It’s Christmas Eve! My older son and daughter-in-law will arrive tomorrow to celebrate the holidays--for our second time. We already had one celebration with other family members who were passing through L.A. earlier.
That’s a fact of life for me. My family has always celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas by gift-giving, so our holiday season lasts for a while.
My favorite gift, especially these days, is the ability to spend the holidays with as many beloved family members as possible. My mother-in-law is giving us the special gift of staying with us for a month. Our younger son pops in and out, since he lives in San Diego, only a two hour drive away from L.A. And of course our pups Lexie and Mystie are around to help us celebrate.
I also get a kick out of store-bought gifts. I’ve always liked collecting wristwatches, which is a bit of an anachronism in these days when people tell time by glancing at their Blackberries or cell phones. The gift I loved best as a child was a watch that had interchangeable bands and frames for the face. I begged for it, and wound up getting a band and a face for each day of Hanukkah.
The only Christmas story I’ve had published so far was a romance story in an anthology called WINTER WONDERLAND, published by Dorchester as a Love Spell book. All of the authors based their stories on a Christmas carol they chose. Mine was “Up On The Housetop.” This year is the ten-year anniversary of its publication, but it reappears on store shelves every once in a while near Christmastime.
Who is spending the holidays with you? I wish you all a wonderful Christmas!
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8 comments:
We've always celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas. We'd light candles for Hanukkah and Christmas eve my family had a party. I'd end the evening by babysitting for some kids I took care of regularly, so their parents could go to midnight mass.
My Christmas came early this year. The best part of this time of year is that we set aside time to just be together. That's a great gift. Enjoy your time.
That was really nice of you, Betty --babysitting those kids. Did they sleep, or did you continue to celebrate the holiday with them? Are you still celebrating this year, too?
Thanks, Terri. I'll certainly enjoy my time with the family. Hope you continue to have a great holiday season.
The kids were always asleep when I took care of them. They are all grown now and I lost touch with the family other than to see the mother get a mention in the acknowledgement in The Chicago Manual of Style.
Most of my celebrating this year was writing about it in the manuscript I just turned in. Though my husband and I drove through Candy Cane Lane last night. It's an area in Woodland Hills were most of the people decorate their houses and it attracts of big crowd. It was very festive, with kids hanging out of car windows looking at all the lights.
One family had a live Santa in their front yard.
I LOVE holiday decorations and often we'll drive around the neighborhood like that, Betty, and see who has the most outrageous set up!
Sounds like a fun place to see, Betty. Do you keep track of the most outrageous, Camille?
I'm hoping to take the family through the Griffith Park holiday light show once they're all here--if the traffic isn't too bad.
We have several neighborhoods that we always go back to, where the houses seem to be in competition for the most elaborate scenes.
I fictionalized this in the next Miniature Mystery (April 2010) but made it a Halloween plot -- the people on a certain street in my fictional town have a contest every year for the best Halloween decorations. It's called "Monster in Miniature" and -- need I say -- one of the decorations is deadly!
What a great idea, Camille.
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