It’s Christmas Eve 1914, a mud-filled foxhole in northern France. Not the place any young man expected to be spending this holiest of nights. Allied forces on one side, the Germans on the other, many of these young men expected to make quick work of the fighting and be home in time to celebrate Christmas with their families. Yet, here they were knee-deep in mud, drenched by the almost non-stop rain, staring down the barrels of their guns at each other across the blood-soaked Western Front.

A million lives had already been lost and there was no end in sight.

Charles Brewer, a 19-year-old British lieutenant with the Bedfordshire Regiment of the 2^nd Battalion was glad to see the rain stop and the skies clear on this now moonlit Christmas Eve. All was quiet when a sentry spied a glistening light on one of the German parapets less than 100 yards away. Aware it might be a trap, Brewer slowly lifted his head to look over the sandbags and through the barbed wire to see that it was a Christmas tree. Along the German trenches was a line of lit trees, glimmering in the night like a string of beads. From behind that line rose the faint sound of singing – a Christmas carol. The words to “Stille Nacht” were not familiar to the British troops, but the melody certainly was. When the Germans finished singing the British responded with a round of cheering and sang the English version of the carol – “Silent Night.”

The dawn of Christmas Day brought something even more remarkable. In pockets all along the 500-mile Western Front, German and Allied forces laid down their arms and walked tentatively through the no-man’s land between their lines. They stepped around the burned trees, shell craters, and the trenches filled with the frozen bodies of their dead. They climbed over the sandbags and avoided the barbed wire to shake hands with the men who had been their enemies only the day before and wish them a Merry Christmas. Political leaders had ignored Pope Benedict XV’s call for a Christmas cease fire but these men did not, initiating their own spontaneous and unofficial armistice.

“We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Xmas and were soon conversing as if we had known each other for years,” British Corporal John Ferguson wrote of that Christmas Day between his Seaforth Highlanders and German forces. “Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill.”

“Almost always, it was the Germans who at least indirectly invited the truce,” writes Stanley Weintraub in his book “Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce.” Many of the German soldiers had lived and worked in Great Britain before the war and spoke English.

The men exchanged gifts of cigarettes, chocolates, sausages, liquor and plum puddings. They shared stories of the hardships of war. German soldiers in Houplines rolled a barrel of beer they had seized from a near-by brewery across no-man’s land to share with their new Allied friends. It was unanimously agreed that “French beer was rotten stuff.”

There were pick-up soccer games in no-man’s land where players had to navigate around barbed wire and shell craters. They marked goals with their caps. Where there wasn’t a real leather ball to kick, tin cans and small sandbags worked just as well.

Not everyone was moved by the spirit of Christmas. Fighting continued along some areas of the Front. There were soldiers killed who, in the hopes of a Christmas cease fire of their own, attempted to cross the lines in an offer of peace. German leaders were concerned their men might lose the will to fight. One in particular, a young Adolph Hitler, scolded his fellow soldiers. “Such a thing should not happen in wartime! Have you no German sense of honor left?”

As Christmas Day 1914 came to an end the men parted ways. A few cease fires continued until New Year’s but most resumed fighting the next morning. At 8:30am on the 26^th, in Houplines, Captain Charles Stockwell of the 2^nd Royal Welch Fusiliers fired three shots into the air and raised a flag that read “Merry Christmas.” His German counterpart raised a flag that read “Thank you.” The two men mounted the parapets, saluted each other and returned to their trenches. Stockwell wrote that his counterpart then “fired two shots in the air—and the war was on again.”

British Expeditionary Force commander John French ordered that such a spontaneous grassroots cease fire should never happen again, and it did not. Millions of more lives would be lost before the guns would fall silent once more with the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918. The 1914 Christmas Truce, though, would not be forgotten. One British soldier wrote home the following day, “I wouldn’t have missed the experience of yesterday for the most gorgeous Christmas dinner in England.”

May Christmas 2015 be one to remember. A very Merry Christmas from my house to yours!

You better not shout / you better not cry / you better not pout / I’m telling you why…

He’s making a list / he’s checking it twice / gonna find out / who’s naughty and nice…

We all know who He is…Santa Claus, and he’s coming to town so you better behave. The legend of a jolly fat bearded man in red delivering toys to children in a sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer can be traced back to a 3^rd century monk named St Nicholas from Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Nicholas was admired for his piety and kindness as he traveled the countryside giving away all his inherited wealth to help the poor and the sick. He became known as the protector of children and sailors. December 6^th, the anniversary of his death, is still celebrated. Not even the Protestant Reformation could tarnish his image and he maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.

St Nicholas found his way into American tradition toward the end of the 18^th century, when a New York newspaper in December 1773, and again in 1774, reported a group of Dutch immigrants had gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the death of “Sinter Klaas.” As his popularity grew, Sinter Klaas’ image varied from a “rascal” wearing a blue tri-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man with a broad-brimmed hat and a “huge pair of Flemish trunk hose.”

The Christmas celebration of gift-giving to children began to grow in popularity in the early 18^th century. By 1820 stores were advertising Christmas shopping and by the 1840s newspapers were devoting separate sections for holiday advertisements featuring images of the newly-popular Santa Claus. Thousands of children flocked to a Philadelphia store in 1841 to see a life-size Santa model and it wasn’t long after that stores began advertising the opportunity to see a “live” Santa.  The Salvation Army picked up on the idea in 1890 and started using unemployed men dressed as Santa Claus to ring bells and collect donations to pay for the free meals they provided to the needy.

Clement Clark Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1822, a long poem that later became known as “’Twas The Night Before Christmas”, for his three daughters. The modern image of Santa Claus was born. In 1881, Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist, was inspired by Moore’s poem to draw the first modern day likeness of Santa for Harper’s Weekly. Nast is credited with giving Santa his bright red suit trimmed with white fur, North Pole workshop, elves, and a wife named, of course, Mrs. Claus.

Other countries have their own versions of a St. Nicholas inspired gift-giver. There is Christkind or Kris Kringle for the Swiss and German children, and a jolly elf named Jultomten in Scandinavia. English parents tell their children stories of Father Christmas. Pere Noel visits French children. In Russia, an elderly woman named Babouschka is believed to have given the three wise men wrong directions to Bethlehem to purposely keep them from finding the baby Jesus. To this day, on January 5^th a remorseful Babouschka leaves presents at the bedsides of little children in hopes that one will turn out to be the Christ child. La Befana, a kindly witch, is believed to ride her broomstick down the chimneys of Italian homes to deliver gifts to lucky children.

As for that endearing ninth reindeer, Rudolph, he was the creation of Robert L. May, a copywriter for the Montgomery Ward department store in 1939, over a hundred years after the original eight flying reindeer.

To learn more about the history of Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, or Christmas celebrations in general, visit www.history.com, the official website of The History Channel and a wealth of information.

Plants and trees that remain green all year have always held special meaning to people. Some believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness. Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition we know today back in the 16^th century. The story goes it was Martin Luther who first lit a Christmas tree with candles. It is said he was walking home one night and was taken aback by the beauty of the stars shining through the evergreens. He went home and wired candles to the boughs of their tree so his family might experience that same sense of awe.

The first recorded Christmas tree in an American home was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Germans had public Christmas trees as early as 1747, but until the 1840s such things were still considered a pagan symbol by most Americans. Everything began to change in 1846 when Queen Victoria and her husband, the German Prince Albert, were sketched for the Illustrated London News standing with their children around their decorated Christmas tree. The popular royals were the trend setters of their time, not only in Britain but with fashion-conscious East Coast American society.

The practice soon spread throughout America and by the end of the 19^th century German tree ornaments were regularly arriving on our shores. It must be noted, like everything else, Americans like their Christmas trees big. While Germans commonly used trees of only about four feet in height, Americans have always liked their trees to reach from floor to ceiling.

In the early 20^th century most Americans decorated their trees with home-made ornaments while German-Americans continued to use their traditional decorations of apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Brightly-dyed popcorn was strung with berries and nuts. With the advent of electricity Christmas trees appeared in town squares. An American tradition was born.

In our home we have three trees. For many years we decorated just the one. Then, four years ago when we moved to a larger home we started decorating two trees, a traditional real tree in the living room and a small artificial table-top tree in the master bedroom. Last year we discovered the previous owner left a large artificial tree in a box under the basement stairs. It was a pre-lit leafless tree flocked in white. We set that up in the glass 3-season sunroom and decorated it with red and silver ornaments; simple and elegant when viewed against the snow-covered backyard. Sometimes I wonder why we go to all the work of decorating one tree, let alone three, only to have to take it all down again a month later. Then I sit and gaze up at the angel perched on top, the lights twinkling like the stars Martin Luther admired so many years ago, like the star that led the three wise men to the stable where the baby Jesus lay. Without a tree to remind me would this season of our Lord’s birth pass with a little less joy, a little less notice? I can’t say, but I do know I will continue to decorate a Christmas every year until I can no longer hold myself up to do so, even if it’s only one small tree.

A joyous Christmas season to you and yours!

Christmas is approaching faster than any of us care to admit so I thought I’d help with a few ideas. Does someone on your list love to read a good romance on a cold snowy night? Or perhaps that is your secret passion? Either way, here are three suggestions from my personal library.

“The 12 Brides of Christmas” is a collection of Christian romances that takes place in the heartland of 19^th century America. Read how Alma, Lucy, Esther, Melanie, Polly, Deborah, Annabelle, Sophie, Maddie, Karen, Arabella and Kate fall in love while you experience the old-fashioned Christmas traditions of our great-grandparents.  http://www.amazon.com/Brides-Christmas-Collection-Heartwarming-Historical/dp/1630584894/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449022772&sr=1-1&keywords=the+12+brides+of+christmas+collection

Best selling historical romance authors Judith Miller, Nancy Moser, and Stephanie Grace Whitson bring us the stories of three women who find love in a country divided. “A Basket Brigade Christmas” is based on the true story of the Basket Brigade Women of Decatur, Illinois during the Civil War. These Christian women boarded the trains that were transporting injured Union soldiers to northern hospitals from overflowing hospitals in the south. Every day they would board the train as it made a brief half hour stop in Decatur and minister to these men by distributing a much appreciated home cooked meal, something many of these men had not enjoyed in a very long time. http://www.amazon.com/Basket-Brigade-Christmas-Stories-Country/dp/1630584509/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449022853&sr=1-1&keywords=a+basket+brigade+christmas

Now, if your friends’ tastes (or, admit it, yours) run to more daring stories of love, try “Sizzle In The Snow”. Just released December 2nd, this collection of 8 contemporary erotic romances is sure to heat up any cold winter night. My personal favorite is “Operation Santa” written by my good friend Tina Susedik. It’s both sexy and laugh-out-loud funny. This entire collection is almost too hot to handle! http://www.amazon.com/Sizzle-Snow-Soul-Christmas-Collection-ebook/dp/B0186SCT74/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449022927&sr=1-1&keywords=sizzle+in+the+snow

So, snuggle in and heat up the long cold winter nights ahead with a good romance. Who knows, you might even pick up an idea or two to capture your loved one’s attention.

The holiday season is here! The holidays have arrived along with a long list of traditions followed religiously in every brightly lit home you pass. Some traditions we love, while others we hate but continue despite our feelings because…well…just because.

Traditions are what form our childhood memories. Traditions are what bind us to one another, for good or for bad, and give our celebrations meaning.

There are the dinners, the feasts that would please even the heartiest eater, food that takes days to prepare and only hours to devour. We always know which aunt we can count on to bring the green bean casserole, which cousin brings the same jello salad every year. Remember the lime jello with grated carrots that magically appeared at every holiday table in the ‘70s? There are the pumpkin pies that are eaten down to the very last crumb, and the fruitcakes that get secretly fed in bits and bites to the dog hiding under the table. (Personally, I love my mother’s fruitcake.) One of the best movie dinner scenes is National Lampoon’s Holiday Vacation. Now that’s a family holiday dinner!

Then there’s the alcohol. Whether your preference is wine, beer, or hard liquor, it doesn’t matter. There’s never any lack of liquid courage. The courage to sing when you don’t know the words and are completely tone deaf, the courage to tell someone you love them and don’t know what you would do without them, or, the most dangerous courage of all, the courage to tell someone just what you think of them and their ugly holiday sweater and their disgusting jello salad or fruitcake, and, by the way, you hate their fat little dog, too.

My favorite Thanksgiving tradition growing up was waiting for the town Christmas lights to come on for the first time. We lived on the street parallel to the main highway that passed through town and every year, as soon as we were done with dinner, we would rush to bundle up and run that one block over before dusk and wait for those lights to come on. That was our signal that the Christmas season had officially arrived and Santa’s visit was not far behind. Now town lights go up and are turned on sometime in early November. At least they still wait until after Halloween.

To all my readers: I wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving! May you eat too much turkey, drink too much wine, and have too much fun with your friends and family. But, please, drive responsibly so we can all do it again a month from now.

We all seek comfort from time to time, and we all look for it in our own way. Some use food favorites from their childhood, such as meatloaf, mac and cheese, or mom’s tuna noodle casserole. Religion can bring comfort to those who are grieving or lonely. Comfort can be found under an afghan, sitting in front of a warm fire with a favorite book and a glass of wine. Some people prefer to be alone, while others seek out friends. In this holiday season, many of us will find comfort in our traditions: the friends and family with whom we surround ourselves, a special meal, or that pie/cookie recipe only grandma seems to get just right.

After the horrific events in Paris last week we all watched the news footage of Parisians gathering at candle lit memorials, laying flowers, singing, and saying prayers for those they…we…lost. Some of them were loved ones of the dead, others complete strangers who felt the loss as if they were dear friends. Some people cried while others got angry and demanded to know what we were going to do to stop the terror. People all over the world cried or prayed or shouted with them.

My heroine, Mary Bishop, keeps a box of cherished mementos under her bed. Things that remind her of all the people she has lost in her life. There’s a swatch of blue cloth from her wedding dress and the little white baptismal gown worn by both her children. There are two packs of letters. One contains the letters her son Ander wrote to her during the war and includes both the note he left her when he ran off with his friend Robert to enlist in the Confederate army and the letter his commanding officer wrote her to tell of her son’s brave death at Gettysburg. The second pack is the letters she wrote to him, claimed by Robert so they could be returned to her. Also in the box are three tarnished cases, each containing a daguerreotype: Mary’s wedding picture with her family all gathered around the happy couple; four-year-old Ander sitting beside his dead baby sister, Lillian, laid out for burial; Ander and Robert in their new Confederate uniforms off to fight what they believed would be a brief and victorious war. All these loved ones are now gone from her life, held close with these few small trinkets she can look at and hold when she needs to feel them with her.

How will you find comfort through the holidays and after in these trying times? Me, I’ll find it in a combination of everything above: favorite foods, good wine, friends, family, and my belief in a loving God. We’ll remember those now gone with stories, both laughter and tears, but we will remember them.

It’s November and that means NaNoWriMo. For those of you unfamiliar with this annual writing challenge, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November thousands of writers worldwide sign up to see who can write the best 50,000 word novel in 30 days. At the end of the month you download your completed manuscript for judging and the winner is published. Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, it doesn’t matter. One basic rule applies to all. No writing can be done before 12:01am on November 1^st, and all writing must cease by 11:59pm on November 30^th. You can research, make copious notes, construct elaborate outlines and character sketches, even draw maps of imaginary lands all before the commencement of the competition, but you cannot draft any part of your manuscript proper. The entire contest is run on the honor system.

I’ve been intrigued by the idea of accepting such a challenge, but so far I haven’t had the courage to try. This is partly due to questioning whether or not I’m ready, but also, November just doesn’t strike me as being the best month to hold such a competition. November is the beginning of the holiday season. We’ve just finished with Halloween and are now barreling ever faster toward Thanksgiving and then Christmas/New Years. My house needs to be thoroughly cleaned and meals planned for all the dinner and party guests anticipated. I need to start addressing Christmas cards and purchasing and wrapping gifts, some of which need to be done early enough to be mailed. There are cookies to be baked and tress to be decorated. For many in this area, November is also hunting season. For me, this is not a negative, but could be seen as a positive, since I do not hunt but my husband and most everyone else I know does. This could mean a lot of time alone to write if it wasn’t for the above-mentioned holiday preparations. How about January? No one is partying and our houseguests, like fish, have begun to stink and been thrown out…so to speak. At most, there are decorations to come down, but that can be done in drips and drabs while we ponder our next chapter or plot twist.

Perhaps one day, several years from now when I can retire from my day job (even part time jobs take up time and brain energy) I will plot and plan and then register to give it a try. But may I suggest once more, if you are reading this NaNoWriMo powers-that-be, might we consider January? I can think of no better way to spend those short frigid days of winter than sitting at my computer pretending I’m on a tropical island somewhere drinking an overpriced fruity cocktail with an umbrella in it while the warm azure waves of the Pacific lap at my toes. I might even pretend to take my husband with me, that is, if I believed I could pry him away from the ski slopes.

There’s another question for you. Whoever thought that flying down the side of a mountain on two skinny pieces of wood would be fun? All while trying to avoid trees and other people of questionable judgment and intelligence also riding on two skinny pieces of wood? Ahhhh…but that’s a topic for another blog.

That is the question novel writers ask each other. Are you a plotter or a pantser? A plotter is someone who has to outline every detail of their book before they start writing. Then they actually follow that outline to the letter. On the other hand there is the pantser. Pantsters write by the seat-of-their-pants. They just start writing and see where it leads them, worry about the details or questions later. That’s what revisions are for, right?

Me, I fall somewhere in between. I need to know the bare bones of where my story is going or I have trouble finishing it. As for the details of the journey, I discover those on the way. That’s part of the fun. I like to let my characters introduce themselves and lead me as we go along. Sometimes they even argue with me when I try to do otherwise. I use the revision process to then go back and change the details that no longer fit, or add details that I now know are missing. That’s what I’m currently in the process of doing, and some of that will take some advance outlining.

Take for example my current novel, “Mary Bishop”. It’s a romance, but I didn’t know that when I started writing. Mary insisted on dictating that first chapter to me and I went with it. It opens on a cold November day in 1880 with the funeral of her husband Earl who has committed suicide. I didn’t know why Earl committed suicide other than something happened with the townspeople that was the final straw in his spiraling depression. I knew Mary was a fighter and she was going to do something about it, not let them bring her down, too, but I didn’t know what she had in mind. I didn’t know how it was going to end. I don’t think Mary knew how it was going to end.

Then something shocking happened. My characters took over. Mary arrives at the Christmas Eve church service last minute to find the only empty seat is in the front pew. With her head held high she walks past the townspeople, their whispers following her all the way up the aisle. Once seated, the man sitting next to her takes her hand and wishes her a Merry Christmas. She looks up, surprised to see it is a friend, Oliver Polk, and surprised at her own reaction to his touch. It is only a month since her husband’s death and I, too, disapprove of Oliver’s boldness. I try repeatedly to rewrite that part, telling Oliver that such familiarity is inappropriate. He won’t let me delete the touch. I ask him, but what would your wife think of such a thing? He asks me in return, what wife? I reply, the wife sitting right next to you. And he informs me, my wife died five years ago and I have been in love with Mary Bishop for a long time now. I’m stunned! My novel suddenly turned from a dark tale of revenge to a romance about a second chance at love.

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when the leaves change colors and drop from the trees. The time of year when we swap out t-shirts and shorts for jeans and cardigan sweaters, sandals for boots. We drink hot chocolate instead of iced tea. The daylight hours are growing shorter and the temperature is dropping. Two days ago we had our first snowfall here in northwest Wisconsin. We are beginning to nestle in for the winter, dreaming of the holidays to come and nights in front of a warm fire.

In the past, the change of seasons was seen as a shift between a time of plenty and a time of want, a time of life and a time of death. Halloween’s origins began 2000 years ago with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced: sow-in). For the Celts this was a time of both celebration and superstition. It was a celebration of the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter as well as the new year, which they celebrated on November 1^st. They also believed the night before Samhain, October 31^st , was the one night each year when the spirits of the dead were free to return and walk the earth. The Celts lit great bonfires and wore costumes to ward off the ghosts. They believed that if they wore a mask, if they dressed like a ghost, the ghosts would believe they were one of them and pass them by. The Celts believed that the presence of spirits made it easier for the priests and Druids to make predictions about the future. They were a people dependent on the uncertainties of nature. By believing these prophesies they brought themselves comfort over the long, dark winter ahead.

In the 18^th C Pope Gregory III declared November 1^st All Saints Day, a day to honor the saints and martyrs. The night before became known as All Hallows Eve. This was a time to pray for the souls of their dead. The name later changed to Halloween. Gradually over the centuries this celebration has evolved into the secular, family-friendly holiday we know today. So tomorrow children in masks and costumes will ring your doorbell, give the obligatory chant of “trick-or-treat” and in return receive from you a piece of candy. We will carve faces into pumpkins and light them with candles. We will hang ghosts and witches from our trees. Some people will go all out and recreate entire cemeteries in their front yard. Adults and teenagers will dress-up and go to parties where they will dance, bob for apples, and perhaps drink too much. There may even be a bonfire or two.

But all in good fun, right???

Hunting season is in full swing here in northern Wisconsin. Grouse, pheasant, duck, goose, bear, deer…you name it and someone hunts it. As a writer I’m always hunting, hunting for the right word, the right emotion, the right style. My pen is my weapon and it doesn’t always hit the mark.

Sometimes it’s a matter of using the correct word, affect vs effect or who vs whom, but most of the time it’s about using the perfect word, that one word that says it all exactly right. The correct word means opening one or more of my always handy English usage guides; finding that elusive perfect word can be a lot trickier. That’s where my hunting skills come into play.

When my heroine cries does she sniffle, does she sob, or does she outright wail? Maybe she isn’t a crier at all; maybe she gets angry. Knowing my characters makes tracking the perfect word much easier. Then there are those words that are both correct and perfect and they can only be found with good old-fashioned research; and sometimes a lot of floor pacing.

In my historical romance, “Mary Bishop”, my heroine owns a gun and I had to determine what would be the perfect gun for her and for the time period. I couldn’t just keep referring to it as the gun, that tells my readers very little, and if I use the wrong gun for the time, or the wrong ammunition for the gun, my readers will be quick to call out my error. Problem is, I know very little about guns. On a positive note, I have a history degree, own a library full of historic reference books, and personally know many gun owners.

It’s 1881 and I chose a Colt 1860 Army Revolver that her now late husband took off a Confederate officer in the beginning months of the war. This choice led to much debate within my critique group. Not a debate over the gun choice, but over the way I reference it in the story. Some felt the term revolver sounds too modern and I should call it a pistol. This is where my research came in handy. I was able to explain that not only is the term revolver not a modern one, but why I believe it is the better choice. It’s more specific. Now my only decision is where I call it her revolver, her Colt, or her gun. If I don’t mix it up just right within a scene I risk sounding repetitive…thus the occasional pacing.

Happy hunting!