Need a Little Christmas in Your July?
***Heather Markowski is the winner of my ARC! Thank you everyone for entering AND for sharing your stories – I’m almost in the holiday mood, now!!***
So, I don’t know how the weather is where YOU live, but here in the middle of the USA it is swelteringly, meltingly, humidly, BOILINGLY HOT. Now, I’m not much of a winter person, myself, but even those of us who hate bundling up on those cold winter days might be dreaming of a little frost, cocoa, crackling fires, and dinners with family about now.
What better time to give away one of my paperback ARCs of Mistletoe & Mr. Right (Two Stories of Holiday Romance)??Â
That’s right – there are TWO novellas combined in this hard copy version, and guess what else – Kirkus says “These fluffy yet sexy romances will wrap readers in warm blankets.” (Romance. 16-20)
HOW COOL IS THAT? SUPER COOL.
Okay. In order to enter to win the paperback ARC, tell me the Christmas/Holiday tradition that you look forward to the most – especially when you’re sweating in the summer heat! I’ll choose one winner at midnight on July 26th so make sure and enter before then!
I’d also appreciate some shares if you have the time! Happy Christmas in July!
I love curling up with a good book on my big chair wih a cup of coffee and blanket by my fireplace during a big snowstorm!
Now that I read everyone’s I guess this isn’t so much a tradition but something I dream of all summer long lol. Favorite tradition I guess would be putting up the Christmas tree.
Cookie baking. We always back a ton of cookies for Christmas to have for the holidays, and as much as I kind of also hate this tradition as the person who is now responsible for the majority of the baking (no one else is home to help anymore!) it just isn’t Christmas until the cookie baking starts, and I can’t imagine the holiday without that super stressful weekend of cookie-baking-doom.
Decorating the tree is always my favorite. Now watching my kids have fun make sit even better!’
Christmas stocking!
Now that I’m a mom, it’s awesome just seeing how excited my kids get Christmas morning.
I look forward to Christmas lights! I love them
It’s mostly just family. Getting everyone together. And yeah, the yummy baked goodies are great too!
I look forward most to Christmas morning. I love to leave the tree lights on at night because I can see them flickering off the walls when I exit my room in the morning. I love to see them reflecting off the shiny presents. It’s not about opening presents. It’s about all of my family sitting in new pajamas as they pass around their gifts proudly, knowing that there gift will be loved. I love the smell of atole that my mom makes as the rest of us gather the discarded wrapping paper. We all sit around breaking in our new gifts. We laugh and talk and try to let the worries disappear for one morning.
decorating the tree together
I love decorating the tree! Thank you for the shot at the giveaway!
having time off ? Does that count as a tradition? 🙂 I don’t know that my family is big on tradition, but we always do early mass on Christmas Eve and then spend come home to a big dinner and opening one present! Thanks for the giveaway!!
One of my favorite traditions when my mother was alive was we always did Christmas at her house on Christmas Eve. She always made haystack which was melted butterscotch with Chinese noodles. It was and is my favorite holiday candy. In remembrance of her, I always let me son open at least one Christmas present on Christmas eve even though she’s been gone for 2 years now.
My husband is in the Navy & we live pretty far from family so a lot of times its just him & I (& the dogs) together for Christmas. We stay in our pjs all day & cook together… make the whole big Christmas dinner & then set the table all fancy. Love that we are together & don’t have to get all dressed & rush around all over the place. Then we call all of all family while we eat dessert 🙂
My mother died on Christmas Eve 23 years ago. For reasons too numerous to go into here, it was about 20 years before I forgave myself enough to look forward to Christmas again. Why? My granddaughters. I have three now and everything good that disappeared by my mother’s death is erased. My children (how did I get so lucky) have forgiven me all those Christmases I was wallowing in misery, with my husband doing Christmas by himself (although he tried and failed to resuscitate her). NOW I love everything about it: planning gifts for everyone, wrapping, decorating making cookies with the grandchildren, making candied peel as gifts, teaching them carols, Advent calendars, Advent candles, teaching the story, making snowmen, hot cocoa, I am even enjoying putting everything away, as I now have decorations that mean something.
Every year on Christmas Eve, my family watches A Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s definitely my favorite part. I can watch the movie any time of year, but it’s extra special on that night. (:
Austin has this huge trail of lights, about 1.25 mi long, that ends under a giant, 155 ft light strand Christmas tree in our park downtown. Ever since I was a small, my family would walk the trail of lights, visit with Santa, stand by the several bonfires along the trail, and then at the end, spin under the tree, looking up at the lights blurring, until we got dizzy and fell down. My parents are no longer around, but it’s still so wonderful sharing it with friends, especially friends whom have never gotten to experience it.
Baking cookies or sitting around wrapping gifts. Both are so much fun, the anticipation of what someone will say is the fun part
I love that we always open stocking gifts first. 😉
Decorating the tree together is wonderful.
Decorating the Christmas tree, remembering all of the special ornaments and where/who they came from.
My favorite tradition is every year we find a new family game to play and Christmas day we sit around the table nibbling on the goodies and learn whatever the new game is this year. Even the littlest one gets to play. It gets harder every year to find just the right game but everyone looks forward to finding out what it will be.
Taking down my big plastic pumpkin and replacing him with my big Frosty the Snowman to get the season started-!!!
I DO LOVE TO R. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE
Roasting chesstnuts and carols
Seeing my grand children’s face’s on Christmas afternoon when they see that Santa has left them some presents Deep joy.
When all the family arrives Christmas morning for brunch and exchange of gifts.
I do love decorating the Christmas Tree.
I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I celebrate a holiday called Eid that was in fact in July this year! My favorite tradition is going out to eat after our prayer in the mosque. We get all dolled up and go out usually to IHOP. Then we have presents to give to each other. So it’s sort of a summer Christmas except different religious reasons with no tree. It’s so much fun getting together with my family.
For me it’s a toss up between going to get our tree (picking out the perfect one, cutting it down, warming up after with hot cider etc) and baking cookies with my son we blast music and make a huge mess but it’s lots of fun! (Thank you for the chance!)
Verry nice Lyla, love these kind of books even if July and 105 here