Hey guys, today you will see various posts from Authors that we hounded… er asked what they would be doing for Christmas and many of them have sent us wonderful posts with pictures so we can share their holiday’s with you.

My first author is Mary Calmes, I adore Mary’s stories like Where You Lead and with how she creates great stories I just had to find out how she celebrated Christmas.

Christmas at the Calmes house begins with tree decorating and we watch the movie Elf while we’re doing it along with eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. Even in Hawaii we did the same thing. There are store bought ornaments and handmade ones as well. We hang the kids’ stockings and two years ago, we got a cat, so Dewey’s goes up too. The last decoration we put up is the angel and she always goes in the kitchen. We open gifts Christmas day, not Christmas Eve, and since we moved to Kentucky, we drive out to the country to spend the day on the family farm. The very best part of the holiday is being together.

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My next author is Sjd Peterson, and after chasing her all over cyberspace I finally pinned her down to share her Christmas plans. Oh I nearly forgot that she once did a Christmas story, Leon it’s a cute read that’s all warm and snuggerly.

Well, I’m not big on decorating. I used to be but I’ve gotten lazy so the tree is all you get.  But hey, it’s a perty… “Oh shiny”  tree.   (It’s so totally me)

I’ll be spending time with friends and family on Christmas and taking all the positive vibes and magic of the holiday season and sending them to Tj, Eric and their families. If anyone deserves a Christmas miracle it’s them.  Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Merry Christmas Hugs

Jo

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And now we have R.J. Scott, who within minutes of being asked had everything back to me with a picture collage, but then she always seems prepared with her excellent Christmas stories like Texas Christmas.

When Pixie asked me to write and tell you about the Scott family Christmas I immediately went to my stock of family photos. I love Christmas, I love the friends, the food, I love writing about Christmas, watching Christmas films, giving presents… you name it and I sign up to it!

This Christmas day is at mum’s house where wine will be consumed and presents opened alongside a huge Christmas dinner. We’ll play games, Matt’s favourite is Sorry, followed closely by Uno and Sevens. We’ll build lego, and probably Mr RJ and my sister’s hubby will have a sleep – that is if Mum’s dog will let them! We always have big plans for what we call *tea* which is at around 7pm… but end up being way to full to manage even a small slice of cucumber.

We don’t really have snow at Christmas (despite what the films tell you!) but every so often we do get the white stuff. Apparently this year it will be overcast and raining… 🙁

All my presents are wrapped and ready, I just need to get Jesse’s Christmas out and available then I can relax!

Happy Christmas to everyone!

RJ X

Picture 1 – Baby’s first Christmas… and yes that is me… bald as a coot and three months old, with my first two teddy bears. I think those bears are the only things holding me up, bit like after I have had a few too many wines.

Picture 2 – Baby’s first Christmas, take 2 – this time I am the one in the rather fetching blue dress, with my mum and dad, circa 1972, holding my little sister (and yes she WAS born with that much hair, unlike me). This was a very special Christmas as we were a family of four.

Picture 3 – An old Christmas Decoration – This is a decoration that we have just put on my Mum’s tree. So many memories of putting this same decoration up every year.

Picture 4 – The Scott Christmas Tree with added arty effects. We put this up at the weekend and I love turning the lights out and sitting watching TV with just the Christmas lights on. Beautiful.

Picture 5 – Don’t ask. When I was 12 I was in the wonderful Panto Cinderella at my school. Yes I played the ugly sister and it was a big (and funny) part, and yes I absolutely needed padding and so much makeup on to make me look hideous…

Picture 6 – Cinderella again. This is a set of Christmas lights that hang in my mum’s house and have done every Christmas since I was little. The set is Cinderella’s carriage interspersed with tiny lanterns. Very pretty and so old now.

Stephani Hecht, sent along her little post about her family Christmas and only technical difficulties have postponed their Christmas snapshots. I suppose to make myself feel better I should read Wayne County Holiday’s and Hot Cocoa and Candy Canes!

Family Traditions-Stephani Hecht

Our family traditions are pretty simple. We like to decorate our tree as soon as possible, usually on Thanksgiving Day. Yeah, we love the Holidays that much. The thing we look forward to the most is the day where they have the Christmas Story marathon. We usually watch it all day long. Sigh We never get tired of that movie. Even though Cody is twenty and Joie is twelve, we all still get stockings. We even make up little ones for the birds and our lizard, so nobody gets left out.

We don’t leave cookies and milk out for Santa anymore, which is kind of a bummer. I miss doing that. The one silver lining in that, is that we passed down our nice plate and glass down to Jackie’s kids. So, it almost feels like the tradition has carried on.

As usual this year, I went overboard on presents. But, to me, the fun part is giving, rather than receiving. I love to see people’s faces when they open a gift that I got for them. To me that’s what the Holidays are all about—bringing joy to others.

Amber Kell, Well if I had RJ then I had to have Amber Kell as well, well they did come up with the wonderful The Case of the Sinful Santa and Amber went even further with her free Christmas short stories Christmas Tree Magic & Santa Wishes! So I had no choice to invite the Queen of Novella’s to tell us her Christmas plans.

When MM good book reviews asked me to write a post I had to take a moment and ponder if I truly wanted everyone to know how strange I truly am. Then I realized most of my fans probably already do so they probably won’t be the least bit surprised at my revelations.

I was asked what sort of Christmas traditions my family follows. Growing up we didn’t really have any. My family isn’t religious and most of the time was spent putting up the fake tree and juggling time between my mom or dad’s house. As an adult I decided to start my own traditions.

1) We always have a real tree. We go to a tree farm and find the perfect tree. Then my husband tells me it won’t fit in our house. Next, we scale down expectations and find a tree that will at least scrape the ceiling. Once tree is home we drown it in lights and ornaments until it can barely stand beneath the weight.

2) We go to Archee McPhee’s and purchase a mystery bag. This will be opened on Christmas Eve to keep the children’s little heads from exploding from Christmas expectations. It contains the normal stuff: poseable Einstein dolls, zombies and the occasional bacon flavored candy…you know the usual holiday cheer.

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3) We get a Lego advent calendar so my eight-year-old Lego fanatic can put them together every day. Older son had one last year but he didn’t want one this time because they didn’t have a Santa Darth Maul. He has a chocolate one instead.

4) Hubby and I send the kids to bed early, drink eggnog and put presents under the tree while we watch our holiday movie The Ref. I always wrap and assemble everything as soon as it is purchased and stash it away. I hate wrapping anything on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is the time for coffee and movies with hubby with a side of Santa.

Along the way we do have things like the usual sugar cookie making. One year I couldn’t find my Christmas cookie cutters so I made Christmas octopuses, once baked they looked like Cthulhu. Maybe it was wrong to take them to my husband’s highly religious family but we had fun.

This year my son’s teacher sent a bag of crayons, a star mold and instructions on making custom crayons. End result. Hubby used them to make crayon zombie fingers. Just another holiday tradition at the Kell house. I hope everyone has fun this holiday season following your own traditions. Merry Christmas.

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T.M. Smith, was an obvious author to invite, after all she does fulfill my pervie needs 😉 She has no Christmas stories as yet but she rocks with The Library!

Christmas in our house means a time of gathering and recognizing the traditions. There is a long list of things we do every year, and the family have come to expect it. First, we always decorate our tree on Thanksgiving day while listening to Christmas Carols. We have such an eclectic array of ornaments and each and every one holds special meaning as well. Every year each member of the family gets a new ornament and this ornament always reflects that person. Trust me, if you know us you could walk over to this tree and know who each ornament is for! For each of the kiddo’s in the family, including myself, we have a baby’s first Christmas ornament. So there are precious bobbles on this tree that are 42 years young!

Friends and family gather every year the weekend before Xmas for a party and gift exchange. And every year it seems, the group grows by one or two. Some of these people we only see this one day a year, so it is all that much more cherished. The conversations, the visiting, sharing events from the past year, eating lots of good food and drinking LOTS of good wine!

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These are all things that my grown children look forward to every year. And my hope is that as they grow older and wiser, that they will continue these traditions in their own homes. Thanks for stopping by today and sharing my Christmas traditions with me! I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell me what Christmas means to you, or one of your families Holiday traditions.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY **
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Cardeno C. Was cautious to join us, but as I said it’s a holiday so send what you can, so C.C. had celebrated Hanukkah and shared with us their holiday celebration, and I am going to tell you to have a look at In Another Life because it’s a wonderful Hanukkah story.

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Hanukkah came at a fun time this year because the 2nd night was on Thanksgiving. That made for some creative Thanksgivukkah celebrations, like a pumpkin turned into a menorah.

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Like with any holiday, there’s food, of course. Potato latkes are traditional this time of year and I tried to get creative with mine. Instead of the usual grated potatoes and onions fried into patties, I used roasted potatoes and all sorts of veggies. It was pretty good, I think, though nothing beats the original. What I’m more proud of were my matzah balls. My father has always made wonderful matzah balls but he was out of town for the holiday this year so I gave it a go. I think they turned out pretty well.

But food and candles aside, Hanukkah is about spending time with family and friends. I was lucky to share candles and dinner and dreidel on the eight night with people I hold near and dear. What is dreidel? Well, it’s a fun game where you spin a top and gamble chocolate coins.

Food, games, and candles with friends and family. That was my holiday this year and it was wonderful.

And now we come to Beau Schemery & Augusta Li, I invited these authors separately but am posting them together because they are such an awesome pair, I adore both these authors books and nearly *squeed* in joy when they said yes!

My name is Beau Schemery and I’ve written the YA novel, The Seventh of London and the Verses of Vrelenden series. Xmas isn’t a real big day in our household which is to say Gus (That’s Augusta Li, fantastic and infamous M/M writer; yep, we’re roommates) and I are normally too busy to go in for all the pomp and circumstance. Our kids are older so they’re not really into the craziness anymore either. We both still work day jobs to supplement our writing so we don’t really get a Christmas break. We really just get a day off. 

That said we really use the day to relax and play Xbox games that we will probably buy for each other. We do presents but nothing super elaborate (Note the extra fancy wrapping bags nicked from our place of day jobbery). We also still put up stockings for the kids with mostly Japanese candy inside. My stocking is one of my boots with my Slytherin scarf thrown over it.

Our goal this year was to not leave the house but since we don’t have cable, we’ll be seeking out a relative’s home to watch The Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Time of the Doctor. And we’ll probably sit around weeping like little kids when Matt Smith regenerates.

Oh and wine. Lots of wine. Hope your day off is as relaxing and filled with weird, authory awesomeness as ours will be!

Augusta Li was ever so kind as to create a picture of the stars of the Blessed Epoch series, Yarrow, Duncan and Sasha…. I have died and gone to heaven, aren’t the guys just so sweet! ~Pixie~