Are you looking for a cozy read that will put you in the mood for the upcoming holidays? Christmas Mail-Order Brides novella collection releases today, and is available in print or as an ebook for you to enjoy. I loved working on this novella collection with my coauthors Vickie McDonough and Susan Page Davis.
Let me introduce the Hero and Heroine in my novella, A Trusting Heart. Annika is a young Swedish woman who has decided to become a mail-order bride because her twin sister has fallen in love, but she won’t marry until Annika’s future is settled.
Annika write to Mrs. Mayberry’s Matrimonial Society for help and begins to correspond with Charles Simms, a widower on a large ranch in Wyoming. After exchanging several letters, she takes the train West to meet him, but when she arrives, she finds her future groom is missing! His extended family takes her in, but her future is uncertain. It’s a heartwarming story, and I enjoyed including Swedish Christmas traditions as well as a very sweet love story. This is how I imagined Annika and her hero.
Marriage arrives by mail-order . . . and just in time for the holidays!
In the rugged landscapes of the American West, three women seeking new beginnings discover that God’s plans for love often look different than their own. Each story offers a journey of hope, redemption, and second chances for our future brides.
A Trusting Heart by Carrie Turansky
Annika Bergstrom, a Swedish immigrant, travels west to marry a man she’s never met. But when she arrives, she finds her groom is missing, and she is drawn to someone entirely unexpected. Could the wrong match lead to the right man?
The Prodigal Groom by Vickie McDonough
Jolie Addams sets out as a mail-order bride, but a stagecoach mishap leaves her stranded with a rugged stranger. Can this detour reveal God’s perfect plan for her life and love?
Mrs. Mayberry Meets Her Match by Susan Page Davis
Matchmaker Mrs. Mayberry has helped countless couples find happiness. But when she journeys west to right a mistake from the past, she discovers her own heart may be in for a surprise.
From snow-capped mountains to dusty frontier towns, each story captures the spirit of the season and the beauty of trusting God with our future. Whether it’s a woman discovering courage in a strange new land, a bride finding love where she least expected it, or a matchmaker realizing it’s never too late for romance, these tales remind us that Christmas is the perfect time for new beginnings.
If you enjoy historical romance filled with faith, hope, and heartwarming holiday cheer, I think you’ll love Christmas Mail-Order Brides. It’s the perfect book to curl up with by the fire—or to share with a friend who enjoys clean, uplifting stories.
You’ll find links to order your copy and more info at this page.
I can’t wait for you to meet these characters and experience their journeys. I hope their stories encourage your faith and warm your heart this Christmas season!
To celebrate the release of Christmas Mail-Order Brides, I’m giving away three copies of the book. Just leave a comment on this blog post and tell me one Christmas tradition that is special to you. I’ll choose three winners on 9/21 and notify them by email. This giveaway is open to US and international readers. US readers my choose a paperback or eBook copy. International winners will receive an eBook copy.
Until Next Time ~ Happy Reading,
Carrie
My favorite Christmas tradition is making the cookies and then eating them.
This looks like a wonderful collection! I enjoy listening to Christmas music and baking for family and friends.
My favorite Christmas tradition is setting up our Nativity Scene and making cookies and other goodies for family and friends.
I love baking cookie platters for family and friends. And watching Christmas movies with the kiddo while baking them.
Reading the Christmas story from the Bible as a family is a special tradition.
My favorite Christmas tradition is getting together with all of my family my brother and sisters my nieces and nephews is such a fun time to be all together as a family. Plenty of food and laughter.
This book looks and sounds incredible and one Christmas tradition I love to do is celebrate Jesus’ Birthday around the Nativity with family and celebrate my Birthday 🎂 afterwards because my Birthday is on the 19th exactly a week before but celebrating Jesus’ Birthday 🎂 around the Nativity is so important to me because of the eternal gift he gave us all
Book looks like great read would like to read a physical copy of book 📙 so I could review it
My favorite Christmas tradition is spending it with family around the Nativity I live up year round
I have an angel from my grandmother – the head is wax and the gown is heavy pleated foil. Because of the many years the many years it looks more gray. Her hair is blonde very fine with a circlet. She has been on the tree for as long as I can remember. I am in my 70’s and do not remember a time without her.
My favorite time is when we decorate the tree as we eat cookies
My favorite tradition is the family-oriented Christmas Eve service at our church which ends with the lighting of candles which we all have (battery operated ones for kids) and sing Silent Night. Jesus is the reason for the season.
One Christmas tradition we have that I love is that my husband and I do our Christmas on Christmas Eve. It started when his family would drive out to spend Christmas and the following week with us. Now we travel to see them, but we kept the Christmas Eve celebration due to kids. Once our kids are in bed, we cook up a steak dinner and enjoy that. Then we open our gifts to each other. It’s a quiet time before the hustle and bustle of Christmas that we treasure.
I always read a special story about Jesus’s birth before we open gifts.
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is that “Santa” still comes to see me and my sister, even as adults. 😄 My mom has always kept the magic alive and even customized our stockings when we were born with our names in sequins and other little designs. A newer tradition that I’ve taken part in since I got married is attending church (sometimes multiple churches!) for candle light Christmas Eve services. I grew up in a very small church that didn’t meet on Christmas Eve unless it fell on Sunday, and my husband’s father is a pastor. So we drive 4 hours to be at my husband’s family’s for Christmas Eve and drive back to be with my family by Christmas morning! 🚗💨
One Christmas tradition that is special to me is decorating the tree with my family.
I like having family around me as we read from Luke 2 before opening any presents.
Thank you for this contest. My favorite Christmas tradition is watching Christmas movies.
I had an elderly uncle from “the old country” when I was a child. He always brought a huge basket of fresh fruit and passed it out for everyone to take home. He died before I had children, but my sister took up the tradition!
Hi Janis, That’s a wonderful memory and fun tradition to carry on!
Being from the south Christmas involved a huge “spread” of food with lots of cousins. After marrying a Kansan and having a beautiful family of our own. We keep the tradition of celebrating on Christmas Eve, but now we do charcuterie board. It’s allows us to cherish the moment and not spend endless hours in the kitchen. My little girls love all the food options. So it’s a win win!
My favorite Christmas tradition is probably Christmas dinner with the family.
One Christmas tradition that is special to me is celebrating Jesus’ Birthday and my Birthday together [my birthday 🎂 is a week earlier] its one party for two special birthdays and Jesus’ Birthday is the main one and most special because he gave me the best gift of all he died for all my sins and saved me
Hi Crystal, What a great way to celebrate your birthday!
This Will Be A Nice Christmas Present For My Daughter As She Reads All Your Books! I’d Even Like To Read This One. God Bless You & Your Family.
The one Christmas tradition I have is that I do not decorate my tree until Christmas Eve.
Hi Lorraine, is waiting until Christmas Eve a tradition from your family when you were growing up? I love decorating our tree. You’ve already got me excited just thinking about it.
Our fun tradition is decorating our tree with our whole family, decorating outside and baking cookies together.
decorating together
Decorating together makes it extra special. Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.
Our family enjoys homemade orange rolls for Christmas breakfast made by my husband. His family always had them for their Christmas breakfast.
When we were children my grandmother took us every year to the store to pick out a new christmas ornament for the tree.
Our greatest Christmas tradition is to go to Christmas eve service at church and then come home and open packages. We still have small gifts and oranges in our stockings the next morning. A big Christmas dinner follows that afternoon.
Making my great grandmothers sugar cookies. This recipe is well over a 100 yrs old. My gram did it, my mama did it, I do it and so do both of my daughters.
We have “all day Christmas” at my parents’ house on a Sunday in early December every year. There’s no rush to get to the other in-law’s house or any other event. We just spend the entire day with my parents, siblings, and all our kids. Breakfast, reading from the Bible, presents, board games, stories, and hanging out all day long. I love it!
I’ve always loved church service Christmas eve then meeting my family afterwards to open gifts and eat.
Being a single person and wanting to share a Christmas tree and decorations with other singles in my church, I would have a Christmas tree trimming party and let my friends decorate the tree. It may not have been decorated just the way I would have, but it was a time we all enjoyed and looked forward to each year. In later years I had an informal Christmas tea for a few friends.
That sounds really special!
We started a Christmas breakfast tradition years ago, and even now that I have adult married kids, they always come home for it! We have Baked Peach French Toast and a breakfast casserole. My kids live locally, so that makes it easier.
Hi Danielle, that sounds so good! How fun that they all come how for Christmas Breakfast.
My Christmas tradition is having Christmas Eve dinner with my family. We have tamales, Mexican rice and refried beans.
We cut a real Christmas tree which had a birds nest in it. Saved it and always have to display it on the tree each Christmas.
One of our family traditions has been for over 30 years – as we receive Christmas cards, each night at dinner we take the card and we pray over that family that sent it to us.
My favorite is making Christmas cookies.
I love sending Christmas cards & receiving them. I look forward to it each year. I only hear from some friends once a year, so I anticipate their news.
We always have the oldest male read the Biblical Christmas account before opening gifts. And each gift is opened one at a time to savor and enjoy.
Our tradition is opening stockings on Christmas Eve.
My favorite Christmas tradition is definitely reading a Christmas picture book every day of Advent to my children!
Thank you for this giveaway opportunity, Carrie!
Congratulations on release day to you and your coauthors! ❤️
When I was growing up, a favorite tradition was spending Christmas Eve day in downtown Seattle. Shopping at Pike Place Market. Visiting Shorey’s book store. Eating crumpets from The Crumpet Shop. Warming up with Ivar’s clam chowder. Christmas lights. Afterwards, it was back home to a dinner of Swedish meatballs and then presents.
We still have a Swedish meatballs dinner at my parents’ on Christmas Day!
I have a few traditions I do with my daughters. My favorite one is watching Charlie Brown Christmas on Nov 1. I know it’s early, but it gets us started for the season.
A Christmas tradition for our family is always having oyster stew Christmas day. My grandfather made it every year and we would have to wait until he said it was just right! We would then have it for breakfast and throughout the day. Now, my mother has taken on this tradition from her father and so it will pass on down to me. (I better learn how to make it because we surely will miss it if I don’t learn!)
Christmas Mail-Order Brides sounds very good. Thank you for the chance to win.
My favorite Christmas tradition is having a birthday cake for Jesus after reading the Christmas story from the Bible, we have cake for breakfast. When my kids were little, this was the highlight of our Christmas morning.
Countdown until Christmas with wrapped picture books.
Sounds like a wonderful collection of stories… We decorate the whole house inside for Christmas , not just a tree, but this year we will get a new tree and my future son in law is coming… He is in the Air Force/Space Force. This is his first time coming here for the holidays. I will make the whole Dinner and Bake some really great traditional things for us. Fruitcake, Baklava, fudges and buy some ribbon candy as well and get things for drinks. Can’t wait!!!
My favorite Christmas traditions is putting the Christmas tree up and enjoying all the decorations and memories from past Christmases.
Congratulations to the release of the new book.
Having chili and cornbread on Christmas Eve as my birthday dinner and opening 1 gift under the tree.
My favorite tradition is chocolate candy oranges. We started this when our girls were young. We keep it up now they are adults. The look forward to it.
My daughter loves Christmas music. We start listening to our collection of Christmas CDs the day after Thanksgiving and right through until Three Kings Day.
Our fellowship has a Christmas Eve candlelight service that is a must attend! We go every year, as we can. The congregation is a group of sweet believers we’ve known for decades or, maybe, for days. Babies and children with pajamas, grandparents with gifts on display. The love of Christ shown forth through His people.
My grandparents always had me help put up their tree. Whne I was little, my Grandad would lift me to put the angel on top, but even as an older teen ager, the angel was my special job with Grandad. Now the angel sits on my tree every year.
I love Christmas but as we age it gets harder to decorate and shopping etc my favorite tradition is putting a candle in a brownie before we open gifts and sing happy birthday Jesus with our grandchildren. Then I always wrap a first gift to open which is baby Jesus because he was the first gift of Christmas. ❤️
Our special Christmas tradition is having my sons and their families over for a Christmas breakfast/brunch. It’s always so nice to wake up and head to the kitchen and prepare a scrumptious breakfast while waiting for their arrival 😊
After my husband then my Mama passing away, I just couldn’t stand being home. So my kids and I started going to the movie theater and watching something then going out to eat. Since covid hit, we meet up with the handful of uncles and aunts that are still here with us and go out and have a meal together.
I love making cut out cookies and decorating them with my grandson.
My favorite tradition has always been baking cookies and reading Luke 2 before opening gifts.
A Christmas tradition that is special to me is decorating the tree with my family and reading of Jesus’ birth in the Bible.
My sister and I making Christmas cookies while watching White Christmas!
Putting up our outdoor manger.
My husband and I met in church on the night he went forward during the invitation to accept God’s call upon his life to become a pastor. He told me his name was Charles but that his nickname was Smokey and I told him my name was Joy because I was born on Christmas Day. From our first Christmas together as a married couple we have made Christmas Eve very special in our home. Charles was a full time pastor for 48 years; but a pastor never truly retires. The Christmas Eve services were always so beautiful in the churches he pastored and then we would come home and sit around our Christmas tree and Charles would read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we would pray together and thank our Heavenly Father for sending Jesus to be our Savior. This will be our 53rd Christmas together and we have four children with two daughter-in-laws, a son-in-law and five grandchildren and we still celebrate Christmas Eve the exact same way. Our family wouldn’t change a thing, because this is our very favorite Christmas tradition.
My favorite Christmas tradition is my Christmas village. I put it up under my tree every year and I love the sweet, calm, peaceful feeling it brings to me and to my family.
My favorite tradition is with my kids who are older now 26 & 17), reading a Christmas devotional and lighting our advent candle before bed.
My favorite Christmas tradition since marriage was making divinity and shipping to my Mom. But she is in heaven several years and seems I cannot make it anymore. So it has also been putting up my memory Christmas tree. Every ornament has a story
The book sounds delightful, I start reading Christmas novellas in September! Every year I go shopping for stocking stuffers with my sister and we have lunch first.Sometimes we meet our other sister and niece halfway distance for breakfast exchange packages.
Years ago we made shepherds stew for Christmas Eve dinner. Our family has shrunk and the meal is way too big for just two, but I remember the joy of cutting all those veggies with the kids and having the hearty meal with hard rolls as if we were shepherds on the hill waiting for the angels hallelujah!
Advent calendars, making ornaments, watching daughters carry on traditions.
My family doesn’t get together on Christmas Day and in fact, I often spend the day itself alone. At first I let myself get kind of weepy but then I decided to do traditional things I love and eat something special. I always watch White Christmas in the middle of the afternoon. I just love, love, love that movie and its music and dancing.
I would love to get this book and will add it to my church’s library.
Christmas has changed. My two brothers, parents and grandparents all in heaven. One daughter and two grandsons in Ohio. Nightmare happening to my family here as State believing a lie.
I love the Christmas music that begins in November, our annual Christmas program at church, and the Blackberry Jam cakes that I make as a memorial to my mother! She made them every Christmas, and Santa’s snack was always a piece of jam cake and a cold glass of milk. Took me a long time to figure out that my daddy loved this snack also!
I love Christmas! … most of all, the Christmas eve service. Christmas eve brings memories & sensory blessings that speak to my heart – especially singing the carols and the candle lighting!
My favorite Christmas tradition is to ride around the neighborhoods looking at all the decorated houses.. then coming back to the house for hot chocolate with whipped cream and homemade cookies. 😀
My favorite family Christmas tradition is our annual trip downtown Chicago to Marshall Fields/Macy’s to view the animated displays in the shop windows, eat lunch under the Christmas tree in the Walnut Room, and return to my aunt’s house for a Swedish smorgasbord! Annika’s story resonates with me so much! I can’t wait to read Christmas Mail-Order Brides!!!!
A favorite Christmas tradition is having both sons’ families together. I especially enjoy when we focus on the real reason for Christmas.
I like to decorate my classroom at the school where I work. I am blessed that it is a catholic school and I can use religious symbols.
One of my favorite traditions started when I was 10 and my youngest brother was 3! The 5 of us in my family each drew a different name. My parents gave us each 10.00 to spend on that person to put in their personalized stocking. I grew up with an “allowance”, but we were expected to help with household chores each week. My brothers and I added to our “filling the stocking” with some of our allowance so we could give more!
We have continued the tradition over the years, and now that my husband and I have “bigs” children, for the past couple of years we’ve simply purchased 2 items each (my Mom plus my husband and 3 participating children), so each person’s stocking is a surprise! We sometimes can guess who bought what for each person. Not always. That’s part of the mystery!
A favorite Christmas tradition is singing Happy Birthday Jesus with our grandchildren. Then they open the “first gift if Christmas “ which is the baby Jesus & manger.
We always take the kids to the local church’s live nativity. They love seeing the animals and when they were little they would go look in the manger for Jesus!
My favorite Christmas tradition is the day after Christmas, we go for a walk either on a greenway trail, at the beach for a day trip, or near the lake. It’s usually quiet and after indulging in great food it’s a nice reset.
Reading the store of the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve and spending time meditating on the gift Jesus is in my life.
Several girlfriends and I choose a Friday in December and ask my cousin and all of her restaurant workers to bring their Christmas gifts and favorite wrapping papers to a designated location. We spend hours wrapping each of their gifts as a gift to them since they all prefer not to wrap gifts!!
Christmas Eve 2023 will be a day I’ll always be grateful for. My aging parents came to my home to celebrate with us. We had a nice dinner and opened the gifts they brought for our family. My oldest son, who is named after my father, was in Australia at the time. He hadn’t talked with my parents for 6 months. Due to the time difference and his schedule, we weren’t sure if he would be able to call home on Christmas Eve. Just as my parents were leaving, my son called and we had a nice visit. It made me so happy to hear my son express his love and gratitude for his grandparents. That would be the last time my son would get to talk to my father as he died a few months later. It was a tender mercy from the Lord.
I have two favorite Christmas traditions – one a memory and one still in practice.
The memory tradition is one about my dad and our daughter. After our daughter was born, it became a tradition that my folks would travel the 40 miles to our home in order to be there when Jenet woke up. Dad started it by going down the hallway to her room after they arrived going “HoHoHo Santa’s been here!” It became such a tradition that as a teenager and not wanting to disappoint her Papaw, but still not wanting photos taken of her all sleepy headed, she would get up very early to fix hair and be dressed in something better than pj’s. Then she would crawl back in bed and wait for Papaw to “wake her up”. Both have gone on to their heavenly home now making it a precious memory for us.
The second one I continue with memories of is my mom and me.
My mom taught me about sharing the bounty of the kitchen with loves ones and less fortunate – especially during the Christmas holiday. She would bake for days making a wide assortment of fried pies, cakes, cookies, candies and assorted treats like roasted pecans. Then we would put some of each into boxes that we delivered to the elderly, shut-ins, handicapped, disabled and those that had been extra helpful to my folks during the year. Then we would load up and make deliveries. These deliveries were never drop and go, but taking time to visit while there. Mom told me that often the visit meant more to them than the boxes and were a blessing to both the recipient and the giver. Mom has gone on to her heavenly home, but I still try to follow her example. Each year, I think I might have to cut back, but who do you cut off the list if you do? Pray that I will always be able to do it because I know mom’s is right there with me through the baking, packing, delivering and visiting. It’s my part to remind me there is more to life than getting what one wants on Christmas morning. It is the joy and reason for the season first and foremost! It’s sharing with others expecting nothing in return. It’s bringing smiles to others through our efforts. It’s about Christmas being more about giving than receiving and feeling the presence of God in your life – at Christmas and the whole year through!
The Christmas Eve candlelight carol service is my favorite tradition. Thanks for making this contest international! (Canadian here.)
Baking cookies and giving them away to friends and neighbors.
Hands down, my favorite Christmas tradition is to attend our church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service. It nourishes my heart and sets right everything about the season.
My favorite family tradition is going to the Children’s Mass on Christmas Eve, going back to the house with my family which now includes 3 grandchildren, having a special dinner and then opening family presents. Gifts from Santa arrive on Christmas morning. Then we have a big crepe breakfast and sing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus.
Congrats on the book! I love family time the most. We do have one tradition where we give little gifts from Santa. They are not major gifts but can be the most fun.
A Christmas tradition that my kids and I love is making the dough for sugar cookies and then letting the dough chill so that it is nice and firm. When it is ready, I roll some out for each of one my kids and they cut their own cookies with cookie cutters and then decorate them however they’d like. I bake them and then we all enjoy them and sometimes take them to Christmas celebrations!
My favorite tradition is to wrap presents with special touches a few at a time in the evenings, then sit by the tree with all the other lights off, sipping something delicious and praying for the ones I wrapped for.
My favorite Christmas Tradition
is hearing the Christmas Story
read from the Bible. And hearing
the choir sing my favorite Christmas carols.
My best tradition is the children’s program at church. First I was in it,now I watch it.
I like Christmas crackers with the paper hat & silly joke
Real time predecessor to the Farmer Wants A Wife! This book of stories is perfect for the season to come!
My best tradition is the children’s program at church. First I was in it, now I watch it.
Just three years ago, we started a new Christmas tradition in our family that I now look forward to the most. My daughter, son-in-law, and I get together to spend a day making cookies which we then distribute to family and friends. We make a special stop at a Senior Living Complex, where I also distribute all the books I have recently read. So much fun!
My favorite Christmas tradition is to make my great-grandmother’s cider pie.
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music. We also decorate pre made Gingerbread houses, it is so much fun. My favorite Holiday is Christmas and I Love Everything about Christmas . Thank you for the chance . Have a great day and a great week.
I make a traditional turkey dinner complete with roasted turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potato soufflé, homemade cranberry sauce and new this year will be homemade honey wheat rolls (since I got back into bread making). My family loves it, even my daughter in law!
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the tree with my kids.
My favorite tradition is our family Christmas Eve celebration where all the sisters get together with as many family members who can make it for a potluck and opening of the children’s gifts. We spend the day together and finish with Mass in the evening.
My husband loves to have our tree up early and I love to decorate it simply, ornaments that I’ve had for many years, some homemade; some are Mom’s decorations that have special meaning to us (she is in heaven with Jesus now). It’s just nice to remember why they are special. I have some birds that I like to clip on to the tree, but they don’t always like to stay upright on the branch! That brings a nice laugh when I see them hanging upside down. Most of the time I have to rest them against another branch so they won’t go anywhere! Growing up we had so many traditions, but now we are just happy to be together (we didn’t have children as God had a different path for us) and sharing this season with our Church family.
We make a birthday cake for Jesus
My favorite tradition is going to the Christmas Eve service at church. It really makes Christmas special
My favourite tradition at Christmas is either buying or making gifts for my family and friends and then watching them open them.
I love the tradition of going Christmas Caroling with my church to our elderly and shut ins. They love it too! I also enjoy decorating with my granddaughters and our annual Christmas cookie baking!
I just love spending time with my family on Christmas Day when we can all be together at the same time. Thanks so much for the giveaway, I would love to read these stories.
My favorite part of Christmas: setting up several nativity sets in my small little home. And Music! Jesus’ birth!
Since this will be the first Christmas without my husband and my kids’ dad, I am looking forward to having the whole family together. Whether it be in person or with FaceTime with the ones that can’t make it home, as long as we are together!!
I love seeing my family. This book sounds really good.
My favorite part of Christmas: setting up several nativity sets in my small little home. And Music! Jesus’ birth!
My favorite Christmas tradition is making Tourtierre, a French Canadian meat pie, with my adult daughters to eat on Christmas Eve every year. When I was a child, my family was Catholic and we would go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve and then come home to our Christmas meal and opening presents. We’d go to bed around 2-3 in the morning. Now we have our Christmas Eve dinner at dinner time lol.
Hi, We would go as a family the day after thanksgiving and cut down our own Christmas tree and then decorate the house. Such sweet memories!
My favorite Christmas tradition is going to church on Christmas Eve.
I like reading from Luke chapter 2.
Also reading “The Three Trees” to my grandkids.
I love all of our Christmas traditions, but one that my kids particularly love is me making them French toast for breakfast — the only day of the year I do that!
My favorite tradition is making Christmas cookies.
setting up my nativity sets! Playing Christmas Carols on the piano at church…having my family together!
My favorite Christmas tradition is baking cookies and giving them to family and friends.
The collection sounds wonderful! I need to know Annika’s story!!!
A favorite tradition is getting a special ornament for the tree for that year. You can never have too many ornaments.
Christmas Eve service with my family 🙂
My favorite Christmas tradition is making multiple batches of Rocky Road Fudge for my family and friends. I love to have Christmas music playing while I make it.
My favorite tradition is making and decorating cookies This cover is Beautiful and sounds like such a great Book this is going on my TBR list Have a Blessed Day
My favorite tradition stems from my childhood (81 years ago). It is making Yule logs to give to friends and family. Thank you for the chance to win this book.
Filing stockings for all and a special Santa bag.
Marion
My family and I always bake Christmas sugar cookies together!
My favorite tradition is my daughter and I have a tradition where we have an ornament exchange. We have done this for about 20 years.
Our family has a “Cookie Day” every year. Our adult children make sure we sit down and put that date on the calendar. When they come, I have the sugar cookie dough ready. I roll out the dough and cut with different Christmas cookie cutters, they decorate them with sprinkles, and my husband puts them in the oven to bake. We all work together. When we are finished, we clean up the kitchen and sit down to a warm bowl of soup and cornbread! When it is time for them to go home, everyone chooses which cookies they want and bags them up! It is a fun tradition that my mom started when I was a child. I have carried on that tradition with my children and my granddaughter and her boys. It gets us in the mood for a Christmas celebration!
A tradition at our house was that on Christmas Eve we opened presents from each other. We told our five children to give us and each other a heartfelt gift that was meaningful of the relationship you had with that person. A heartfelt gift is usually not bought and always thoughtful. One great example: our 9 year old son made a Lego “sign” for his Dad’s office, a red brick wall with white bricks that said CPA. My husband was a tax specialist who put in much overtime from just after Christmas until April 15 and worried about seeing the children less. “This will remind you that we know you are working hard for us,” our son told his Dad. That boy is now 50 years old, my husband has retired, but that sign still sits on the bookcase in our living room.
Getting together with family!
I’ve always considered the lights at Christmas being a representation of the fact that Jesus is the light of the world. Because of that, I’ve always loved decorating our house with lights and getting to enjoy the beauty of it.
Handmade decorations and the Nativity.
My favorite tradition with our kids was that they got 4 presents. There were 3 smaller presents and 1 special present to symbolize the gifts of the magi and Jesus being our best Christmas present.
My favorite tradition is spending time with loved ones celebrating our Savior’s birth!
My family’s annual Christmas tea party.
My birthday is Christmas Day, and our first born son, now 23, was also born on Christmas Day! The doctor induced me the morning of the 24th, and it didn’t “take,” so they actually sent us home at 6pm that night. Sure enough, I went into labor overnight and we were back at the hospital on Christmas morning. Even though he wasn’t born until 8:42pm, our son came on his actual due date. What are the odds? So, my favorite Christmas tradition is celebrating our birthdays together.
Making enough Christmas cookies to feed an army.
Baking Christmas cookies with my kids, and now grandkids. The smells of cinnamon and ginger filling our home.
Christmas dinner with my family is my favorite tradition
Going to a Christmas play at a local little theater.
In my family, we always decorated the tree with decorations we made.
some were pretty crude but as we grew, we were able to be more crafty.
My favorite Christmas tradition is getting together with my family: my children, and my siblings and their families. We do this on Dec. 24, then spend Christmas Day with our individual families.
This sounds like a great Christmas novella. I’ve enjoyed other books by all of these authors.
I enjoy the tradition of bringing out all the Christmas decor, one collection is a grouping of various snowmen. When I wasn’t going to show them one year, my husband insisted they come out!
This sounds like a beautiful book, one that I would love to read around Christmas.
One of my favorite among our Christmas traditions is putting up our nativity scene. It is unique in that the pieces are handmade and it incorporates “companions” – characters from the community in that time as well as historical figures. It takes up our whole mantle!
Another favorite tradition for my daughter and I is reading Christmas themed books! We collect them throughout the year and read them between Thanksgiving and New Years!
My favorite Christmas tradition is putting out the shepherd boy each night in December (instead of Elf on the Shelf). There’s a card for each day with a Bible verse and other text such as an activity that can be done until Christmas Day when he finds baby Jesus in a manger under the tree. My daughter knows it’s me moving him around and still loves it.
One special tradition in our family is making Swiss bread and Swiss cookies. The recipes are ones from my grandmother who was born in Switzerland. She lived with our family while I was growing up, and we loved making and eating the Swiss treats at Christmas.
My favorite Christmas tradition is shopping for gifts with my husband and then having dinner together. It’s our Christmas date every year.
My favorite Christmas tradition is spending Christmas Eve night with my sisters. Even though we’re grown now, we still go to our parents house and sleepover in one room like we’ve done since we were little. I also love decorating the Christmas tree!
As far back as I can remember we have read Luke 2 first thing Christmas morning. First with Mama and Daddy and my brother, then with my two sons and now with just my husband.
We have a pickle ornament hunt for our grandchildren. They each get a turn to hunt for the ornament hidden on the Christmas tree, and then they get a small gift of candy or something to enjoy. They love doing the hunt, and always want to know if I remembered the pickle ornament. One year one of the kids was playing with the ornament and accidentally dropped it before we had done the hunt. She was devastated, and the men split up to try to find another real quick. They couldn’t find one, so we dried off a real pickle and used it. Saved the day! 😍
One of my favorite traditions is making an ornament/decoration each year with my mom
My favorite thing about Christmas was putting up the tree and the whole family decorating it while listening to Christmas music. When my daughters were younger and still at home, we used to drive out to Christmas Tree Larry’s and cut our own tree. It took us a while because we had to find the “perfect” tree. The girls loved it!
I would love to win this beautiful book. I love buying my 6 grandchildren an ornament every year. One day they will have a tree of their own to hang them. They can’t wait to see what I or the moms have chosen from me.
We have two Christmas traditions one is making cookies with my two grandsons and the other one is going to the Chicago Botanical Garde s Christmas Lights Festival with my son and his family. Thanks for this amazingly generous giveaway.
One Christmas tradition we have had since moving to Texas is to travel to Burnet and go to their Main Street Bethlehem night. It is so fantastic. They have a whole city block that was created to resemble Bethlehem. You walk through merchants, see camels, hear shepherds proclaiming Jesus’ birth, and ultimately find the manger and the baby Jesus there. It is so fantastic!
Eating monkey bread for breakfast on Christmas morning while my husband reads Luke 2.
Hello One Christmas tradition we have is opening one gift on Christmas eve, we also put a banana in everyone’s stocking so that we have something healthy to munch on while opening gifts. My mother in law started this tradition.
Family Christmas Eve get togethers are a special tradition in our family. Started by hubbys grandmother and has been going for over 60 years. A special time to reconnect and fellowship.
We started the tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas over 10 years ago, and I still enjoy it!
Attending Christmas Eve Candlelight Service with family and then enjoying finger foods and playing games.
A tradition in my family is one of us reads the account of the birth of Jesus from Luke 2 and then we get to open presents. After all, He is the reason for the season. We also have a birthday cake for Jesus and sing happy birthday to Him.
I love Christmas! We don’t have any traditions per se, but I love the time spent with family and friends!! 😊
I make bread pudding for desert every year and we put up the Christmas tree on Dec.1
Attending the Christmas Eve Service is a favorite tradition of mine.
I love them all, the decorating, the carols, the Christmas Eve book exchange, Christmas morning service, followed by the extended family lunch! But as it’s summer in New Zealand, our favourite tradition is that we have Christmas at our beach house with the extended family, and after we have stuffed ourselves full of food, we chat, read, and then we all walk along the beach and enjoy another year together.
We always open one gift on Christmas Eve!
When I was growing up, we would turn off the lights in the living room except for the Christmas tree lights. My father would get out his guitar and we would sing Christmas carols. It was rare for us to do things as a family, so that was a special time for me.
My favorite Christmas tradition is from when I was little. My mom would wrap 25 Christmas books and we would pick one to unwrap and read each night before bed!