Santa Snared in Pyramid Present Scam!!

Welcome to 2007!

To those of you who have been coming in, seeing our Not Buying! sign, and turning around again: fear not. We will be buying books again from Monday, January 15th.

To those of you who are here to check out What's New: well, plenty of things are. We've restocked all the fiction shelves over the hols with stuff that we've dragged out of the back room.

Other than that, though, we haven't got as much new stuff as usual 'cos of the whole not buying thing. Look out for a new, fully-featured What's New next Wednesday, (the 17th).

We've been updating our catalogue pages as usual so you can check them out.

What's New at Arty Bees

So here we are, with less than a week to the big day, (and the well deserved sleep-in the next day...) and we have an extra special What's New for you.

This is partly because we've been so busy we haven't had a lot of time to process new stock and write book reviews, and partly because we are now a week into our 'not buying' period over Christmas.

Now, many of you would think that that means we won't have any new stock in the stores, but rest assured, there is always a backlog of stock we never quite get to during the rest of the year, or can't quite fit on the shelves.

So, when we finally get to open the boxes and see what's in them, it's like, well, Christmas.

Which means that although we will be taking a little break from the What's New in the next couple of weeks - we'll be back on the 10th of January folks! - there will be all sorts of treasures unearthed in the meantime...

So despite the hectic confusion that is retail in the weeks before Christmas, when I asked what was new and exciting and had come in this week, Jessica and Matt (what troopers) managed to come up with some interesting titles.

New Guitar titles for the beginning rock god, piles of Agatha Christie paperbacks for that sunny summer holiday, not to mention enough other summer reading (detectives, romances, military thrillers, fantasy and science fiction, etc) to supply a small army.

And if your wanting something a little more home grown to settle in with under the pohutukawa tree, with a cool drink (and plenty of sun block) we have a superb collection of New Zealand fiction, old and new - including classic back list titles and recent award winning authors like Shadbolt, and Gee, Anderson, Ihimaera, Knox, Baxter, Wall, Nigel Cox, Lloyd Jones, Fiona Kidman and heaps more.

We've also had "Fairy Art: Artists and Inspirations" ($55) come into both shops, and a beautiful selection of book illustration classics like Rackham, Dadd and Doyle, and more besides.

In the meantime however we thought we'd offer you some quick and handy hints for surviving the upcoming festivities with your house, health and sanity intact.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas - I am a Christmas junkie - but I would be lying if I didn't admit that sometimes I love the idea of Christmas (usually around June or July) slightly more than the reality of it when it's right in front of me: everyone talking at once, the burning of the turkey, arguing about how best to make the homemade mayonnaise, everyone making a mess, yelling, running around and threatening to dress the cat in a pair of reindeer antlers.
Oh Joy!

So without further ado may we present the ...

Each week, we bring you the most tragic & fantastic piece of cover art that's crossed our desk.

Quiz Questions

What novels are these the first lines of?

1. To anyone who has ever been owned by a cat, it will come as no surprise that there are all sorts of things about your cat you will never as long as you live, forget.
2. Every Who
   Down in Who-ville
   Liked Christmas a lot...

   But the Grinch,
   Who lived just North of Who-ville,
   Did NOT!

3. Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

How many did you get? Test your workmates' knowledge! More questions next week.

Go to answers

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...Arty Bees Books Christmas Survival Tips.

What to do with Christmas Fruit cake.
This thick, heavy, traditional Christmas substance has several historic uses, including; trebuchet ammo (I'm not kidding, a lump of this stuff can knock a man out and break a few of his ribs at 500 meters) doorstops, nuclear leak sealant, emergency house building material, motorway crash impact barriers, re-entry shielding for the space shuttles and, of course, compost.
None of this will help you though, if faced with one of those strange people who think it is a viable foodstuff and you cannot politely refuse it.

We would suggest breaking the cake into very small pieces and swallowing whole as you would vitamins or small pills. Avoid it touching your tongue, and therefore tastebuds at all costs.
Wash it down with large mouthfuls of some sort of beverage.
And while we at Arty Bees would never suggest to the reading public that you should imbibe large quantities of alcohol, a certain amount of memory loss at this point will help to reduce the risk of Post-Traumatic-Stress Syndrome.

How to extricate yourself from the never ending conversation.
Whether it's Great-Aunt Maud's trouble with her gout and arthritis, cousin Eric's obsession with alien abduction and the moon landing "conspiracy", or your Uncle Stan's views on taxation, we've all been there - that interminably long conversation that never ends, never even pauses for breath.

Matthew has a simple but highly effective suggestion for this most common of family dilemmas: start a conversation yourself, all about Formula One car racing tyres.
Apparently it almost always works...

What to do when Christmas Dinner catches fire.
The best response is to be prepared, and you should already have smoke alarms installed in your house, and a personal fire extinguisher positioned in a central location in your home for emergencies.
However if you wish to eat what remains of the meal it is better to resist the urge to use the extinguisher unless it is absolutely necessary.
Explain that the Turkey is meant to look like that - it's a special 'flambe' recipe you saw on Nigella Bites.
If however, you have managed to set the salad on fire, you should probably just never be allowed to set foot in the kitchen ever again.

How to avoid unwanted Christmas kisses.
As a chronic family smoocher and giver of unwanted kisses I have some good advice here as long as you promise not to share it with my brothers, nephews, or nieces. (We had a games weekend in October during which I traded a vital Monopoly property to my 12 year old nephew on the condition I could give him big slurpy aunty kisses whenever I wanted to over the next two days! Biggest mistake he ever made - I think I cured him of insider trading for life.)

One way is to cover your face in something unappealing to them but fun for you - jam or sticky substances, flour, face paint, car grease, turkey grease, anything that can smear and leave a trail of destruction and yech.
Be aware that chocolate may have the reverse effect.

Carry something large in front of you like a large present, bag or child that can block the kissee's reach.

Pre-arrange an Anti-Kiss buddy with whom you can rehearse and organise Anti-Kiss-Distractions for quick retreats. But remember to watch each others' backs - the whole platoon gets out alive or nobody does!

How not to get stuck in the kitchen all day like a big seasonal sucker.
Don't you hate it when you end up the muggins slaving away for hours in the hot kitchen while everybody else is out enjoying the Christmas cheer.

Set fire to the salad and you can almost certainly guarantee that you will never have to do it again.

Get out the potato biodegradible picnic plates (like paper or plastic plates only better), shove the portable barbecue into the car and head for the beach.

Or look on the bright side - you could be out with all the other members of your family enjoying the 120 decible Christmas cheer.
Lock the kitchen door, or hang a Do-Not-Disturb sign on the handle.
Open that nice bottle of bubbly, put some Goldenhorse or something equally fabulous into the stereo (if you don't have a kitchen stereo unit make sure you set one up ahead of time, even if it means stealing one of the kids MP3 players and hauling the speakers into the corner of the kitchen), and turn it up loud enough that you can't hear the ruckus outside.
Lastly, pretend that you're Julia Childs and have a blissful few hours of 'me' time.

How to untangle a cat from the Christmas decorations.
The answer to this is: very, very carefully.
While they may look cute and fluffy, it should be noted that all cats have highly sharpened pointy bits in multiple and mobile locations on their bodies.
On the plus side this means that there is a good chance that kitty may be able to extricate themselves.
On the negative side though, this will almost certainly shred the said decoration into extremely small pieces.

General Anti-Stress Suggestions...

• Post all your Christmas presents to your friends and loved ones and then leave for some fabulous, exotic relaxing location, like Tahiti, the Bahamas, Hahei - 90 Mile beach or the Wakamarina in Nelson. (It's very nice there, there's a great campsite, beautiful river, no phone, no relatives, etc.)
• Last year we had all my family coming over for Christmas day, including my adorable niece Kate who was 18 months old and best described as a small tornado with lungs. Unfortunately for him, my partner was feeling a wee bit ill on that day.
  Enter the earplugs, until then mostly used when sleeping on long airplane rides. Batman spent the entire day with them in his ears and a blissful look of zen-like calm on his face.
  We had to stand in front of him and yell to get his attention of course, but he said it was the best Christmas ever!
• Drink moderately (just enough to dull the senses and reduce the risk of Post-Traumatic-Stress Syndrome) and then call a Dial-a-Driver or a taxi.
  And if you are already at home, then the arrival of a taxi driver on the doorstep will be a handy not-so-subtle hint to your family that it's time to go home!

General Disclaimer: Arty Bees Books is not liable for any damages to property or relationships that may be the result of following these survival tips. Please execute any of these suggestions with due care and concern, and please consult your doctor, lawyer, or family therapist before attempting them should you have any concerns.
- However if it goes well, please send the chocolate to 17 Courtenay Place, Wellington, New Zealand, Attention Robynne. Please no caramello or dried fruit varieties. Dark, nut (not peanut) and peppermint varieties are prefered.

Arty Bees Books. 2 Locations.
17 Courtenay Place, Wellington.
Telephone 04 385 1819
The Oaks, Manners Street, Wellington.
Telephone 04 384 5339
www.artybees.co.nz

Quiz Answers

1. Cleveland Amory , The Cat Who Came For Christmas
2. Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas
3. Charles Dickens , A Christmas Carol