by Joan Reeves
Sometimes we get so busy orchestrating the best Christmas ever that we end up frazzled and exhausted before Christmas actually arrives. When I say we, I mean me. Someone once described me as a high speed woman in a low speed world. It followed that Christmas was the season to be moving at warp speed—creating beautiful handcrafted ornaments, the best decorated home and yard, finding the perfect gifts for everyone on my list, throwing the biggest and best Christmas party, preparing and serving the best Christmas dinner—the list was endless.
One night, exhausted from that massive outlay of energy and time, I realized I was doing it wrong. That epiphany came at the Christmas Eve services at our small town Texas church.
When the benediction was over, I immediately began thinking of the next items on my “to do” list. I needed to herd everyone to the car so we could get home, and I could—well, continue my frenzied quest to make everything perfect.
When the double doors at the back of the church opened, we were in line to shake the minister’s hand, but everyone stopped talking…stopped moving. We all literally froze. It was snowing. Light from the church made the lazily drifting snow sparkle. For a Gulf Coast Texas town, snow was an oddity. I marveled at this…this weather event that seemed like a beautiful gift.
No one rushed to their cars. Silently, we all watched. It felt as if this was the first time I’d drawn a deep breath since Thanksgiving. I hugged my husband and gathered my kids around me and hugged them and told them all how much I loved them. A feeling of peace settled over me, and I promised myself I’d never create the perfect Christmas again. If you think about it, the perfect Christmas had already been created—in a stable, in a manager, two thousand plus years ago.
After that night, I made Christmas special—imperfect and spontaneous—and it’s been a lot more fun, but we all still remember the Christmas Eve it snowed.
Last Christmas is Christmas romance that’s a little different. It’s certainly not perfect for Annabelle who is nursing a broken heart. She met the perfect man Last Christmas, gave him her passion and her heart, and he disappeared after saying those famous words, “I’ll call you.”
She’s back in her small Texas hometown, and who should pop back into her life? The man who’d stomped on her heart. With retribution in mind, she plans to make him pay!
Joan Reeves is a New York Times bestselling author of Contemporary Romance. From romantic comedy to romantic thriller, her fiction has this premise: "It's never too late to live happily ever after."
Joan lives her happily-ever-after with her hero, her husband, in the Lone Star State. They divide their time between a book-cluttered home in Houston and a quiet house in the Texas Hill Country where they sit on the porch, stare at the star-studded night sky, and listen to the coyotes howl. Be the first to know about new books and giveaways by signing up for Joan's free newsletter, I LOVE READING, https://www.subscribepage.com/z8x3r9
This is a nice lesson to remember this holiday season. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for the reminder to stop and smell the roses or, in this case, watch the snow.
Thank you, Liz, for allowing me to visit with your readers on your lovely blog. Merry Christmas.
How beautiful! God always intervenes, doesn't he? This reminds me of Martha and Mary, when Jesus tells Martha she's worrying about things that aren't so important. It's nice to know that we can take time to breathe, especially during Christmas.
God knows how to get our attention. Since my parents are gone I more appreciate what a gift it was to simply be all together as a family. Kim Janine Ligon