Mom's last Christmas Gift

As of 7:30pm tonight we’d had 2.7” of snow. Why is this a big deal? We live just outside of Atlanta. Georgia. In the Deep South. According to a local news source, Atlanta hasn’t had snow that stuck since the 1880s. This winter we had a trackable snow on the 12^th and now a full scale snow fall on Christmas Day. The first white Christmas in over 100 years. My son has been excited all day and nearly vibrating with interest in the cold white stuff.

Growing up in Illinois, you would think that white Christmases were the norm. They aren’t. Central Illinois doesn’t normally see more than a faint trackable snow in December. Trackable refers to the fact that if a rabbit ran through it, it would leave tracks you could follow. Our real snows don’t generally fall until January and especially February. So white Christmases were special for us, especially for my mother.

My mom loved all things Christmas. The weeks from Halloween to New Years were her favorite time of the year, culminating in Christmas. As a family, we women went shopping on Black Friday and it kicked things off for us. Christmas was very much about family and all things traditional Christmas. The tree went up on the Friday after Thanksgiving and came down New Years. Lights bedecked the house, indoors and out. Old movies such as Miracle on 34^th Street were playing in the background on a continuous loop. And snowmen were everywhere. She loved and collected Frosty in all his incarnations.

My mom loved snow. She always dreamed of taking a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the falling snow. Each year she watched for all the folksy indicators and focused on the nightly weather report waiting to see if we would have a white Christmas. When I moved south she would call every time they had snow to ask if we were coming up any time soon. Once my son was born she was especially interested to know if we were planning on coming up for the holidays and even more vigilant about the weather to see if he would have snow for our visits.

My mom passed away a few weeks ago. It snowed heavily the day she died and we had five inches of snow in Illinois for her funeral. The flowers that were sent by those who knew her all shared the Christmas theme in honor of her love of the season. The topiary we picked out from the grandchildren was adorned with a stuffed snowman. I didn’t take my son. He’d just turned two and we felt he was too young for the 9 hour trip plus he was too young to sit through the funeral and all the planning we would have to do.

Today is Christmas and I honestly believe we all received her last Christmas gift. All of her children and grand children (except the ones who live in Florida) have had a white Christmas. My son played in more snow than he’s ever seen and there will be even more on the ground for him in the morning. So tomorrow, along with all his other Christmas gifts, my son will get to play again with his grandma’s last Christmas present—something that will make all future white Christmases, rare or not, even more precious.

***Update Even the grandkids in Florida saw flurries. Mom must have been working hard.

Christmas Day!

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

~Norman Vincent Peale

Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years. Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart.

~George Mathew Adams

"Wow, check out this haul! And I can't even unwrap presents yet!"

~Z

Hope you all had a great Christmas filled with love, family and joy. Oh, and if Z asks, Turkey, mashed potatoes, and a chocolate chip cookie pie taste like formula.

Merry Christmas

Everything is ready for Santa's visit. As we try to put Z to sleep so Santa can come, I was thinking about the Christmases I knew growing up. Z will never know those types of Christmases. I'll make sure of that.

THE YEAR WITH(OUT) A SANTA CLAUSE

I was thirteen or fourteen that year. It was the year I was baptized and the year my family lived in a small ranch style house in a neighborhood most people wouldn’t venture into during the day, let alone at night. Our street sat right on the dividing line between the territories of two rival gangs. No, this wasn’t New York, L.A., or even Chicago. It was a relatively small Midwest town who had seen recent influxes of people from the larger cities like Detroit and Chicago. With these new comers came the gangs. But oddly enough they didn’t bother us. Our street was neutral territory. And the gangs aren’t what I wanted to talk about.

We were very poor that year. Not just “things are tight” poor, but “the cupboards are bare” poor. We often ate only one meal a day because there was very little food. Breakfast or lunch had to be scrounged from left-overs in the fridge or were limited to buttered toast with government surplus butter and the twenty-five cent loaves of white bread from the day old store. The recession of the 80’s was hurting everyone. Almost no one we knew still had a job as most of the plants in town had closed down. Our small town lost General Electric, Hyster, Caterpillar, General Motors, Quaker Oats and even our Chuckles plant. (Remember the little gummy candies in the pack with assorted flavors? My grandmother worked for 30 years making those things. But that’s another story.)

Christmas? No way. We kids knew how bad things were and we didn’t even talk about presents. As the oldest of the kids I knew that while some of the younger ones still thought Santa would remember them, they were in for a big disappointment.

One day my stepfather came home from helping a friend who hauled off people’s trash to help earn extra money. That day he came home with the back of the truck filled with scrap lumber. He called us out to help unload it and I thought he was crazy piling up old pieces of wood. That night after my siblings had gone to bed, he put on his coat and went outside. He came in with an armful of wood. Now I was sure he was crazy.

He cleared off the table and laid it out. With a pencil he began drawing a pattern on a piece of cardboard. It took only a few minutes for me to be enthralled watching. I love woodworking. I love the smell of the wood, the feel of it, how it smooths itself and how the creations take shape. If I’d have been a boy, I’d probably have become a carpenter. After letting me watch for about a half an hour as he used his scroll saw to cut out the patters he looked up at me. After a long pause he handed me the piece he’d cut out and a piece of sandpaper. “If you’re going to watch, you might as well help.” And I did.

That December I helped him make doll cradles for my sisters and a rocking horse for my brother from the bits and pieces he had scrounged from other people’s trash. We stained them, painted them and lined them with scraps of a garish blue velvet that had also been salvaged. I helped my mom sew little mattresses. I helped my stepfather glue yarn my grandmother gave us to the horse for a main and a tail. The same blue velvet lined the rocking horse’s saddle. We kept all of this hidden during the day and pulled it out at night to work on after everyone was asleep.

A couple of days before Christmas, my mother stood in line at the Salvation army and picked out a couple of second hand dolls. She brushed their hair, cleaned their plastic bodies and my grandmother sewed simple little dresses for them from scraps. On Christmas Eve I helped arrange these treasures under the tree and went off to bed. There would be nothing for me the next day when I awoke, but it felt so very good to know the younger kids would awake to find that Santa hadn’t forgotten them after all.

When morning came I followed them into the living room. I couldn’t completely suppress my disappointment that there would be no gift for me, but I tried hard not to let it show. To my amazement there was a rectangular wooden box sitting under the tree. It had been pieced together from strips of wood, stained a dark walnut color and the words “Holy Bible” had been burned into the top and outlined with gold paint. I lifted the lid to find the same blue velvet lining and a white Bible. I didn’t care that the Bible had been bought cheap because someone had ordered it with their name and not picked it up. I didn’t care that the name on it wasn’t mine.

My father had left my mother and me before I was two. He never had any contact with me and I could pass him on the street today and never know. All my life I had felt the void. But in that moment I realized the man sitting on the sofa smiling smugly was trying in every way he knew how to be a father for me. I realized that despite all the problems we had, he thought of me as his daughter. He and I had worked into the early hours of the morning on the kids toys. This gift meant he had stayed up even later to finish this for me.

Santa Claus came that year to our house. He didn’t just bring dolls, cradles and a rocking horse. He brought us a father.

Traditions and Santa

We wrapped up the last details for Christmas except what we're doing for our own Christmas dinner. We're going to be on our own this Christmas for the first time. We've always gone home to one family or the other for Thanksgiving and Christmas, alternating each year.

But this year with the little one and recovering from the c-section, plus the expense of going, we're doing Christmas here in Georgia on our own. We've been discussing the fact that we need to build our own family traditions.

This year I'm going to make something I haven't made in years, not since my great-grandmother passed away. Merba. Merba is a cookie bar that my great-grandmother used to make. It has a cookie like crust but is topped with preserves and nuts. It freezes amazingly and can be kept for a long time. We'll have to see if I can still do it. There is a trick to making the lattice-work top.

We started what I think will be one tradition. The visit to see Santa. We took Smudgie to see Santa today and got his picture taken. The Santa was great.

We've also been checking out daycare and babysitters for when the Momma has to go back to work. I'm going to hate it. No way will I ever feel okay about leaving him with someone else. What if they don't pick him up when he cries? What if he doesn't get his diaper changed as soon as he needs it? We've seen three daycares and one in-home. There is one center I like, but it is $175 per week. That's $700 a month! The in-home is going to run about $100-135. I met a lady today that I really liked. Her home was clean and there were lots of toys. She only has a couple of kids right now and can only have a total of 6. We have a few more to check out. We just want to be ready.

Lets have a peek at this Santa to get us all in the mood for the holiday.

Doesn't this just bring to mind a lovely old-fashioned Christmas?

Happy Holidays?

So now with Thanksgiving we have the official start of the holiday season. This weekend was filled with folks hitting the malls and buying the things that would bring happiness and enhance peace on earth...righ?

Maybe not. You have to see this if you haven't already.

Sometimes we as a species are so pathetic.

Risks to Christmas Spirit.

Nothing puts as big a crimp in Christmas spirit like shopping. Oh the stores are decorated and the music is cheerful and happy, but the rest of the experience makes being holly and jolly nearly impossible. Oh, it's more than just the crowds, the prices, the hustle and bustle, it's certain people, certain archtypes we all run into during the Christmas shopping season.




Let's start with the Middler. Parking is a frustrating task. The malls and department stores are jammed and finding a parking place within a mile of the entrance is an exercise in futility. And it's made even more difficult by the Middler. The Middler is the person, usually either a middle aged woman or two or three teenage girls in a gaggle, who are walking down the center of the parking aisle. No, not walking, meandering. You can't go around them and it would be rude to honk at them to get them out of the way. They simply make a difficult job even more difficult.


Then there is the Princess. The Princess is the woman who has parked her cart in the center of the aisle at the department store while she looks over every single item on the shelf. Or she blocks the narrow spaces between clothing racks while she stands there pulling out each and every color and style of garment examining them. She doesn't even bother to look around behind her, it doesn't even enter her mind at all that anyone else may need anything because she is special.

Now the Princess part II is also the woman who walks up to the counter behind you and proceeds to interupt your conversation with the sales lady because she just needs to ask a quick question or she just needs to get that item right over there. If you pointed out to the Princess she was being rude she would undoubtedly be offended. She would think you were rude and unreasonable because after all, she is special and what she wanted was more important.

These people make it hard to keep the Christmas Spirit alive. They make it hard to remember to be kind and courteous. They make just being a good human being difficult.



AND NOW

One the Seventh Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me...

Seven Seductive Santas.

Santa #3 seems to look especially nice in his suspenders. Come back tomorrow for Santa #4

Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Wild Rose Press, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th one of the twelve authors will tell what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.

Collect all twelve answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with 12 days of Romance in the subject line to win some great books. There will be three lucky winners. The prizes –
1st prize--6 books
2nd prize--4 books
3rd prize--2 books
All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.

Anny Cook Winter Hearts
Sandra Cox Boji Stones
Bronwyn Green Ronan’s Grail
Heather Hiestand Cards Never Lie
Barbara Huffert Deal of a Lifetime
Amarinda Jones Mad About Mirabelle
Kelly Kirch Time for Love
Cindy Spencer Pape Cowboy’s Christmas Bride
Brynn Paulin Fallen
Jacquéline Roth Access Denied
KZ Snow Mrs. Claws
Lacey Thorn Earth Moves

The Year With(out) a Santa Claus

I was thirteen or fourteen that year. It was the year I was baptized and the year my family lived in a small ranch style house in a neighborhood most people wouldn’t venture into during the day, let alone at night. Our street sat right on the dividing line between the territories of two rival gangs. No, this wasn’t New York, L.A., or even Chicago. It was a relatively small Midwest town who had seen recent influxes of people from the larger cities like Detroit and Chicago. With these new comers came the gangs. But oddly enough they didn’t bother us. Our street was neutral territory. And the gangs aren’t what I wanted to talk about.

We were very poor that year. Not just “things are tight” poor, but “the cupboards are bare” poor. We often ate only one meal a day because there was very little food. Breakfast or lunch had to be scrounged from left-overs in the fridge or were limited to buttered toast with government surplus butter and the twenty-five cent loaves of white bread from the day old store. The recession of the 80’s was hurting everyone. Almost no one we knew still had a job as most of the plants in town had closed down. Our small town lost General Electric, Hyster, Caterpillar, General Motors, Quaker Oats and even our Chuckles plant. (Remember the little gummy candies in the pack with assorted flavors? My grandmother worked for 30 years making those things. But that’s another story.)

Christmas? No way. We kids knew how bad things were and we didn’t even talk about presents. As the oldest of the kids I knew that while some of the younger ones still thought Santa would remember them, they were in for a big disappointment.

One day my stepfather came home from helping a friend who hauled off people’s trash to help earn extra money. That day he came home with the back of the truck filled with scrap lumber. He called us out to help unload it and I thought he was crazy piling up old pieces of wood. That night after my siblings had gone to bed, he put on his coat and went outside. He came in with an armful of wood. Now I was sure he was crazy.

He cleared off the table and laid it out. With a pencil he began drawing a pattern on a piece of cardboard. It took only a few minutes for me to be enthralled watching. I love woodworking. I love the smell of the wood, the feel of it, how it smooths itself and how the creations take shape. If I’d have been a boy, I’d probably have become a carpenter. After letting me watch for about a half an hour as he used his scroll saw to cut out the patters he looked up at me. After a long pause he handed me the piece he’d cut out and a piece of sandpaper. “If you’re going to watch, you might as well help.” And I did.

That December I helped him make doll cradles for my sisters and a rocking horse for my brother from the bits and pieces he had scrounged from other people’s trash. We stained them, painted them and lined them with scraps of a garish blue velvet that had also been salvaged. I helped my mom sew little mattresses. I helped my stepfather glue yarn my grandmother gave us to the horse for a main and a tail. The same blue velvet lined the rocking horse’s saddle. We kept all of this hidden during the day and pulled it out at night to work on after everyone was asleep.

A couple of days before Christmas, my mother stood in line at the Salvation army and picked out a couple of second hand dolls. She brushed their hair, cleaned their plastic bodies and my grandmother sewed simple little dresses for them from scraps. On Christmas Eve I helped arrange these treasures under the tree and went off to bed. There would be nothing for me the next day when I awoke, but it felt so very good to know the younger kids would awake to find that Santa hadn’t forgotten them after all.

When morning came I followed them into the living room. I couldn’t completely suppress my disappointment that there would be no gift for me, but I tried hard not to let it show. To my amazement there was a rectangular wooden box sitting under the tree. It had been pieced together from strips of wood, stained a dark walnut color and the words “Holy Bible” had been burned into the top and outlined with gold paint. I lifted the lid to find the same blue velvet lining and a white Bible. I didn’t care that the Bible had been bought cheap because someone had ordered it with their name and not picked it up. I didn’t care that the name on it wasn’t mine.

My father had left my mother and me before I was two. He never had any contact with me and I could pass him on the street today and never know. All my life I had felt the void. But in that moment I realized the man sitting on the sofa smiling smugly was trying in every way he knew how to be a father for me. I realized that despite all the problems we had, he thought of me as his daughter. He and I had worked into the early hours of the morning on the kids toys. This gift meant he had stayed up even later to finish this for me.

Santa Claus came that year to our house. He didn’t just bring dolls, cradles and a rocking horse. He brought us a father.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me...

Seven Seductive Santas

Be sure to check back here each day for the next seven days to see all seven seductive Santas!

Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Wild Rose Press, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th one of the twelve authors will tell what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.

Collect all twelve answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with 12 days of Romance in the subject line to win some great books. There will be three lucky winners. The prizes –

1st prize--6 books

2nd prize--4 books

3rd prize--2 books

All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.

Participating Authors/Books:

Anny Cook Winter Hearts
Sandra Cox Boji Stones
Bronwyn Green Ronan’s Grail
Heather Hiestand Cards Never Lie
Barbara Huffert Deal of a Lifetime
Amarinda Jones Mad About Mirabelle
Kelly Kirch Time for Love
Cindy Spencer Pape Cowboy’s Christmas Bride
Brynn Paulin Fallen
Jacquéline Roth Access Denied
KZ Snow Mrs. Claws
Lacey Thorn Earth Moves

And don't forget to check out eMuse online literary magazine. The December issue is out tomorrow, Dec. 15th. See www.emuse-zine.com for original fiction, book reviews, poetry and art.

If That’s True, Why Aren’t Things Changing?

Coming on the heals of my last blog, I couldn’t help but comment on this.

I read a poll result on AOL today that made me stop and ponder. The poll asked men what they found attractive in woman and focused on the question of weight and body type. As anyone who has ever seen a magazine, billboard, newspaper, televisions program or movie knows society tells us that the perfect beautiful woman, the “supermodel” is a size 0, while in the days of Cheryl Tiegs and Christy Brinkley they were a size 8.

A size 14 woman, the average size for an American woman today, is told she is a “plus-size.” Marilyn Monroe, the icon all over the western world for beauty, glamour and sex appeal was a size 14. Today they’d be plastering pictures of her on the front of magazines talking about how “fat” she was and how everyone was on a death watch because she was so fat she was going to die.

According to the poll on AOL today, 80% of men said they prefer a voluptuous, curvy woman. Only 5% say they found the supermodel-thin women attractive.

That’s great. That’s wonderful. But it’s not the first time we’ve heard this. Polls have been saying for years now that men don’t want these thin, half-starved women, they want a woman who has all the curves, softness and fullness of a woman. They want Marilyn Monroe not Kate Moss.

What I don’t understand is if this is true, why haven’t the advertising companies, the fashion magazines, the Hollywood machine and all the others who glamorize the pencil thin female responded? Why is this still the pervasive image in our society? Is it because men say one thing in the polls because it’s politically correct and yet put their money down in a different direction? Is it because the advertising companies, fashion and entertainment industries are trying to shape public opinion and just keep trying?

I have a feeling it’s neither of those. I have a feeling that we women need to look at ourselves for this one. Men are saying we are sexy when we are full-figured and curvy. The media says we are beautiful if we are emaciated and you can count our ribs. Which message are we buying? Which message are we putting our money behind? The latter. How many of us have joined gyms because we “wanted to get healthy” or because we wanted to lose weight to look better? Be honest. How many of us plunk down hundreds of dollars each year for the creams and ointments that promise to make us young and beautiful forever?

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s true. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a beer belly, bald-headed, and excess body hair and still think they are damned sexy. I’m just saying, maybe we need to look at who we’re listening to about what makes us beautiful and how sexy each of us is.

Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Wild Rose Press, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th one of the twelve authors will tell what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.

Collect all twelve answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with 12 days of Romance in the subject line to win some great books. There will be three lucky winners. The prizes –

1st prize--6 books

2nd prize--4 books

3rd prize--2 books

All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.

Participating Authors/Books:

Anny Cook Winter Hearts
Sandra Cox Boji Stones
Bronwyn Green Ronan’s Grail
Heather Hiestand Cards Never Lie
Barbara Huffert Deal of a Lifetime
Amarinda Jones Mad About Mirabelle
Kelly Kirch Time for Love
Cindy Spencer Pape Cowboy’s Christmas Bride
Brynn Paulin Fallen
Jacquéline Roth Access Denied
KZ Snow Mrs. Claws
Lacey Thorn Earth Moves

And because it's my blog and I can, a little self promotion:

Access Denied
Jacquéline Roth

In Sanctuary the Committee controls everything, food, healthcare, housing, information and even love. The Committee’s life guides match the single residents for three month compatibility assignments. Everyone gets ten chances to find true love or at least an acceptable partnership. There is something special about Leah Bradley. She has the unique ability to reach out and really connect with the people in her life, but if she’s so special why is she facing her seventh assignment? From the moment she meets James he makes it clear he grants no one access to his life or, especially, his heart. Brooding and sad, he carries a darkness inside of him that swallows another part of him every day. What’s worse, he seems to want it this way. Leah slowly loses her hope and her heart. But just when James begins to see Leah the way she truly is, he’s forced to ask himself one question: Does the Committee really have happily-ever-after in mind?

Available Now at Cerridwen Press

Coming January 17th :

Measure of Healing
Jacquéline Roth

Alejandro Ramirez’s Were-Cougar mother drove him out after his first transformation at the age of fifteen leaving him to seek out his human father and find the family his human side craved but that his animal side can never embrace. Now a man, he finds himself responsible for a traumatized Were-Cougar child. When he turns to the Weres for help, they send him to a human. Dr. Gabriela St. Jerome knows of the Cougars and hates them with every fiber of her being. But now she must swallow that hatred to work with Alejandro to help a Were child who has been thrown into transformation far too early by the horrific death of his mother. As they are forced together in the remote woods of the North Georgia Mountains, both find their mutual attraction overwhelming. But if Brie gives into this man and her own passions, it will cost her dearly. It will cost her her life.

Excerpts for both books available at http://www.jacquelineroth.com/

Christmas Tree, O’ Christmas Tree

So the tree is up. Oddly enough it’s in the kitchen. Our townhouse has three floors and the only place with a large window that faces the street is our kitchen. So this past weekend we rearranged the dining table out of the breakfast nook and set up our tree.

This is generally a rather interesting event in that neither my SO nor I are mechanically inclined. But I don’t want to gripe about the hassles of decorating or the potentially enormous electric bill that will have us cringing at the end of the month.

I want to talk about ornaments. For more years than I was aware I was doing it, I’ve added ornaments to the collection that had meaning to me for the year. This means our tree is a hodge-podge of decorations rather than one of those neat, elegant and perfect “theme” trees with its matching baubles and bows. But unwrapping each of the odd little trinkets brings a special memory and that makes it my favorite part of the holiday season.

On the tip of one branch hangs a gold toy train inscribed with the word “Robbie”. We don’t have children, so our nieces and nephews are very important to us. This tiny gold train marks the memories of my first adult Christmas when I bought cheap $1 ornaments at WalMart and had them inscribed with the names of my darlings. Robbie is the oldest of my siblings’ children. First born and hasn’t stopped going since. He was a born athlete, a charmer and a funny boy who grew into a funny man. When his picture used to grace my desk at school, my students remarked on his resemblance to Adam Sandler. He does look like him, only I think Robbie is funnier. The little snip is now 25 years old and has made me a great-aunt. I shall have to think of a suitable revenge. Perhaps spoiling his little girls will do.

On another branch hangs a gold and red frame bearing the words, “Our First Christmas”. We hung this ornament on our tree the first year we shared a single home and a single tree. I look at the date on it and sometimes wonder that it is so long ago, and yet just as often wonder that it is such a short time that has passed. I think about my SO meeting my family for the first time. On the day of our wedding. We held it at my parents’ home and the room was full of at least 50 members of my family. My poor darling was limited to just one old friend. It seemed Illinois was too far from Florida for anyone else to make the trip. Some day I’ll tell you about my family. Just remember, these are the people with the inflatable snowmen and who stapled themselves to the roof of their house.

One of the most bittersweet ornaments on the tree is a small black lab puppy with angel wings. This ornament marked the first Christmas in over eight years that I spent without my faithful Wallie. Big for a member of her breed, Wallie was gentle, loving and patient. When my life fell apart several years ago, I found myself divorced and alone except for Wallie. She stayed with mom and was my reason for getting out of bed, my reason for making myself pay attention. I never had to use a leash with her after we moved, the two of us, into the small one bedroom apartment. She wasn’t about to let mom get too far away. Shortly after I met my SO, I was in a rather serious 5 car pile up on I75 north of Atlanta. It was the Friday before Memorial Day, so traffic was very intense. Wallie was in the backseat and it was in this accident, I lost my dear friend. So the little pup with angel’s wings reminds me of her each year as I hang it on my tree.

This year’s addition is a happier one. This year’s addition is The Frog Prince.



Froggie is a sweet green frog sitting on a brightly wrapped package, holding a glittering engagement ring behind his back. Why this one? Because this is the year I sold and published my first romance novel…my first novel period. And this is the year I became a Froggie. My Cerridwen Press editor maintains a group for the writers that work with her called the Frog Pond. And we happy little writers are the froggies.

So the frog prince sits on my tree. A hot cup of tea in hand. And yes, my dear editor, my behind is in my chair and my fingers are on the keyboard.

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Do You Like Good Book? The count-down is on to:

Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Wild Rose Press, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th one of the twelve authors will tell what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.

Collect all twelve answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with 12 days of Romance in the subject line to win some great books. There will be three lucky winners. The prizes –

1st prize--6 books

2nd prize--4 books

3rd prize--2 books

All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.

Participating Authors/Books offered for Prizes:

Anny Cook Winter Hearts
Sandra Cox Boji Stones
Bronwyn Green Ronan’s Grail
Heather Hiestand Cards Never Lie
Barbara Huffert Deal of a Lifetime
Amarinda Jones Mad About Mirabelle
Kelly Kirch Time for Love
Cindy Spencer Pape Cowboy’s Christmas Bride
Brynn Paulin Fallen
Jacquéline Roth Access Denied
KZ Snow Mrs. Claws
Lacey Thorn Earth Moves

It’s Christmas decorating time again.

I sat at the local diner on Saturday watching all the cars drive by with their Christmas trees tied to the roof of their cars. SUVs, pick up trucks and even a few compacts with the tree sticking out in the front and back whizzed passed carrying home that little piece of holiday tradition. I began to feel absolutely nostalgic for all of about 30 seconds.

Christmas tree time of year was not necessarily a happy time in my house. It inevitably degenerated into a time of arguing, throwing things and some rather unholiday-like words being shouted. Putting up the tree was a family experience, by golly and we all had to be there to “help”. Now that usually meant watching my parents lose all patience with the tree, throw it at least once and declare that this year there would be no tree. All before they got the stand on. This seems to have been the most difficult part; putting on the stand while keeping the tree straight. I don’t think I will ever forget the year my step-father actually wired the tree to the wall to get it to stand up. This after a long time of yelling and attempting to cut the bottom off so that it would be level. I’m not exaggerating here. He literally wired the tree into the wall so it would stand up.

And outdoor displays. Oh, but they are wonderful things. My parents take their outdoor decorating seriously. Colored lights festoon the white fence that outlines the yard. All evergreen plants are covered with lights and the windows outlined with sparkling blips of color. A couple of years ago they added the ultimate in outdoor Christmas décor. Inflatable “things”. Yes, my parents’ house is that house with the giant, inflatable, illuminated snowman brandishing his candy cane like a holly jolly Norman Bates wielding his knife. No matter how we older kids laugh and sing loudly about “the tackiest house in the neighborhood,” my parents turn a deaf ear and the display grows year after year.

The only other member of my family to be infected by the “decorating” bug is my younger brother. My brother is an interesting creature during non-festive occasions, but at Christmas his uniqueness shines. His house is outlined in lights. This is not a good thing. A couple of years ago my brother literally (I’m not joking) stapled himself to the roof of his house while putting up twinkle lights.

No, it’s not an installment of National Lampoon’s Christmas, my brother really did staple himself to the roof with a staple gun. The really funny part? He stayed up there. In the cold. Freezing. Waiting for someone to help him. All he had to do was pull his arm free, but he didn’t want to rip his shirt. So he sat there on the roof, stapled to it for over an hour until his wife came out to see what was taking so long.

It’s just one of those little things he will never live down, like the time he accidentally threw his cordless phone into the bonfire. Or the time he crawled into my mother’s dryer and almost got the ride of his life. Or how he used to cover his eyes with his hands while standing in plain sight, sure that if he couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see him. I’m not sure he understands the flaw in this concept to this day.

Me? Did I catch the decorating bug? Actually yes, but my dear SO keeps me contained by making me promise before we enter the store that I must not buy the light up grazing reindeer whose head bobs up and down no matter how cute I think it is.

So today we put up our indoor decorations. Lighted holly leaves in the window and our Christmas tree. Straight out of the box. As much as I love the smell and idea of a “real” tree, I like the hives that breakout all over my body a whole lot less.

Next weekend? Outdoors! The boxes of twinkle-lights are ready. Just don’t tell the SO about the light up polar bear I have hidden in the garage.

And speaking of Christmas pretties:

Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Wild Rose Press, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th one of the twelve authors will tell what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.

Collect all twelve answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with 12 days of Romance in the subject line to win some great books. There will be three lucky winners. The prizes –

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All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.

Twisting Secret Santa

I love this time of year. Really, I do. Starting in October there is a feeling of excitement that begins to build. The bright colors, the smiling pumpkins, the ghosts and ghouls; all make me smile. Turkeys and scarecrows with harvest corn and colorful gourds take their turn in November. Then in December the twinkle lights and the red ribbons, the evergreen boughs and mistletoe, the snowmen, candy canes, Santas and nativities take the sense of beauty and wonder to the next level. (Unfortunately it also takes tacky along with it, but hey, it’s Christmas –we’ll over look it.) People will go out of their way to put a little extra fun in their daily lives, and in the lives of others. Those displays aren’t just for the people who live in that house, they are also for others; like a little gift to the neighborhood.

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is gift giving. I bring this up now not to remind you that you have only 6 shopping weekends til Christmas, but because it is time for the Crones Secret Santa.

I belong to a writer’s group called the Circle of Crones. The core of our group met years ago when we were writers or staff at a fanfiction website. The site was unique in that it was started to use Harry Potter to encourage children to write. Fanfiction is a technique that works wonders to motivate reluctant writers; I’ve seen it in my own classroom. But I digress…

Because we were adults and wanted to have adult conversations and start working on more original material, we started The Circle of Crones. The archives are closed to members only, but we do welcome new members. I’ve workshopped all my pieces there and continue to do so. —I’ll bet you think I’m digressing again. Nope.

Each year for the past several years we’ve done a secret Santa exchange. Now how do people who, with rare exceptions, have never met face to face do a secret Santa exchange? Do we all run out and buy token gifts to mail across the world? (We have members spread across the world.) What does one buy a computer guru from D.C.? Or a civil servant from London? Or a rowdy, fun-loving nurse from Texas? A mom, writer and teacher from Washington state? And most importantly, what does one send a self described mad Welsh witch?

The answer is something you made. We exchange our talents. We paint a picture or write a story. The exchange is organized and everyone puts up their wish list. One person might ask for a “romantic story set in the Regency period.” Another might want a fanfiction story about Neville Longbottom or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Others might ask for art depicting dragons, faeries, ocean landscapes or a favorite character.

So far no one has ever been disappointed.

So I look over my Secret Santa list of options with eagerness. What wish will I fulfill this year? One year I combined them all into one. Maybe I’ll play in the world of fanfiction again, just for a hoot. Maybe I’ll draw a picture. Whatever I choose, I know it will have to be good, because I’m bound to get something great when my turn comes.

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Access Denied -Now available through Cerridwen Press.

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