Great Christmas Tree Tour: Pam Crooks

I can hardly believe Cheryl’s Christmas Tree Tour is in its fifth year already!  Back in 2008, the first year of her tour, I posted my new tree from my new sunroom.  This year, the tree I’m showing is old.  Really old.

Maybe I shouldn’t admit that.

But I still love it as if I just bought it today.  We were living in western Nebraska at the time, and I paid half-price after Christmas.   That must’ve been at least 30 years ago.  I was completely smitten with how full it was and the gentle drape of the branches.  I’ve never seen another one like it.  And I still love the flocking.

Is flocking old-fashioned?

Oh, well.

This tree fits in a huge box that takes up at least 2/3 of precious storage space underneath our first level.  Every year when we drag that box out, my husband curses.  Every year he tells me we’re getting rid of it and going to buy a smaller one.   And every year, I sigh at how pretty it is with the beads and bows, sparkling lights, and oh, how the memories come flooding back.

Thank goodness we have a bay window to help hold its girth, though, otherwise my husband would have won the fight long ago.

Just for fun, I’ll show you the row of stockings for my family.  We outgrew the fireplace mantle long ago, and now that we have another grandbaby on the way, I’m trying to figure out how to add one more stocking to the bannister next year.

A few of my Barbie ornaments.  They always make me feel like I’m seven again.

I’m giving away 5 copies of HER MOTHER’S KILLER at Goodreads.   Drawing is December 10^th.  
Just enter here.  It’s easy!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Her Mother's Killer

by Pam Crooks

Giveaway ends December 10, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

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With only hours to go before she signs a crucial deal to secure prime wilderness for the state of Tennessee, Adrienne Morelli must return to the mountain where her mother was murdered.  But powerful men oppose the deal, and the killer has never been found.  Worse, ominous messages threaten her life, and she's forced under 24-hour protection, thanks to her father who hires the best bodyguard Silverhawk Investigative Services has on the payroll.

The last woman Mick Corrigan wants to protect is Adrienne Morelli.  She's made it clear she can take care of herself--and doesn't want him in her life.  Not after the night he'd broken his Number One Rule:  Never get involved with a client.  Now his job is to keep her safe and out of his heart.  Soon, both seem impossible as together they flee into the wilderness to escape an unseen enemy, her mother's killer....




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Having grown up in the ranch country of western Nebraska, it was a natural evolution for Pam to write about the Old West.  She published fourteen historical western romances (four with Dorchester Publishing and ten with Harlequin Historicals) before writing Her Mother's Killer.  She's a long-time member of Romance Writers of America, PASIC and HWG, her local chapter, having served in almost every capacity for her chapter-mates.  She's one of the founding fillies of Petticoats and Pistols, a popular blogsite for western romance. 

Pam is married to her high school sweetheart, Doug, and they have four daughters.  She's looking forward to an early retirement when she can spend her days with her children and grandchildren and doing what she's most passionate about: writing books.



www.pamcrooks.com
www.facebook.com/pamcrooks
Twitter @pamcrooks

Great Christmas Tree Tour: Winnie Griggs

When I was a little girl we celebrated Christmas with my mother’s parents.  My grandmother had this wonderful little tabletop tree the had built-in bubble lights .  She didn’t put any ornaments on it, just plugged it in and let the lights bubble merrily away.   The table she set this on was at the perfect little-girl height and I would stare at that tree for long intervals, mesmerized by its beauty.   

Years later, when my grandparents were gone and we were cleaning out their home, my sister laid claim to that tree.  Then, several years later, she told me that she had never been able to get it to work, but couldn’t bear to throw it out.  Knowing I was a collector of family memorabilia, she asked if I wanted it.  Of course I jumped at the chance to have it, if merely for the nostalgia of it.  But imagine my delight when I got it to work again.  It is beginning to show it’s age (it is over 50 years old!!) but I still love looking at it and watching the merry bubble lights, just as I did at my grandmother’s all those years ago.

Since I don’t have my ‘big tree’ up yet, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share that little table top tree with you.  Here it is pictured sitting on the old singer treadle sewing machine I also inherited from my grandmother.    I’m also a collector of vintage nativity scenes and you can see a few pieces from my collection displayed around it.

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Can she drive away not one, but three suitors?

Free-spirited photographer Regina Nash is ready to try.  But unless she marries one of the gentlemen her grandfather has sent for her inspection, she’ll lose custody of her nephew.  So she must persuade them - and Adam Barr, her grandfather’s envoy - that she’d make a thoroughly unsuitable wife.

Adam isn’t convinced.  Regina might be unconventional, but she has wit, spirit and warmth - why can’t the three bachelors he escorted here to Texas see that?  He not only sees it, but is drawn to it.   His job, though, is to make sure Regina chooses from one of those men - not to marry her himself!

Can Reggie and Adam overcome the secrets in her past, and the shadows in his, to find a perfect future together?

PLEASE SHARE ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER TO GET THE WORD OUT. xoxo

2012 Great Christmas Tree Tour: Mary Connealy

These stockings are crewel work. I always thought the word was apt. Cruel work indeed. 

I made these from very expensive kits, one for each of my four daughters. It kept taking me longer and longer to get the stockings done. My oldest daughter (born in April) had her stocking hanging up by her first Christmas. My second daughter was also an April baby, born two years almost to the day after her big sister. I was kinda busy. Her stocking was done before her second Christmas.

My third daughter was born in November two and a half years after her big sister. No way was she getting a stocking by her first birthday. I might have made it by her third.

My fourth daughter is five years younger than the next oldest girl. I think I had her stocking up by the time she went to Kindergarten. I think.

But I love them. I used to do so much needle work. Things like this and knitting and crocheting. No more. I write books now. 

Merry Christmas

 

Candlelight Christmas

Two Inspirational Christmas Stories ...

The Christmas Candle by Mary Connealy

Arkansas Ozarks 1883
Gabe Wagner, has left his hectic city life and moved onto Rose Palmer’s mountain. His plans to build a house will tear the heart out of her Ozark Mountain home. Rose learns that what she calls peace and quiet has evolved into isolation and loneliness. As Christmas approaches and she searches for the perfect way to honor the Savior’s birth, she realizes she wants to let Gabe into her life. But to do it, she may have to face a larger world that frightens her while she gives up the safe life she has always known.

 

The Outlaw’s Gift by Linda Goodnight

1880s Oklahoma Territory
When drifter Seth Blackstone shows up at Raven Patterson’s homestead, Raven thinks this may be the solution to all her problems. But Seth’s mysterious past is about to catch up with him and could mean disaster for them both.

Can the search for the perfect Christmas candle and the broken hearts of two little boys bring a solitary woman and a grieving man together?

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