With only three days left until December 25th, I suspect most of you have found it is finally beginning to look at least a little like Christmas—though unseasonably warm weather in much of the lower 48 has it feeling more like spring. (According to NOAA, 5,900-plus daily record highs have been broken this month).
Here in Oklahoma, people have been spotted doing their Christmas shopping in shorts and flip-flops, a sight more akin to Miami Beach than Oklahoma City.
Still, as neighborhoods and shopping malls don twinkly lights, and the local radio station takes to playing Oh, Holy Night and the local TV stations, Christmas classics such as The Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas, even the neighborhood Grinch couldn’t ignore that the most wonderful time of the year is almost here.
But if you are finding it difficult to get in the holiday spirit without snow on the ground or a chill in the air, please know your favorite authors have done their part to put you in a Christmas frame of mind, bringing out Christmas novels by the score . . .
From Linda Lael Miller’s Christmas in Mustang Creek or McKettrick Christmas Box Set to Diana Palmer’s Christmas on the Range . . .
From Robyn Carr’s reissue of Bring Me Home for Christmas to Christina Dodd’s Gabriel’s Gift in eBook . . .
From Sabrina Jeffries’s historical romance What Happens Under the Mistletoe to Victoria Alexander’s Same Time, Next Christmas.
From Sherryl Woods’s The Christmas Bouquet to Katherine Spencer’s Together for Christmas . . .
In fact, it doesn’t matter if your favorite kind of love story is a contemporary, a historical or comes with boots and cowboy hats—there’s a Christmas romance or thriller for you. (For a complete list, just plug in the word “Christmas” on the Writerspace search engine.)
And that means when all the gifts are wrapped, the cookies frosted, the stockings hung and the carols at church sung, you can be sure your favorite chair, a cup of hot chocolate, and a good read await.
That’s about as good as it gets in my book. How about you? What does Christmas look like for you?
— Jeanne Devlin