Christmas Ride

I'm so excited, it's finally my day for the Christmas Ride post! It's been so fun keeping up with everyone else, and today I get to add my two cents!

I love Christmas. I love everything about Christmas.

The decorations. (Our house was all decked out the weekend after Thanksgiving.)
The baking. (My husband and I make "kiss" cookies each year to share with family and friends...and spend extra minutes on the treadmill working off ourselves!)
The shopping. (Okay, I still have some of that left to do. But I'm not worried. There are still plenty of shopping days left until Christmas.)
The wrapping. (One of my favorite parts of getting ready. I do it up big! Paper. Trimmings. Ribbons. Bows.)
The parties. (It's so wonderful to hang out with family and friends and share some holiday cheer...sometimes spiked...sometimes not.)
The music. (Ah, the music. I have it on constantly, but I'm a purist and won't start listening until the day after Thanksgiving!)
The movies. (So far we've done "Christmas Vacation", "A Christmas Carol", "A Charlie Brown Christmas", and we have the best one of all saved for Christmas Eve, "It's a Wonderful Life".
I even like the snow! (The kids had a snow day yesterday, and I think we'll have that White Christmas we always hope for but never seem to get around here!)

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The very best part of Christmas is that we get to share all of this with family and friends. It's a time to come together and think about the good things in our lives. The people and things we've been blessed with. God's gift to our world.

So I encourage you, no I invite you, to curl up with a copy of my free read Mistletoe and Holly, stir up a batch of holiday punch, bake up some cookies (fellow Christmas Ride bloggers have shared some extra-yummy recipes) and enjoy the peace and comfort this season brings.

Leave a comment sometime today and tell me what your favorite part of the season is, and you could win a PDF copy of "This Time for Always", my debut novel from The Wild Rose Press.

And here's the clue for my Christmas song.
Down in a lowly manger
The humble Christ was born
And God sent out salvation
That blessed Christmas morn

(My favorite version of this is on Toby Keith's Classic Cristmas CDs.)

Don't forget to continue on the Ride tomorrow by visiting Tarah Scott.

To spread more Christmas cheer, we're giving one lucky person a $75 Wild Rose Press gift certificate! All you need to do to enter is attend each day's blog post, identify the carol, and make a complete carol list to submit after the final blog post of Christmas Eve. Don't forget to check the list twice! Send it to Christmasrideblog@live.com by midnight, CST Dec. 31st 2008!

If you haven't been keeping up, feel free to head back to the beginning at PL Parker's blog. There's still plenty of time left!

Merry Christmas and many blessings in the New Year!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra St. John

www.debrastjohnromance.com