A New Holiday Tradition with Author J. Andersen
In our family, the Christmas season officially starts on Thanksgiving eve. My parents and brothers and their families come to my house for the non-traditional chicken cordon bleu dinner, made my amazing cook of a sister-in-law, Jeanine. She cooks, I clean up after her. It’s a great deal we have going. 🙂
Just as with any Thanksgiving feast, we gorge ourselves on great food then sit back and attempt to breathe with what little room we have left. Years ago, we started a thankfulness tablecloth. Every year each person writes what they’re thankful for that year. It’s so fun to go back and read through all of them.
But it’s after this that the real ceremony starts. Let me back up just a tad and give you the history of what you’re about to read: My husband is very difficult to buy for, so my sisters-in-law are always looking for something he might like.
For a while it was fleece pull overs. I finally got them to stop the fleece when we ended up with about 10 in our closet. Once that option was eliminated, they had to find something else. So one Christmas they called me up and said, “Jess, we’ve found the perfect gift for Todd.” Oh great. This was sure to be interesting. “The leg lamp. You know, from The Christmas Story. The leg lamp.”
Now, I’m thinking a little table sized lamp. Okay. Ha ha. No big deal. NO. That’s not how it went down. It’s the full sized leg lamp, standing at least 3 1/2 feet tall. And get this, they want me to display it proudly in my front window! My reaction was pretty much the same as the mother in the movie, and every year I threaten to rid the house of glue just in case the thing breaks.
So, our new tradition is to light the leg lamp, which does sit in my front window. I have to stay inside the house while my hubby and the rest of my family congregate on the front lawn and recite the lines from the movie. “Hey, what is that?” “It’s a major award!” “Move it a little to the left.” “You say you won that?” “Mind powers, Lee. Mind powers.” They stand in the cold and cheer when it’s lit. All I can say is, it’s a good thing we live in a small town. 🙂 Now, because there’s no real way to describe the lamp in all it’s glory, I’ll add a picture, and ask, how do you start your Christmas season?
Author Bio:
There’s not much to do growing up in a small town in Western, NY, so J. Andersen wrote stories and won high school writing contests. But in college her writing was limited to term papers. While teaching middle school she began to read young adult books and got serious about writing. She now writes full time, volunteers at the town library, helps to run a School of the Arts at her church, and sings in the church band. She enjoys good coffee—read: home roasted by her husband—crafts, baking, and chasing after her children. You’ll rarely see J. without a book in her hands, and that’s the way she’d like to keep it.
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BLURB:
Is the opportunity to create the next generation of life a dream come true or a deadly nightmare? When seventeen year old Katherine Dennard is selected to become a “Creation Specialist” in Sector 4, the opportunity sounds like a dream come true. But Kate soon discovers the darker side of her profession – the disposal of fetal organs and destruction of human life. It makes sense, really. In a society where disease and malformations don t exist, human perfection demands that no genetic “mutants” be allowed to live. For Sector 4, “survival of the fittest” is not just a theory – it’s The Institute’s main mission. When Kate discovers that The Institute is using her DNA to create new life, her work gets personal. In order to save her unviable son, she’ll have to trust Micah and his band of underground Natural Born Rebels. The problem is, if The Institute discovers her betrayal, the next body being disposed of could be hers.
Links:
THE BREEDING TREE: Amazon pre-order: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1941103987/
Website: https://www.jandersenbooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jandersenbooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JVDLAndersen
Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/jvdlandersen
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