Hello Readers! Today I have a special guest, Terry Spear, author of Scottish Medieval Romance & Urban Fantasy. Terry also writes true stories for adult and young adult audiences. She received Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year in 2008 for Heart of the Wolf. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry is a librarian by day. She lives in Crawford, Texas. She also creates award-winning teddy bears, Wilde & Woolly Bears, to include personalized bears designed to commemorate authors’ books. When she’s not writing or making bears, she’s teaching online writing courses.
Please help me welcome Terry to That’s What I’m Talking About. And be sure to check out the end of Terry’s post for a special giveaway! Take it away, Terry…
What’s Your Favorite Holiday Ritual?
Family means everything, and I’ll be gathering the pack for the big celebration. Only the pack has expanded a bit, no pups yet, but a couple of mates were added to the family!
So here we go. Despite all the hustle and bustle of a blog tour for Dreaming of the Wolf for the month of December, which in light of the Christmas spirit, I’m giving a copy away to one commenter, and trying to decorate for the holidays, clean house, work a full time job, and help my daughter with her bridal pictures in a couple of weeks and make teddy bears for orders as they come in, it’s hectic.
But it all comes down to family. The wolf pack. Presents are nice. But it’s really the gathering, of sharing meals, and of playing games. Of seeing the Christmas lights and swapping stories. Of family.
Everyone’s coming in from various places the day before Christmas Eve, so no plans before that but to do all the above before everyone gets here. Although in my werewolf pack, the family and pack members would help decorate, clean, and prepare all the good meals together.
I will be working the morning of Christmas Eve and the day after for a few hours while everyone is abed! That’s to help out my fellow coworkers at the library because the day following a 3-day holiday will be awful if I don’t do something with all the books and movies turned in.
But I’m sure I won’t be missed at home while everyone has their nightcaps on still and are dreaming of sugar plum fairies.
I’ll be taking off the week after to spend time with my family before they all head off and I’m not able to see them again for a long time.
In a werewolf pack, the families stay close to their pack. But in the case of some jobs, my son is a navigator in the AF going to his first assignment, it’s impossible to stay near the homestead.
Now, my question is, are their wolves in Nebraska? Wolf reserves? I must check it out before I visit him!
So sometimes we must let our pups go so they can make a pack of their own. But they will always be part of the original pack and always much cherished.
We’ll open one gift on Christmas Eve, not sure about our Christmas Eve dinner yet, turkey for Christmas, (this time with a working oven!)….hey, diversity makes the experience even more memorable. Last year after my son helped me get the bird in the oven, he said a couple of hours later, “I don’t smell any turkey smells.” He was right. The dead turkey was sitting in the dead oven. So he carved it up until he could fit half of it in a countertop convection oven. The turkey tasted delicious! Even if it was not all in one piece! We will remember that Christmas forever!
But this year, I have a new oven! And first thing Christmas morning with coffee cups in hand, while everyone else is drinking coffee, I drink green Mandarin tea, and we will open presents, play Christmas music, and hopefully will smell the aroma of roasting turkey!
Then we’ll have turkey and following that we’ll play games.
What are some of your Christmas traditions?
May your holidays be truly special! And thanks again, Jen, for having me on your blog today!
Thanks for stopping by, Terry.
GIVEAWAY: Terry is graciously giving away one (1) copy of her newest release Dreaming of the Wolf. Please tell Terry about your Christmas/holiday traditions by leaving a comment for her by Friday December 9, 2011, at 9:00 PM EST to be eligible for the contest. One entry per person, winner will be selected from eligible entries using random.org. Contest is open to US mailing addresses only. If your email address is not part of your profile, please leave it so I may contact the winner. Thank you to Terry for this fun giveaway!About the book:
Jake Silver doesn’t believe in fate or dream mating, despite the fact his brother and other family members have been afflicted with this strange notion. But when dreams begin to plague him about a woman so seductive, he wakes up in a sweat and he’s losing way too much sleep over it, he seeks to learn the truth. Can dream mating be a reality? Is the woman real?
Alicia Greiston doesn’t dream. Not ever. So when a man visits her in the first dream she’s ever had, she’s startled, pleased, then alarmed. He’s not going away, and the dreams take a sinister turn. He’s in trouble, and if the dreams are a foreshadowing of the future, she has to save him.
For more about Terry’s latest, Dreaming of the Wolf, come back later today for B’s review.
You can find Terry at:
We have lots of holidays traditions in my family. The first is to pick a day close to Christmas and go driving around to look at everyone’s Christmas lights and decorations. Then we bake enough cookies to feed an army and give some to all our friends and family plus make enough to share at the shelters and different homes near me. The Christmas meal has everyone bringing a dish of their own as they show up for Christmas, but every year a new person in the family gets a chance to make the Turkey or Chicken for the main course for that year. Here’s wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, and congratulations on Dreaming of the Wolf which looks and sounds fabulous!
LadyVampire2u AT gmail DOT com
Thanks, LadyVampire2u! That sounds like some terrific traditions! We’re definitely going to drive around and see the lights. We might see a movie the day after Christmas. Just have to see what everyone’s in the mood to do!
We just have a quiet Christmas and share presents the night before, the majority of my family are in two different states, the last time I saw my mother’s side of the family along with my siblings (that wasn’t an emergency trip), was last year. It’s not easy.
taiyouryu@gmail(com)
Thanks for a lovely post and giveaway! My family doesn’t really do “traditions”. We usually open presents on Christmas Eve and have a nice dinner. We are very low key and want to keep it relaxing 🙂
Happy Holidays!
efender1(at)gmail(dot)com
MY Christmas in Minnesota is enjoying making snow men with the grandkids. Ice Fishing and Eating Chili. Baking lots of cookies. Celebrating Hanukah celebrations with my daughter and her kids who found their Jewish roots recently more to her liking. And driving around also to see all the beautiful light displays, watching the snow fall on Christmas eve after going to Christmas eve service with our son. And enjoying Christmas Eve dinner and opening Christmas presents with our Son. Opening Stockings on Christmas Morning with my girls. We’ll be driving over the river and through the woods to my folks home for Christmas Day.
Our tradition is that we get to open 1 present on Christmas eve. The morning of Christmas we only get to open our stockings until everyone is there. That can be rough on the little ones sometimes. Thanks for the chance.
sariahwalters at gmail dot com
Sounds like a great book. Thanks for sharing!! Our tradition are simple. We get together as a family, open gift and eat a good meal.
bacchus76 at myself dot com
We have lots of traditions, but one of my favorites is that we buy an ornament each year representing something that our children happen to be into and have built our collection that way. We’re hoping that as they get older we can look back and go “Oh remember the year you LOVED Star Wars?” or “Oh remember the year you were all about the alligators and we took you to the Alligator Adventure place for your birthday?”. We’ve also been able to find some of my husband and I’s favorite childhood memories as ornaments thanks to Hallmark. It’s just nice to be able to have a story to go along with each one. Thank you for the giveaway!
dani3222001(at)yahoo(dot)com
It’s a holiday tradition in my family to gather in one area, no matter how far we’ve all gone. Presents are opened Christmas Eve, and the rest of the time is spent catching up and eating. 😀
julieguan AT gmail DOT com
My favorite holiday tradition is when everyone who wants to (but mostly me and my sister), pile in the car and drive around town looking at all the cool Christmas decorations. We’ve always loved doing that.
Barbed1951 at aol dot com
I agree, Breila! We did the presents the night before and the next day, everything looked so forlorn. LOL. So we always opened one present the night before, and then the rest Christmas morning. 🙂
Erin, relaxing is very nice. We end up playing games and eating the turkey, just enjoy the family together. 🙂
Wow, Donna, your Christmas wears me out! 🙂 But it sounds delightful too! No snowmen here! But one year we did have snow and, being an Army officer, and one against two, and didn’t have the kids’ high energy, I took the high ground, built my snow wall, and they built theirs below, and had to keep running up the hill to pelt me with their snowballs. Ahh, those were the days. 🙂 I probably couldn’t get away with it today. 🙂
That’s what we do, Sariah, open the stockings first in the morning. 🙂 I’d forgotten that part.
DonnaS, sounds like a winner to me!
Lolarific, we did too. Special places we’d been, my mother always got me a Santa ornament, I always got her a poodle, my daughter always gets snowmen. So we all had nice little collections. 🙂
Julie, that sounds terrific! The eating part is fun too!!!
Barbara, we’ve done it some in the past, and intend to do it this time too. Not sure I have a big enough car now. I used to have room enough for a whole wolf pack before. LOL!
Our Christmas traditions are fairly simple. We get together with family, eat and exchange gifts. This year we are hosting so I am a bit nervous but cautiously excited as well 🙂
Happy Holidays Ladies!!!
robin [at] intensewhisper [dot] com
Our traditions are not that complex, thank goodness!!! We open gifts Christmas morning, usually letting the girls rip into their stockings so that hubby and I can get our eyes to focus before anything else is done. Usually after 4 cups of coffee or so! LOL!
The night before, about midnight or so, my husband will take the jingle bell wreath I have on the front door and shake it, really loudly, while standing in the front doorway. Having a split level home, you can year it no matter WHERE you are! The girls usually tell us in the morning that they heard the bells. They are also very happy to see the milk and cookies are gone.
This year, we are having a spiral ham for Christmas dinner. I think the one this year is close to 13 pounds. HAVE to! LOL! I have 4 daughters, with the oldest’s fiance living here, too now. I may start something new. My first grand baby is due in February, so I may have to start getting him ornaments THIS year.
Stacy Wilson
dragn_lady at yahoo dot com
Robin, you will do a great job!! And if anything goes wrong, it will make it that much more memorable. Last year my oven went out on me, and my son asked why the turkey aroma wasn’t permeating the house. That’s because the turkey and the oven were just sitting there. Doing nothing. LOL So he cut it up and we put half in a counter top convection oven, and then later, cooked the other half! Then there was the Thanksgiving that…oh well, I just have to say it had to do with hornets, smoke and a Jackie Chan movie in Chinese. 🙂 And you know what? Both of those holidays stand out as the most memorable ever. Happy Holiday!!!
Too funny, Stacy. I know how it is. My dad used to make us take a hundred million pictures first! And we had to sit still under the presents grinning, when all we wanted to do was open our presents!
Oh, the jingle bell wreath. That reminds me…my dad asked if the kid’s dad or he would play Santa and I whispered to him, “Santa’s real, Dad.”
LOL The two of them went onto the roof and made reindeer and ho-ho-ho noises. 🙂
Sounds like your pack is expanding also! Have a delicious ham! And fun holiday! Congrats on the new grandbaby!
We always watch Scrooged and Mickey’s Christmas Carol. They are two very different versions of A Christmas Carol. It just isn’t Christmas until I see Goofy as Jacob Marley’s ghost. 😉
geishasmom73 AT yahoo DOT com
Christmas traditions for us include a fresh brewed cuppa, sitting around the tree and our son opening his gifts. He is older now and while still fun, it is not quite as exciting. We enjoy fun finger food that is always the main event with good yummies like stuffed mushrooms, cheesy artichoke hearts, vegies and dip and . . . Thank you for sharing your holiday joy with us and for this lovely giveaway opportunity.
dz59001[at]gmail[dot]com
Oh, Stacie, I love Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Jingle all the Way, and so many others! 🙂 Thanks for making me think of them!
Denise, that sounds nice!! I agree, with little ones it’s truly magical!
[…] FOR CHANCE TO WIN THIS SEXY BOOK, please see the guest post from author Terry Spear HERE. Purchase Info Dreaming of the Wolf For complete series order, please visit HERE. […]