J's all time favorite book is Little Blue and Little Yellow. Even cuter, he says he is little blue, and his best friend andnext door neighbor, little yellow. He names the other colors, too. It is a really delightful book about color theory and friendship (! ) worthcheckign out if you havenot.

Every 6 months or so I pick a "fallback gift" and buy 6 or so. I like to make gifts/pick the perfect thing, but J went to about 12 birthday parties and picked 2 friends to give Winter gifts to, and it gets to be a lot. The book will be the "falback" gift this year, but J chose to give it to  Basher, his best friend, Little Yellow, for Christmas, so I wanted to do a little more. This summer I made J the child's hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, so I decided to make Little Yellow, a little yellow hat. I find this is a successful approach to gifts, too: sometimes a book can seem a bit impersonal, random, but making something from it or I suppose, buying an element from it) can add context and personalize the gift.

One of my favorite gifts like this was the year my parents gave me a new Giuliano Bugiali cookbook, plus a cheese grater, plus  forms for shapping gnocchi ala Romana. I think I gained 10 lbs that year!