It's About the Love by MJ Schiller

There’s a lot of talk this time of year about the “true” meaning of Christmas. Whether you believe it to be about a babe born in a barn many centuries ago or about the spark of joy in your grandson’s eyes on Christmas morn, it’s all the same. Bottom line is, it’s about love.

I’d like to share with you my favorite Christmas present this year. Yes, I know it’s not even Christmas yet, but this gift came early. It came in the form of a doorbell ring this afternoon. When my husband got to the door, the gift-giver had vanished, leaving behind some sweet treats and this awesome note. Wyatt is my seven-year-old neighbor and such a blessing to me. Our neighborhood has aged, and when Wyatt and his ten-year-old sister Avery moved in, they were some of the only kids on the block. His mother apologized for all the noise he was making one morning, but I told her it was a joy to hear children’s voices again, and it was.

Two of my “kids” will be coming home this Christmas. They, and their sister, are twenty-seven years old (they are the male part of my triplets). Now, I know they aren’t exactly kids anymore, but at Christmas time, aren’t we all like a seven-year-old child?

Because they’ll be home, I’m decorating the house. If they weren’t, I probably would have skipped it this year. (Too much work!) But I know they will have certain expectations when they get home. They’ll expect Mom to have it all decked out as usual. I know particular decorations will make them nostalgic, and so I’ll decorate. One son requested Chicken Ala King, so I’ll make it. There will be a Yule log cake even though it requires making a cake, a filling, a ganache, and chocolate “bark” (frozen sheets of thin layers of chocolate that are scored to resemble bark, broken in pieces and “glued” to the cake with the ganache.)

But is it really about my kids returning to their childhood or about me returning to their childhood? I love looking back on those days when sleds were under the tree. When clues led my kids to the garage and a new basketball hoop. I love remembering the year that Xboxes were difficult to find and we told the kids that all the stores were sold out, and they were. That is, all the local stores were. Now, the Walmart in a neighboring small town, that was different. My eldest FREAKED OUT when we told her to look under the ottoman she was sitting on and she found the Xbox.

This year will be different. For one, we won’t be opening presents. The kids have already gotten their gifts. One son will be bringing along his girlfriend, and their dog; that’s different. Our girls will be missing; that’s not like the old days when all four sat on the stairs in birth order before descending on Christmas morning. But to have my boys here will be so special. Different can be good too.

So, in the end it’s not about the treats you bring to neighbors; it’s about the love that went into the baking, and the gratitude you feel for the friendships you’ve developed over the years. It’s not about what’s on the table; it’s about who is gathered there. It’s about the smiling faces on the family photos that come with your Christmas cards and the warmth you get from seeing those smiles. As the Grinch discovered, it’s not about “jingtinglers” or “floofloovers”, or “tartinkas,” or even the “roast beast” or “Who hash;” it’s about spending time with one another. It’s all about that love thing I talked about earlier.

I hope your Christmas is filled with love and laughter, friends and family, and maybe a few happily-ever-afters.

Now, you’d think that a woman with over 30 books available to purchase would have at least a handful of Christmas stories, wouldn’t you? Especially someone like me, who loves Christmas. But I don’t. I have just the one romantic suspense, UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR. So as things begin to slow down here, be sure and treat yourself to some quiet moments. Just you, a book, some hot chocolate, and a little Christmas…murder?

Dylan Fisher is an EMT and part-time Santa Claus at a mall in Denver, Colorado.

He has logged plenty of time with children sitting on his lap asking for anything from the latest electronic gadget to a week’s worth of homework passes, but he never heard anyone ask for what little Delaney Kelly asked for on one snowy night in December. A dad! When Dylan’s eyes search the crowd for Delaney’s mother and land on Keira Kelly, the paramedic almost finds himself in need of a little CPR. She is stunning.

Keira Kelly is still grieving over the loss of her husband…

… but a reckless driver has her thinking about nothing but survival as she’s headed home from the mall. When Keira wakes in the hospital to find a hunky EMT at her bedside, she begins having a few thoughts that would put her on Santa’s Naughty List for sure.

Neither is ready for what is coming UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR.

When she finds out the EMT is only hanging around because the police believe someone is out to get her, she’s not sure what to think about his kindness. Is he helping her because he wants to or because he feels he needs to? And what about the man who rammed her car, could he have had something to do with her husband’s death?

To purchase UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR, click here: https://books2read.com/Upon-A-Midnight-Clear

It’s only 99 cents!

To find other M.J. Schiller books, click here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/M.J.-Schiller/author/B009JOQFQQ

And be sure to sign up for her newsletter to hear of new releases: https://maryschiller.wixsite.com/contact-page


HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The Most Wonderful time of...Mistakes, by MJ Schiller

Christmas time. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? And the most hectic. And hectic can sometimes lead to mistakes, at least in my book. We’re all running around so distracted, marking off things on our lists—shopping, cooking, cleaning, parties… We’re taken out of the moment, and those kinds of distractions can cause missteps. We see more frequent fender benders. Experience more times we forget appointments. Leave credit cards on counters. Leave purses, gloves, sunglasses behind. Any of this hitting home for you? As frustrating as this can be, I thought I’d recount for you all a few memorable mistakes from my Christmases past and then we can determine whether they are the kinds of errors that bring down the curtains on a Christmas pageant, or simply make for some backstage chaos.

One year, when our triplets were young—two or three—we had Christmas at my mom’s. We hid the presents in her basement, which seemed like a good idea, until all four of my kids had trundled off to bed and I could only find three of the four Beanie Babies for their stockings. (You remember those cute little Beanie guys, don’t you?) So what do you do? You hope a letter from good ol’ St. Nick will be enough of a novelty to forestall the impending tears. Santa told Mitch that he was sorry, but he thought maybe he’d dropped his Beanie out of the sleigh. Weeks later, my mom found it and mailed it to us. It came on a rainy day, and when I read the note from “Santa” it said that his panther had fallen out over the ocean and had gotten a tad wet. Boy, if that didn’t solidify the authenticity of the jolly old fellow.

Then there was the year that we asked my niece, Maddie, to pen the letter from Santa, so the kids wouldn’t recognize our handwriting. It was the Christmas we had gotten them a basketball hoop for the driveway and the note told them to look outside. Worked well until we realized that my niece had written it on the soft pine table, with nothing under it, so that letter could be read for years to come, pressed into the wood.

And when I was a child, one year my little sister and I discovered our Barbie townhouse in a wardrobe box in the basement. Whoops! That really called the whole North Pole crew into question when the townhouse came from “Ho-Ho-Ho.” And one year I snuck all of my presents one by one into the bathroom, carefully unwrapped them, then rewrapped them and returned them to the tree. It made for a pretty anticlimactic Christmas morning. “Oh, yeah. This is the purple sweater.” “This is the skirt.” *yawn* (I don’t recommend doing that, by the way.)

But despite all the Christmases that didn’t go quite as planned, the blunders still made for some nice stories for us to pull out each year—like ornaments for the tree—and they bring laughter and warmth. This holiday will probably not be pulled off seamlessly. Like a wedding, or any big production, there’s bound to be something off-kilter somewhere along the line. But that’s okay. It’s the being together that’s important. And any foul ups will be retold in years to come with love and humor.

Now, you’d think that a woman with over 30 books available to purchase would have at least a handful of Christmas stories, wouldn’t you? Especially someone like me, who loves Christmas. But I don’t. I have just the one romantic suspense, UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR. So as things begin to slow down here, be sure and treat yourself to some quiet moments. Just you, a book, some hot chocolate, and a little Christmas…murder?

Dylan Fisher is an EMT and part-time Santa Claus at a mall in Denver, Colorado.

He has logged plenty of time with children sitting on his lap asking for anything from the latest electronic gadget to a week’s worth of homework passes, but he never heard anyone ask for what little Delaney Kelly asked for on one snowy night in December. A dad! When Dylan’s eyes search the crowd for Delaney’s mother and land on Keira Kelly, the paramedic almost finds himself in need of a little CPR. She is stunning.

Keira Kelly is still grieving over the loss of her husband…

… but a reckless driver has her thinking about nothing but survival as she’s headed home from the mall. When Keira wakes in the hospital to find a hunky EMT at her bedside, she begins having a few thoughts that would put her on Santa’s Naughty List for sure.

Neither is ready for what is coming UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR.

When she finds out the EMT is only hanging around because the police believe someone is out to get her, she’s not sure what to think about his kindness. Is he helping her because he wants to, or because he feels he needs to? And what about the man who rammed her car, could he have had something to do with her husband’s death?

Thanks for reading, and may you and your family have a wonderful, quirky Christmas and many more to come!

Bestselling author M.J. Schiller is a retired lunch lady/romance-romantic suspense writer. She enjoys writing novels whose characters include rock stars, desert princes, teachers, futuristic Knights, construction workers, cops, and a wide variety of others. In her mind everybody has a romance. She is the mother of a twenty-six-year-old and three twenty-four- year-olds. That's right, triplets! She likes to escape from life on occasion by pretending to be
a rock star at karaoke. However…you won’t be seeing her name on any record labels soon.

(To purchase UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR, click here: https://books2read.com/Upon-A-Midnight-Clear Only 99 cents!)

To find other M.J. Schiller books, click here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/M.J.-Schiller/author/B009JOQFQQ

And be sure to sign up for her newsletter to hear of new releases: https://maryschiller.wixsite.com/contact-page