Holidays and The Tradition of Change by Grace Greene

This is my favorite time of year. It begins in October and runs through the end of December.

The leaves fall, the pumpkins are carved, and Halloween arrives with costumes and candy and trick-or-treaters. I enjoy Halloween. It’s my younger son’s birthday and the family often gathered for his birthday party and then the children went trick or treating with most of the parents tagging along. Lots of family and fun.

Less than a month later, it’s Thanksgiving. Mom and dad, my siblings and their families, all cooperated with me for many years, allowing me to cook the turkey and fill my dining room table and the chairs around it, with family, food, and good cheer.

Finally, Christmas is in sight. Suddenly we’re in full swing with shopping, decorating, sprucing up the house and preparing for the arrival of the kids (of all sizes and ages) and other guests, while making sure Christ is remembered and honored throughout the traditional hustle and bustle.

While we are busy making memories, life and the passing of time bring changes. Some changes happen quietly or gradually, some are abrupt and tear at our hearts. The children grow up and build lives elsewhere. Parents age and are lost to us. Grandchildren arrive. In-laws must be considered. This change is a tradition of its own—one that generations of families have experienced and shared throughout history. Change is the nature of life, including for us and for the people we love.

That’s what my novella, Beach Christmas, is about—traditions and family, and embracing change. Sometimes we can’t conceive of welcoming change, but change is inevitable. Change can be bittersweet or tragic, but change can also be joyful. Don’t hold onto the past too tightly. Make peace with the past and with the present feeling of loss, and look for joy in the now.

What holiday traditions and memories do you cherish?

Beach Christmas is available in ebook and print, and also in the Sweet Christmas Kisses box set at Kindle, KOBO, Nook and iBooks.

 

~*~*~*~

Grace Greene writes women's fiction and contemporary romance with suspense. A Virginia native, Grace has family ties to North Carolina. She writes books set in both locations.

The Emerald Isle books, BEACH RENTAL and BEACH WINDS, are set in North Carolina where "It's always a good time for a love story and a trip to the beach." Or travel down Virginia Country Roads in KINCAID'S HOPE, A STRANGER IN WYNNEDOWER, and CUB CREEK and "Take a trip to love, mystery and suspense." Find Grace at her website, on Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

Christmas Lights by Raine English

One of my favorite things to do during the holiday season is to drive around looking at Christmas lights. I love white lights, so I always head for the center of town, where the tree-lined streets have been turned into a winter wonderland, then I head across town to the park with the dazzling light show of more than three hundred lighted characters.

After that, I wind through a number of neighborhoods to satisfy my daughter’s love of multicolored lights. Some of the houses are so decked out that I hate to think of what the home owners’ electric bills must be like.

But the trip wouldn’t be complete without a drive by the brown Cape Cod with the lifelike Santa and his sleigh and the huge hot air balloon with Rudolph inside. It’s been a favorite of ours for years.

Where do you go to look at Christmas lights?

~*~

USA Today bestselling author Raine English writes sweet small-town romances. She lives in New England with her family and her French bulldog, Bailey. Her latest release, Some Christmas Magic, is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

For information on all of her books, visit her website at www.RaineEnglish.com.

Wednesday Santa's Sweet Romance Reads Bash on Facebook! by Margaret Daley

I've finished my book deadline and I'm ready to party. I hope you are too. Come join us and celebrate with us at SANTA’S SWEET ROMANCE READS BASH on Facebook tomorrow Wednesday December 17^th from noon to 8 p.m. ET. We’ll have prizes, games and good company.

Join in the fun here: Christmas Bash

This is the time of year to indulge in sweets. Like a vacation, calories don’t count during the holidays. I wish that were really true. Oh, well, we can always dream. I want to share a new recipe I came across from Braum, which is a chain of stores that specializes in ice cream and diary products in my area of the country.

Peppermint Cake with Marshmallow Cream Frosting

2 cups of melted peppermint ice cream

1 box of white cake mix

3 eggs

½ cup chocolate mint flavored baking chips

4 oz. softened cream cheese

1 7 oz. jar of marshmallow cream

1 stick of softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ¾ cups powdered sugar

small pieces of peppermint candies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray nonstick cooking spray in a Bundt pan. Combine the cake mix, eggs and melted ice cream in a large bowl and then beat those ingredients  together for 2 minutes with an electric mixer. Stir in the baking chips until they are all mixed in. Fill the Bundt pan with the batter and bake for 35-40 minutes. It should be golden and cooked thoroughly. When you remove the cake from the oven, turn the Bundt pan upside down onto a plate and leave the pan over the cake for at least 4 hours.

For the frosting, beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth with an electric mixer. Add in the marshmallow cream and vanilla and mix together. Finally put in the powdered sugar slowly mixing in ½ cup at a time. Spread the frosting over the cake and decorate with bits of peppermint.

Do you have a favorite holiday sweet you would like to share with us?

And if you’d like to receive our special Christmas enewsletter with a collection of Christmas stories—just enter your email address under Mailing List box on the right. 

Margaret Daley is a USA Today bestselling author with over 5 million books sold worldwide. She loves writing romances--contemporary and romantic suspense ones. Her latest books this month are The Yuletide Rescue and Deadly Holiday, both romantic suspense stories. Connect with her through her newsletter or on Facebook.

Time for Holiday Flicks by Alicia Street

                                                                                                   © Andrey Kiselev

I love everything about Christmas. But one of my favorite things is watching Christmas movies. There are special ones that I absolutely must see every year.

Like the old black-and-white version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. (Of course I’ve also read it and have an illustrated copy that I bring out this season along with my Nutcracker and Twelve Days of Christmas pop-up books.)

Then there are the silly, fun musicals, like Holiday Inn and White Christmas, and Babes in Toyland. And the romances and comedies: It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street, Christmas in Connecticut, Home Alone, Elf—I could go on for pages.

Many I’ve been watching yearly since I was a kid. Others I’ve added to my wish list of any new flicks that deserve to be seen over and over.  

But that’s one of my problems…my husband has seen them all so many times that he likes to tease me by calling out lines before the actors do! I’ve tried several solutions to stop him from doing this, and the best seems to be keeping his mouth occupied with popcorn or pie or Christmas cookies. J

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday! What holiday movies are your favorites?  

ALERT! - Don't miss our SANTA’S SWEET ROMANCE READS BASH on Facebook this Wednesday December 17^th from noon to 8 p.m. ET. We’ll have prizes, games and good company.

Join in the fun here: Christmas Bash

And if you’d like to receive our special Christmas enewsletter with a collection of Christmas stories—just enter your email address under Mailing List box on the right. 

                                                                           ~*~

Alicia Street is a USA Today bestselling author                  

and a Daphne du Maurier award-winner.

She spent many years as a dancer, choreographer

and teacher and is a compulsive reader of every

genre.

You can connect with Alicia at her website or

visit her on Facebook or Twitter.

Christmas Trees by Merrillee Whren

This is what I call our family Christmas tree. The tree is decorated with the ornaments that my kids have made and the dated ornaments that I've collected over the thirty plus years of our marriage. There are also ornaments that I've bought while we were on vacation. I used to put these ornaments on a cut tree, but since we moved to Arizona we haven't bought a cut tree. This is the old slim line tree that we used to have in our living room in Florida while we had a cut tree out on our lanai by the swimming pool. If you look really hard, you might be able to see the book sitting on the branches in the middle of the three. It's my January book for Love Inspired, SECOND CHANCE REUNION.

Below you can see one of the cut trees we had in Florida. You may recognize some of the ornaments from the tree above. 

We also have a formal tree in the living room. I started that tradition in Dallas where we had a very tall ceiling that I thought deserved a tall tree. This tree is decorated in gold, white and maroon. I no longer have to have a slim line tree to fill this space in front of our living room window. You can see my Santa wind sock on the tree out front.

Besides the two large trees, I have two small trees that now fit very nicely on the ledge that overlooks our living room. One of them has small international Santa ornaments on it, and the other one just colored lights. Here they are.

I have gone overboard with Christmas trees? Do any of you have multiple trees in your home?


We will be sending out a Christmas enewsletter with a collection of Christmas stories you won't want to miss! To sign up, please scroll down on the right and enter your email address under Mailing List. And don't miss our Santa's Sweet Romance Reads Bash on Facebook on Weds Dec17th-noon to 8 p.m. Eastern. Sign up to join in the fun here: http://on.fb.me/1yqvdOe   Thank you!

Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of  thirty-five plus years, and has two grown daughters. Her latest book, Second Chance Reunion, is available at all major book retailers. You can find the buy links at her website. Connect with her on her Facebook page.

Last Minute Gal by Aileen Fish

I love a deadline.

I wouldn't believe it if it weren't for the fact that I'm always putting things off until the last minute. Or is it simply over-scheduling beyond the number of hours in any given time?

Either way, I tend just squeak under the wire on projects, having stayed up the night before to finish. Except lately. Now I get so distracted I can be up late and start working on tomorrow's deadline, get completely distracted and never go back to it. Like this blog. I'm in charge of making sure everyone remembers to post on time, and I missed my deadline!

So with Christmas gift-making and three book deadlines looming, I will press on and hope I can get enough sleep while hitting my marks.

How about you? Are you the type to cross things off your list in plenty of time, or are you a queen of the adrenaline rush like me who needs that scary moment of missing the deadline to get things done?

Don’t forget to join us for Santa’s Sweet Romance Reads Bash on Facebook on December 17th from noon to 8pm. There will be tons of games, prizes & so much fun to be had. Don’t miss it! Christmas Bash

~*~

USA Today Bestselling Author Aileen Fish is an avid quilter and auto racing fan who finds there aren't enough hours in a day/week/lifetime to stay up with her "to do" list. There is always another quilt or story begging to steal away attention from the others. When she has a spare moment she enjoys spending time with her two daughters and their families, and her fairy princess granddaughter. Her books include The Bridgethorpe Brides series and the Small Town Sweethearts series.

Stay up to date with book releases at her website http://aileenfish.com or on Facebook .

Sweets of the Season by Shanna Hatfield

Coconut Cake

Confession is good for the soul, right?
So here goes... I not only love to bake, but I also indulge in a little "quality assurance" of said baked goods during the holiday season.
Most of the goodies I bake get packed into tins and given away as gifts or taken to parties and celebrations.
To me, holiday baking is a way of connecting with my past (while admittedly creating some yummy treats). My grandmother always made the best pies in the world, or at least my world, and her fudge... oh, my goodness, was it good. When I married Captain Cavedweller, she gave me a hand-written recipe card with the fudge recipe along with the antique dish she always served fudge on during the holidays.
Mom was also a great baker and maker of candies. Peanut brittle was one of her specialties along with the divinity my dad begged for every year.
Baking and holidays just always went hand-in-hand in my family. The gift of an easy-bake oven when I was six stirred my interest in baking and created a life-long love for making sweet treats to share.
Here are a few of my holiday favorites:

 

Sugar Cookies

I started working on the perfect, soft sugar cookie recipe when I was in high school. I don't know that I ever found perfection, but this one comes close if you like a soft cookie that isn't too sweet, yet has an old-fashioned flavor to it.

Gingerbread Bars

 I used to go to all the work of making gingerbread cut-out cookies, then some fabulous person brought gingerbread bars to a cookie exchange party and my life changed for the better. These are so good and so easy to make!

 Pumpkin Roll

My beloved auntie shared her recipe for this delicious pumpkin roll with me right after I first got married. The recipe card bears the stains and splatters of twenty-years of abuse, but it just wouldn't be the holiday season if I didn't make at least one Pumpkin Roll.

 Seven-Layer Bars

Two of my nieces and I love these bars so much. That's one of the reasons I eat one and quickly give the rest away.

Cake Pops

We won't even talk about calorie count with these rich balls of cake and frosting, but they are so good. Especially fun for kids since they are on a stick.

May whatever you cook up for the holiday season be full of sweet romance!

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The Sweet Romance Reads authors will be hosting the Santa’s Sweet Romance Reads Bash on December 17^th from Noon to 8 PM (Eastern Time). Join this event now! There will be oodles of Christmas fun, games, and prizes.

 ~~~

Please sign up for our mailing list. We plan to send out a newsletter featuring some wonderful romance flash fiction. Put your email address in the box under "Mailing List" located in the left hand column, then click subscribe. Thanks!

~~~

Reminder! Now through Dec. 24, I’ll donate 10 percent of the net proceeds from all book sales to the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund. The JCCF is a non-profit organization that assists rodeo athletes who’ve sustained catastrophic injuries and are unable to work for an extended period.

~~~ 

A hopeless romantic with a bit of sarcasm thrown in for good measure, Shanna Hatfield is a bestselling author of sweet romantic fiction written with a healthy dose of humor. In addition to blogging and eating too much chocolate, she is completely smitten with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller.
Shanna creates character-driven romances with realistic heroes and heroines. Her historical westerns have been described as “reminiscent of the era captured by Bonanza and The Virginian” while her contemporary works have been called “laugh-out-loud funny, and a little heart-pumping sexy without being explicit in any way.”
She is a member of Western Writers of America, Women Writing the West, and Romance Writers of America.
Find Shanna’s books at:
Amazon | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Apple
Shanna loves to hear from readers! Follow her online:
ShannaHatfield | Facebook | Pinterest | Goodreads | You Tube | Twitter