Merry Christmas, y'all!
Find out why I have several ham wrappers in my closet
My family loves Christmas, just as I am sure most of y’all’s families do as well. We “do” Christmas up REAL BIG. Like, the scene from Elf where he stays up and decorates Gimbel’s for Santa’s big arrival kind of big.
Except as a family, we’re a little more tacky, and that’s what makes it so fun.
Ever since I was a kid, Daddy wrapped Mama’s presents in the shiny, metallic wrapping from our holiday hams. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas: all the ham “paper” was saved and ended up under our tree every year. Sometimes the label was still on it because it just didn’t peel off pretty, so rather than rip the wrapping, he put a gift tag over the Gwatley label. But if he was lucky, the oval label would peel off clean and an outsider wouldn’t have any clue that his gift wrap was from the Easter ham. I think it started with my great grandmother, Katie Lee Durden. She was a product of the Great Depression, and there was no sense in letting something so pretty go to waste.
Since I have a seasonal dependence on ham that starts around mid-October and doesn’t end until after New Year’s (ask me how this caused a near-disaster while in college), I have quite a collection of red and purple ham wrappers in my closet.
Some of my favorite Christmas traditions are around gift-giving. My Papa Floyd loved giving gifts, but they had to be wrapped in a tricky way. He would give you a simple peppermint stick, but it would be wrapped a hundred grocery bags all knotted together. The gift was in the fun of unwrapping it. My cousin Jenny and I continued the tradition for several years after he died. She gave me a scavenger hunt to find my gift when I was 12 or 13, but it was in Spanish. The thing was, I hadn’t taken any Spanish classes yet. I gave her a pair of earrings, but I put them in the bottom of a frozen paint bucket. Our uncle had to bust out his blowtorch to melt the ice. Once, I had to dig through wet dog food. I don’t even remember the gift, but it was so fun (and gross) to open our gifts each year. The year after the paint bucket, Jenny gave me a box covered in bondo that Daddy had to RUN OVER WITH HIS CAR in an attempt to help me open it. Inside? A pair of zebra print underwear!
Last year, we started a new tradition of crafting after we open gifts up at my Nannie’s house with all the cousins. I spent today baking salt dough ornaments for all of us to paint.
Last year, I just did shapes, but I stepped it up with sugar cookie stamps. I cannot handle how cute these are!
What are some of y’all’s traditions at Christmas time? I’d love to hear them!
LISTENING/READING/WATCHING/WRITING
LISTENING:
It’s been nonstop Christmas music over here amongst all the salt dough ornaments and ham wrapping paper. I know it’s basic, but this Christmas Classic playlist on Spotify is making us pretty happy. It is the cutest thing ever to see Jubi and Joy sing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” at the top of their lungs.
READING:
I am considering submitting a story to Harlequin’s Love Inspired or Love Inspired Suspense publishing imprints, so I am doing research by reading some of the books in those lines. I read several that I really enjoyed, but especially Recovered Secrets by Jessica R. Patch. It was a fun and quick read, but the plot was unexpected with really likeable characters. I stayed up late to finish it, and then I reached out to the author on Instagram. She was so sweet. She gave me some pointers about the submission process, and I really appreciated the time she spent talking to me about it!
WATCHING:
Jared and I are rewatching Seinfeld because we finished The Witcher, and I am too emotionally devastated to move onto another show just yet. It’s the season for comfort shows, I think. We also rewatched A Christmas Story with the girls the other night, and they think it is hilarious. Do y’all remember when they played it 24 hours straight on TBS? That played all day in the background of our Christmas day festivities growing up.
WRITING:
I am 66,467 words into my 80k goal, and if I stay on track, I should be finished by my 37th birthday in January. I am currently writing the final scenes, but I have a list of things I need to go back and add in, mostly more about Jacob’s backstory and some of the Laurel’s family’s ancestry that has directly influenced her present mental state.
I am also outlining my story for Harlequin, and I am excited at the prospect. The imprints I’m considering top out at 55k words, so it feels very doable.
Before I leave y’all to your holiday fun, I wanted to share one of my favorite Christmas quotes. I include it in most of our Christmas letters that I send with our cards.
This truly is the season of miracles (like all seasons), but for me and my family, the miracle of Christ’s birth is especially compelling. What a gift He is to us.
What ever your Christmas traditions, I hope y’all have the merriest Christmas yet.
Love, Tristan
P.S. They are practically giving my book away on Amazon, and if you order in the next day or two, it can be under your tree by Christmas!
P.P.S. I was serious when I said I wanted to know what y’all’s traditions are! Reply to this email or comment and let me know :)