Happy Christmas To You

 Peanut Butter. Jelly. Socks. Shoes. Batman. Robin. Tom. Jerry. What do all these things have in common? They are all part of a famous pair.

Famous pairs surround us at every turn, and no doubt you could add some great ones of your own to the list, but none is as exciting to a Christmas enthusiast as Christmas and July. An unlikely twosome you say? Perhaps you don't realize how much the celebration of Christmas in July has growing in popularity.

Although it likely began at different times and for different reasons in various parts of the world, in the U.S., it is thought to have been started by Fannie Holt, the director of a summer camp for girls in Brevard, North Carolina in the 1930's. 

To offer the campers some unique summertime fun, Fannie had the girls sing Christmas carols, exchange gifts, and even host a visit from Santa himself. It makes sense that the duplication of this wonderful holiday was the brainchild of someone who worked with kids.

In the 1940's a comedy starring Dick Powell and Ellen Drew bore the name, and if you fast forward to current day, society has given us everything from songs about the subject, to summer cocktails with names like Mistletoe Kiss, to an entire month of Christmas themed movies from the Hallmark Channel.

Why on earth do humans have such an obsessive fascination with Christmas that we have to celebrate it twice in the year?

Perhaps it's the fun that comes with a change of pace.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, celebrating Christmas at the midpoint of the year allows us to combine what is usually a winter holiday with the fun and sun of summer. This opens the door to all sorts of wacky and wonderful events like getting Santa to a luau on the beach.

 For the citizens of the world who dwell in the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true, and they take every advantage of the snow/rain to decorate their gardens with festive decor and set up European-style Christmas markets.

Alternatively, it could be the green stuff. Cha-ching.

Marketers, of course, have a field day with yet one more opportunity to lure us in with sales and specials. As if we needed an excuse to shop.

Maybe people want to take their matching pajama picture early so it will be ready for the postcards in time for real Christmas.

Or maybe, if we set cynicism aside, it's as simple as the fact that Christmas, with all its trappings and traditions, makes people happy. And why not infuse more happiness in the world? We might as well have two Thanksgivings, three birthdays, and a month of Valentine's, complete with Brach's candy hearts available in small boxes at all times. Plus Cadbury eggs. Don't forget the eggs.

Is it necessary? No. But is it fun? Absolutely. A quick internet search turned up the following festivities just within a sixty-mile radius of my house.

A murder mystery dinner called The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

A free ornament-making workshop

A concert of Christmas-themed music put on by the Chamber of Commerce

A Christmas Toy Drive benefitting Shriners Children's

And $200 credit for anyone who books three nights at a nearby resort

With these options and more, how can you be a Grinch? Just jump on the celebratory bandwagon and put Feliz Navidad on repeat for the next 174 days. 

I would be remiss as an author if I didn't at least mention the way that I am celebrating Christmas in July. Although I have three chapters left to write, I will be releasing Book Two in my Home for Christmas Series during the last week of the month. 

The Long Way Home began as a novella and has blossomed into a full-length novel. Book one, Finding Home is the fifth novella in the 5-author anthology entitled Christmas In The Cascades.

Being from Southern California, it is definitely strange writing about wreaths and snowstorms as I blast my AC, but stirring up themes of family and community as well as joy and hope seem fitting for any time of year.

Check out Christmas In the Cascades on Amazon and KU and keep your eyes peeled for The Long Way Home. Until then, stay warm or cool, whatever your case may be, and munch on a candy cane from last year's stocking. 

It's been a pleasure contributing to Cowboy Kisses, friends.

Happy Christmas to you.

The Long Way Home

Sweet With Faith Christmas

By day, Cynda Marks produces a celebrity baking show. On the side, she works on her own series about small towns and the fascinating people who live there.

When she discovers a failing toy store at a Christmas tourist town in the Cascade Mountains, Cynda hopes to include it in the series and help the owner raise the money she needs to keep the store. Discovering that a reclusive “secret santa” hand makes all the toys in the shop fuels her desire to tell the story. The owner shuts the idea down to protect the toy maker’s privacy.

John Carter has all but withdrawn from society. He has his reasons, and nobody needs to know them.

The only person he maintains contact with is his dead friend’s wife, Maggie, and that’s because he owes her—big time. When it appears she’s going to lose the family toy store, he stretches his social limitations to look for work that will help her hold onto it.

A knock on his workshop door in the middle of a snowstorm introduces him to the pushiest, most talkative woman he’s ever met. He turns her proposal to film him down flat despite the money she promises and sends her on her way into the stormy night.

Her second knock brings an offer he can’t refuse, and before he knows it, he finds himself living in Cynda Marks’ home, practically in view of the house and memories he's spent his whole life running from.

As John and Cynda work toward the same goal of helping Maggie save the store, Christmas miracles stir and create a heartwarming journey’s end for the prodigal who took The Long Way Home.