Are You Ready for the Holidays?

The weather here lately has been deliciously fall-like. It’s put me in a very holiday mood. I’m not typically one of those people who rushes through Thanksgiving in order to get to Christmas – I love them both. And actually I’ve been starting to do my meal planning for the big Thanksgiving feast. See, both my family and my in-laws are local, so we all get together (usually 12 of us in all) and feast and then flop on the couch and chat. (None of us are football people, so that aspect of the day is lost on us.) When Gourmet magazine was still being published, I used to scour their Thanksgiving menu and would often undertake several of their various twists on the Thanksgiving meal. But when they went out of print I was at a loss. For a while we had the standard fare, but I’ve been missing having a chance to play a little in the kitchen. But this year, my sister found a Thanksgiving meal in New Mexico magazine and I’m stoked. It’s just different enough to make it fun to cook, but still traditional enough that there shouldn’t be too much complaining around the table.

But! This year I’m even more excited about after Thanksgiving for a few reasons – and I hope they’ll excite you as well.

First, several of the other HopeSprings authors and I are teaming up to do a sort of mini-Advent calendar. We’ll have 2 posts each of the 3 weeks of December leading up to Christmas with fun prizes at each stop. And then, all the folks who’ve entered in the individual giveaways will be entered in a grand prize drawing for something quite nice. I’ll have all the details for this next week, but it’s definitely something to look forward to.

Second, Joint Venture, Matt and Laura’s story, will release the first week of December! It’s a short novel (or novella – though there’s some controversy in the writing world about whether or not you should use that term. I tend to think readers are smart enough to know what they are.) For now it’s going to be eBook only, but the plan is for it to be available in a paperback once I get two more novellas written (so it’ll be a 3-in-1.) No time frame for that as yet.

Finally, well, Christmas itself. I love celebrating Jesus’s birthday. I love watching my boys celebrate it. I love the decorations and the smells and the sounds. And if the weather keeps on being cold, I’ll love that, too.

What are you looking forward to over the next six weeks?