I read an article recently which provided two opposing viewpoints on the topic of Christmas gift giving to adult children. One person said parents shouldn’t cut back. The other said when an adult child reached the age of 25, their parents should cut back on the gift giving.

I’m not sure where they came up with the magic age of 25. I guess it’s as good as any although it seems to make more sense to cut back after a child graduates from high school or college or when they get married.

I have an adult child and I still spend the same amount. I guess I’ve never felt that just because she reached a certain age I should cut back on how much I want to spend. Note, I said “want” to spend.

I don’t buy her gifts because she expects them or I feel pressured to do it, I buy them because I like to shop and surprise her with gifts I know she’ll enjoy. Now, if money were a factor, I’d cut back and not feel one bit guilty.

Now when I turned eighteen my parents cut waaaaaay back (and believe me I never got that much to start with). Of course they weren’t really gift giving kind of people. Some of it was financial. Some of it was that they believed, unless you were a child, one gift was simply…good enough.

I’d be interested to know where you fall on the gift-giving scale. Do you think adult children should receive less gifts from their parents once they reach a certain age? If you do, what age do you think that should be?

And the winner of the signed copy of Kerrelyn Sparks’s Eat Prey Love is Chelsea B!.

Congrats, Chelsea. Email me at shana@shanagalen.com with your address.

I recently discovered a lovely new Christmas song—twenty-seven years after it was released! Where was I that I never heard this song? Right here in Texas. The song, titled “Christmas Eve,” is immensely popular and considered a classic… in Japan.

The song, written and performed by Tatsuro Yamashita, was used in a 1988 commercial advertising a train, the JR Christmas Express. After that, a new commercial was aired every year with the same song and a similar theme. I absolutely love them! They combine some of my favorite things—beautiful music, the magic of Christmas, and a heart-warming romance. When the holidays start to stress me out, I just click on one of these videos and the joy of Christmas comes floating right back.

The first video shows the Christmas Express commercials from 1988-1992. There are some lovely images, like the girl twirling in joy outside the shop window that displays a wedding dress. Or the boyfriend appearing at last, framed in the girl’s hoop earring. The second video doesn’t have anything exciting to watch, but it lets you hear Tatsuro sing the lovely song in its entirety. I hope these videos bring a smile to your face like they do me!

Do you have a favorite Christmas song? Or a favorite way to find calm in the midst of the hectic holidays? Please leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of my latest romance Eat Prey Love. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and holiday season!

This time of year most of us are getting ready for the holidays. We’re shopping and wrapping and baking and decorating and its easy to get lost in the bustle of the busy season. One thing I never skimp on though is decorating my tree. Not because I feel it has to be perfect, it’s actually kind of haphazard, no theme tree at my house. No, I take my take while decorating the tree because my ornaments are special to me.

While I was growing up my parents had a tradition of giving each of us kids one

ornament a year so that when we grew up and moved away we’d have an ornament collection to put on our own tree.So I have many of these though some of them haven’t survived over the years, I still enjoy looking at the ornaments and remembering when I was in Jr. High and I loved unicorns, or that odd phase I went through in high school where I had a thing for black & white cows. All of it is represented there in my ornaments and I get to walk down memory lane every Christmas.

But those aren’t the only special baubles I hang on the tree, I also have ones that I’ve bought as I’ve travelled. Whenever I go somewhere I try to get an ornament to remind me of that trip. I also ask friends who travel to bring back ornaments for me and I have them from all over the world. Emily brought me a wonderful handmade ornament from Greece and another from Denmark. Another friend brought me one from Bethlehem. My brother gave me ones from Argentina and Poland. And from my own travels I have the Bahamas, Jamaica, London, New York and Las Vegas (among other places) represented.

And then there are those ornaments that mark certain events in my life, like when I graduated from college or when I got engaged and then subsequently married and then when we built our house. It’s all there, hanging on my tree every year and I love unwrapping each one to remember where I got it.

So how about you? Do you have special ornaments on your Christmas tree? Or do you have another holiday tradition that you always take your time to relish?

“The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.”
— Michel de Montaigne

Food is one of my passions. I love to experience new tastes, try new recipes and dine with different people. I find that conversations are as wonderful as the food sometimes. Some of my favorite dinners have been quiet affairs with just my family but then others have been large dinner parties where I have connected with one or two people and found a quiet oasis.

Here are my top three favorite meals:

A small Italian cafe/deli in London where I dined for the first time with my husband. The menu was simple dried meats and cheeses along with some lovely fresh tomatoes and olives that had been prepared in garlic. But we were just getting to know each other for the first time romantically and the meal is memorable in my mind. We sat at a small table legs entwined under it and hands lightly brushing while we drank wine and ate and talked.

My next favorite meal was at Ohana in WDW’s Polynesian resort. It was with my children and parents and they were probably about 5 and 10 years old. My daughter chatted up the waiter about the Hawaiian music that was playing and he had one of the musicians that perform in the restaurant come over and show her how to play the ukulele. Needless to say we left with a ukulele that night! The meal itself is a blur to me but we were served pineapple in a rich caramel sauce for dessert and we all loved it. I borrowed that simple recipe and make it home for us all the time and we always end up talking about that night when we have it.

My third favorite meal was at Babbo in NYC with two of my dearest friends Nancy and Beverly. We lingered over a meal where the food was simply but exquisitely prepared. I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal where each taste was better than the last. I know we were there until the restaurant closed and that we drank too much wine and laughed a lot.

Those are my top three meals, what are yours? Do the people make the meal for you as they do for me? Or is it the food.

Cooking up a storm in Jane Austen's kitchen!

I love this time of year.  Beribboned holiday wreaths glint on my neighbors’ doors.  At night, the houses along the street twinkle with lights, and the smell of wood smoke tinges the crisp air.

I put our Christmas tree up this past weekend (photo on right) and decorated it with the ornaments we’ve collected through the years, including some from my daughter’s preschool days. While I decorated, I stood back and took a moment to savor the process of doing the tree—one of the holiday traditions I won’t ever let slip by.  Christmas baking is another.  It’s fun to pull out recipes I haven’t seen all year (including the one for Sugar Cookies), and to mix, bake, and decorate while listening to holiday tunes. 

Christmas cards used to be part of my holiday routine.  Since my family is so busy during the year, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to catch up with friends and relatives I’d lost touch with.  I’d send out over fifty cards, and include a newsletter—a two-page recap of our year, highlighting our daughter’s activities and progress at school, my book releases and any writing news, and my husband’s activities.  I wrote the main draft, and then my family added in details I’d missed.  Spruced up with photos and a colorful header, I hoped our newsletter invited those who received it to read and keep up with us.

This year, I’m not sure I’m going to do Christmas cards.  For some reason, I just don’t have the enthusiasm for writing the newsletter, printing it, and then hand-writing a personal note in all the cards.  I’ve managed to keep up with relatives and friends via Facebook and other social networking sites this past year, and that’s been fun.  Maybe I’m lazy?  Maybe I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, since I just said goodbye to my parents who visited from Canada and I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping and still feel there’s a lot to accomplish?  Maybe.

I believe, though, that other people are feeling the same way as I am.  In past years, by now, I’d have received at least a handful of Christmas cards in the mail.  This year, I haven’t received one yet.

So, in 2010, I may not fulfill my tradition of sending Christmas cards.  But there’s always next year . . .

***
What about you?  Do you send Christmas cards to your family and friends every year?  Are you sending cards this year?

Sorry I’m late posting the winners’ names. 

Kay w wins an autographed copy of In a Cowboy’s Arms.

chey wins an autographed copy of Captured and Crowned. 

Congrats to both of you.  Please send your name and mailing address to JanetteKenny AT gmail DOT com and I’ll get your books mailed soon.

A Little Whine Among Friends

Are you in a book club?

I am. Although I use that term loosely. You could say we’re a club because we get together regularly for a specific purpose. And the book part comes in because we attempt to read and discuss a book each month. But compared to other book clubs I’ve heard about that hold structured discussions about, well, books and the like, we might seem a bit casual.

My husband likes to call us a wine club, because he knows what we do at our meetings. Yes, we have good intentions, but what might start out as a lofty debate about the symbolism in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom quickly morphs into a gab session about whose husband is in the dog house and why.

We’ve been through a lot together: new jobs, new husbands, new babies, in-laws, financial meltdowns, toddler meltdowns. That’s what I love most about my book club—we aren’t about the books so much as the friendship.

Another thing I like is that we know our limits. We know good and well, for example, that the chances of us reading anything longer than a shopping list in December are nil. So every holiday season we get together for a movie instead of a book discussion. Typically we see films our significant others don’t care to see with us: Pride and Prejudice, The Golden Compass, Twilight. This year’s pick is Black Swan, which I think sounds great, but my husband promised to boycott when he heard the words “ballet” and “psychological thriller” used in the same sentence.

Are you in a book club? What about a bunko group? A knitting club? Tell me about any group where you go to talk about life and re-charge your batteries.

Anyone who comments will be entered in a drawing to win a signed copy of my new novel, UNFORGIVABLE, which just came out last week. I’m so excited about this book! It’s a romantic suspense story, and I’ll share a review quote hand-picked by my book club buds (who love any excuse to talk about sex):

“The science is fascinating, the sex is sizzling, and the story is top-notch, making this clever, breakneck tale hard to put down.” —Publishers Weekly

If you’d like to read an excerpt, visit: http://www.lauragriffin.com/books/unforgivable.php#excerpt
Happy holidays to you all and happy reading!

I don’t know about you but there are several things that cause me to not only pick up a book, but buy it.

First, there’s the cover:

Above is the cover of my December release. I like the cover. You can tell it’s a Christmas book. The hero and heroine and child are a fairly good likeness…so far so good.

If I was looking to buy this book, I’d flip it over and read the back cover copy. Uh-oh.

Here’s the cover copy:
(To the tune of “Jingle Bells”)
Dashing through Jackson Hole
A handsome stranger’s come to town
He’s an ex-baseball star by trade
But a broken engagement’s got him down.
Derek Rossi’s sworn off love
Till a nurse comes into his life.
Rachel Milligan’s as warm as the sun
But relationships bring her strife
A widow for many years
She can’t forget what came before.
She’s a foster mom to Mickie
And the little girl wants even more….
(Open the book to see what happens next!)

Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t buy this book. I’d start to read the back, quickly lose interest and put it down. AND I’M THE AUTHOR! AAAAACK!

Trust me, it’s a really fun book. The story came together really well. One of my critique partners says it’s one of her favorites.

Alas, I fear none of that matters ‘cuz no one is going to pick it up.

That brings me to my question for you…how do you decide what book to buy?

Are some authors auto buys for you?

Is it the title or cover that catches your eye? When that happens, do you flip the book or look inside to read the cover copy? Or do you start at page one to see if it grabs your interest?

I’d really like to know. And, I’m crossing my fingers that you’re not like me.

So many of us share our loved ones with other families and find we have to negotiate the holidays with them and share the various holidays.

I didn’t really run into this until I got engaged and the inevitable ‘his family/my family’ discussions began.  Should we go to my house for Thanksgiving and his for Christmas? How do we divide Mother’s Day and Easter and Father’s Day? Do we alternate by years or by holiday or try to visit each house on each holiday?

I thought we had mastered it and then it happened — we had kids and each set of grandparents gave us those looks — you know the kind that say ‘you wouldn’t dare think of depriving us of our grandchild/children on such a special occasion, would you?’. And really, how could we? LOL!

So, we would divvy up the day, running from one house to the other, never really spending time at our own house, but a lot of it on the road. The old ‘Christmas eve here, Christmas there’  didn’t work…so we went to one for lunch and one for dinner or one for dinner and one for dessert, splitting each holiday with the accuracy of a honed blade.  But, it didn’t take too many years and too many kids for that to wear thin….and we realized we needed to begin to establish our own holiday traditions.  And, as those of you who have kids know, they did not want to open up their gifts from Santa and then leave them behind -fresh and unplayed – for even the promise of more to come somewhere else. So, we stayed home — inviting others to visit us, cooking dinner for a growing family, and enjoying shorter visits elsewhere.

And it was nice!

But the boys grew and found girlfriends (one is even married now)  and the pull on them began just as it had on my husband and I all those years ago. Now we were asked to share our beloved sons with other families — no fair! We are expected to sit quietly by and smile as they go to one house for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. Or one for Christmas eve and the other for Christmas morning or dinner.  This is not fair!

So now, we understand the position our parents were in much better – we’re up-close to it now and we’re not happy about it…. LOL! But, we will accomodate in order to enjoy the holidays with those we love…..

How about you and yours? Do you play the holiday do-see-do (or doe-see-doe or do-si-do) with loved ones? Do you share family members or have everyone to yourself?  And how do you handle it — graciously or with angst? Please share your methods of dealing with splitting the holidays and I’ll pick out 2 people to receive autographed copies of my current book, A STORM OF PLEASURE.

Terri is  participating in the Harlequin Historicals Authors giveaway during December.

22 authors are each scheduled to host a day with participants being asked to post a comment, answer a question or other small task to be entered into individual drawings or for the grand prize – a Kindle 3G. Visit her website for the calendar and all the links (and info) at www.terribrisbin.com