Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

If I can't swap Santees can someone/anybody give me some clues on how to choose for a Private Library?

Guido.

PS. And advice on e-books.

>54 guido47: You can get advice as which books to pick by asking at this talk thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346154

IMO picking ebooks is no different than picking hard copies.

Perhaps the moderators can help by asking if the Santee will unlock their library for the moment.

>54 guido47:

I'll tackle your issues/questions as you listed them:
1. I realize this is frustrating, but think of it as a blank slate: you can choose anything you think applies.
2. Regarding ebooks, they work just like print books do in SantaThing. All you have to do is find a book on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/storefront) enter the title, author, price, and ASIN (as opposed to ISBN), and we'll do the ordering.
3. Take your request for help to the help thread on Talk: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346154. There are many helpful members participating to help others pick titles!

Best of luck!

I think I ask this question every time I participate 🤔.

In the SantaThing facts, it says we must take into account money conversion rates. My person is in Australia and chose Book Depository. I have $30 US dollars listed next to their name. Do I look for books in US$ to total $30? Or do I switch to AUS$ and look for a total of $47 AUS. It should be the same, right??

>58 seongeona: I think that's only if the book prices are listed in something other than USD. SantaThing participants pay in USD; if the book prices are also in USD then just follow what their page says is remaining for their balance, as long as you're putting the full list price in your gifts! :)

Sigh. Anyone else notice this at book depository?

Just a couple of days ago, I picked out a few books, but I was about $2 over. I let it go for a couple of days, planning to come back and look again today to see what else I could come up with.

Looked up those three books again and prices of all three have gone up! Two of them only by about 30 or 40 cents, but the third one by about $2! (I double checked them the other day to be sure they weren't on sale then, and they weren't, so that's not why.)

Definitely need to go back to the drawing board a bit.

>61 LibraryCin: I'm so sorry; that's incredibly frustrating. Maybe wait to change it until Sunday night/Monday morning in case it changes again? I'd hate for y'all to spend the whole weekend working to keep up with price changes.

>61 LibraryCin: Just like Amazon, Book Depository sometimes changes prices based on interest (and sometimes based on what you had searched on their site before - or so it seems sometimes). Very very annoying :(

Maybe pick a few alternate books and post them in the comments so the staff can be assisted in case it happens again between the selection and the ordering (plus the Santee will have a few more recommendations if they like what you chose)?

. Never mind. I found the ISBNs and used those. It's worked. Now.

>62 katemcangus: >63 AnnieMod: I kept looking and found an alternate that I could fit in with two of the three I'd chosen, so it's submitted now. Unfortunately, it was the 3rd one I most wanted to include but it was just too high in price (to be able to fit in with any others I wanted).

I did also make two alternate suggestions in the comments, as well, but they were both higher priced, so it might not help too much when LT staff are looking.

Thanks for the suggestions, though!

Don't forget to get your picks in today by noon Eastern! And let me know if you have any questions!

Hey y'all, we've opened up SantaThing for everyone to pick books for those unpicked: https://www.librarything.com/santathing.php. If you want to help, come on over!

what are the orangey squares on some folks' santathings?

Boxes! That symbol goes up when the order is placed.

Should we be able to see our own Santathing page? I just clicked into mine and in previous years I remember not being able to even see what I’d written, but this time round I can? I didn’t want to scrolll down to check whether I could see anything else.

>70 thebookmagpie: You can access your own SantaThing page, but all of the comments and books chosen are hidden. I believe there's even a message telling you not to peek!

>70 thebookmagpie: The comments will be revealed either Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.

Update: I just received notice that books have begun to ship. Keep an eye out and be sure to update us over on the Arrivals thread!

All physical books have been ordered!

I’ve still to update my reviews etc on here but al my reviews are on Goodreads under name MBMG if anyone wants to check. Merry Christmas everyone and I really hope you all receive a good book. This is my 3rd year and I’ve been very happy with my gifts 🤩

Where do i post what books ive received? I can't find the thread. Thanks

>77 AngelaMaryJohnson: Here you go: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346352

>77 AngelaMaryJohnson:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/346352

A package from Book Depository was in my mail this afternoon so I assume it is my SecretSanta gift. I haven't opened it because I would like to be surprised. I'll open it on Christmas morning if that's okay.

>80 gypsysmom: of course. I hope you received something you'll enjoy!

When do we see ho our Santa is?

>82 dianeham: I think sometime this evening? (Christmas Eve)

(Sorry, not sure where you are located - maybe it's already Christmas Eve for you! With LT HQ being in Seattle, Washington - if I'm remembering that correctly - it might be Christmas Eve in that time zone.)

>83 LibraryCin: Thanks. I’m in NJ.

Does anyone know when we get to see who our Santa was?

It's open!

Sorry for the delay. I blame having four hours of sleep wrapping into the night!

>86 timspalding: No problem! Many thanks to you and the LT staff for putting this together for us again this year.

>86 timspalding: yes! Thank you to all of the LT staff for another wonderful year of Santathing!!

I'd like to add my thanks to those above for the LT staff for all their hard work in organising Santathing. I wish you all a great Christmas and New Year and may 2023 be a good one for you all.

I received 3 really awesome books from my Santa, thank you! My daughter stole one immediately and has been reading it all day, I'm looking forward to reading it myself when she relinquishes it, for now I'm enjoying the other two. I was curious if my Santa left me a comment, so I checked my comments section, and it says 4 books were chosen and the library comment says "ordered" should I contact someone about the book that hasn't arrived? Merry Christmas, and thank you to everyone who's hard work made this possible!

Edit a few days later:. The last book showed up, it must have just taken a long roundabout route to get here. :-)

Boy, this year seems to have gone more smoothly than SantaThing has for awhile. Good job everyone, and thank you so much for organizing this.