One week until the fun starts in my house and I can hardly wait! I’ve sent out a family poll today on what activities they wanted to do. This is our first Christmas in seven years that our entire family will be home for Christmas. (For some reason, my children love to travel and live overseas. I don’t know where they get it.) But it’s very nice to not have to send packages to Italy, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, or a ship somewhere out in the ocean. This year all the packages are under our beautiful tree.
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This is a picture of our tree that we took over Thanksgiving. You can’t see it much because a couple of old, slightly Santa-looking people are sitting in front of it. But I love it! The tree looks like an angel of sorts with wings. My husband loves festive lights and he put them up all over our Christmas room.
(Yes we have a Christmas room designed especially for my two middle (adult!) children who are a little bit crazy about Christmas. My daughter said she needed a room with a vaulted ceiling. And my son loves Christmas lights. So a Christmas room for them. As long as they promise to try to make it home for Christmas. Call it bribery. Whatever. As long as it works.)
The empty nest at Christmas can sometimes be a bit of a challenge, and in 2008 I was facing that for the first time. My oldest son was graduating that year and I knew that Christmases would change. (That was the year that my whole family got sick over Christmas— and you’ve heard the story, I wrote a Christmas book while they all sat around with fevers. I held them hostage with their illness while I read aloud to them the story. It’s the only way I can get them to read my books!)
But thinking about them coming home this year made me nostalgic for the old days and for my favorite scene that I wrote in the book (formerly titled the great Christmas Bowl and reissued last year as All I Want for Christmas.) If you’d like to read this scene you can find it here.
One reviewer said, “Destined to be a Christmas classic.” And it won a Carol award and landed on the bestseller list that next year, so that was a fun treat. But mostly it’s just a heartwarming story about one mother’s efforts to hold onto Christmas even though her children are leaving the nest.
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This book is currently available in Kindle Unlimited as part of a duology called Under the Evergreen with one of my other favorite Christmas books (Baby it’s Cold Outside. – it has its own fun back story.) It’ll be available in KU until the first of the year and then gone like Frosty and Christmas snow. So if you’d like to read it in KU grab it now.
Or if you’re into beautiful Christmas gift books, can I suggest picking it up in hardcover at the Susan May Warren store? We have an epic sale going on through December for all Susan May Warren Christmas books in hardcover. That includes All I want for Christmas, Baby it’s Cold Outside, and the Christiansen family special – Have Yourself a Christensen Christmas.
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And, the ebook and audio bundle for the Homecoming of Logan Thorne is also available until the first of the year.
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Okay, I mentioned we have an epic family debate going on. And the question is: Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?
And, then, I need your help. We only have ONE epic night to watch Christmas movies, so we have to choose wisely…
What is YOUR favorite Christmas movie for our consideration? I’ll be entering everyone who answers into a drawing for a $20 gift card to the SMW store!
You can submit your answers here!
Okay, I’m off to wrap gifts!
Hope you are having a wonderful season!
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PS – Looking ahead to next year, I’m reading SUCH a sweet, heart-warming story about a man who comes back to Deep Haven for a second chance to put things right… It’s out in early January (so, it’s still at its preorder price!) Check out The Way You Love Me on the Sunrise Shop!
Oliver Fox never thought he’d step foot in Deep Haven again—not with the ghosts he left behind. But when the custody battle for his beloved daughter hinges on his ability to face his past, he returns to Deep Haven and dives back into the fray of his mistakes…starting with the girl next door.