If you haven’t noticed, I took last week off. Not intentionally, and with no good reason, other than I kept intending to get to the computer and blog, but life and the holidays kept luring me away. I don’t know about you, but I am so easily distracted this time of year.  Write? Are you kidding?  When there are Christmas cookies to bake, presents to knit, hunt down and then wrap like a contented Christmas Diva (especially if I’ve found it on sale and used a coupon)?

Goodness, I hope my editor isn’t reading this. But honestly? I never plan on writing much in December. January is my workhorse month. Well, not the first week of January, because that’s my birthday week, but we’ll worry about that after Christmas. So last week was devoted to baking goodies for the prize winners, families, friends and anyone who passes by and has their mouth open. Watch out, or you’ll find it filled with something about as low-cal as a Big Mac.

I also spent a good amount of time trying to track down my grandmother’s recipe for Russian Tea Cakes.  Those have to be one of my favorite Christmas cookies, and I thought I had dug it up out of her recipe box, which I inherited. (Believe me, this recipe box is a treasure trove of old fashioned goodness.) But grandma wasn’t so good with the filing, so you really have to dig to find the recipes you want. But there it was, with all the right ingredients, with a heading, “Alice Hungate’s Butter Pecan Cookies.” I’m not sure where Alice fits on the family tree, but believe me, she is the genius with the recipes, so whenever I see her name next to a recipe, I sit up and take notice.

Convinced that these, Alice Hungate’s Butter Pecan Cookies were the tea cakes I was searching for, I mixed them up, rolled them into balls and smugly shoved them into the oven, thinking I had finally found the right recipe.  And then they came out of the oven.

Yes, those babies are flat as boards. FLAT. Not round, not buttery bites that you roll in powdered sugar, not once, but twice. No, these are just flat, butter pecan cookies. Which by the way, are really delicious, but not what I was looking for. As luck would have it, my mom called in the middle of my flat cookie disaster, and laughed, as only a mother can. Then she laughed again and asked me why I hadn’t called her.  She had Grandma’s tea cake recipe.  Did I want her to dig it out and read it to me, so I could have my round cookies? So much for being the sacred keeper of  Grandma’s recipes.

Now I had better luck with the chocolate cookies you see in the background up in the first photo. That was a recipe I used to make every year for Christmas, but the year we moved six times, I lost the recipe in all the shuffling. This year I was again determined to  track it down and bake them, because they are my husband’s favorites. I had much better luck with Google than I did Grandma.

And in about two clicks of mouse, I had my recipe for Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies. That was until I went to make them. I had all the ingredients, at least they were all lined up on the counter and ready to go until I got to the sweetened condensed milk, which I have to confess had been on the shelf for a bit, but I mean it’s canned, how bad can it get? Oh, pretty bad, apparently. Because after I got the can open, it came out sort of a green color. Now if you’ve never cooked with sweetened condensed milk, let me pass along a little cooking tip: it shouldn’t come green. That, as it turns out, is a good indication that it was time to carry it directly out to the trash and then make an emergency run to the grocery store for new sweetened condensed milk. I am sure Alice Hungate would have been horrified. (I’m sure everyone who is waiting for their prize packages is wondering what is coming in their boxes–I promise, I used only new and fresh ingrediants for you. I promise.)

What are you doing to get ready for Christmas? Any disasters? Wonderful tales of holiday fun? ‘Tis the season for sharing, so please share!

I opened the mailbox yesterday and the poor thing groaned, what with being stuffed with holiday catalogs. Apparently the deforestation that went into November’s assembly line arrival of enticements wasn’t enough, and now I am getting the “there’s still time to order” versions. Next week it will be “Have it by the 24th” versions and the week after it will be “Order by the 23rd and have it on the 24th” promises.

Look at all these! In just one day. There were over a dozen of them. But I have to acknowledge that this deluge is really my own fault.

Quite frankly, I hate shopping. Not a huge fan of malls, not even fond of department stores. If I must venture over there, I shop with a dedicated list in hand, coupons at the ready, and get it over with the same set of my shoulders that carries me through a dentist appointment. And I do it on a Tuesday morning when no one else is there. No aimless wandering and searching for just the “right” gift. Go in and get out. Rather like a Navy Seal or a member of a Special Forces team.

But catalogs and online shopping just make my day. They offer all the convenience of say, working at home. No crowds, no traffic. Great parking. My choice of piped in holiday songs. I browse through the stack of catalogs, make my list and order at my leisure–or when the free shipping coupon comes through on the email. And I never hit “order” unless I’ve done a Google search for that vendor with the words “coupon code”. I even got lucky enough with one company, Mindware.com, and discovered a free shipping code in my email this morning just before I went online to shop.

However because of my preference to shop via the easy chair, I get buried in catalogs. Like having the mall marching through your mailbox every day, and I get some really odd ones. I had thought that I had seen every catalog out there until I got this one in the mail.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Totally Tomatoes. Not even I could make this up.

And now it appears, I am now officially on their mailing list. How I got there, I’ve got on clue. (Well, I am on the Territorial Seed Company mailing list so maybe . . . )

But really, holiday shopping from Totally Tomatoes? Who does one send tomatoes to? The reviewer who gave away the surprising and totally brilliant ending of your book? The reader on Amazon who gave you one star and says they hate all your books? (which begs the question, Why do you still keep reading them?)  How about a packet of heirloom seeds for the hurricane that shut down much of the South the week your book came out?

Let’s take this a step further, can you imagine the poor kid who gets a gift card from Totally Tomatoes in his stocking? Or worse,  your husband becomes convinced that what you really need under the tree is the “Best Paste Tomatoes” Collection? Or even worse, he thinks the “Try 5 of Our Hottest” Collection of peppers will be just the thing to put some holiday zing back into the marriage.

To avoid any confusion, and to prevent what is commonly known as the “Disaster of ’96” in our household, I carried this directly to the recycling bin and then buried it under several inches of Pottery Barn and Land’s End offerings.

Every two weeks between December 1st and February 14th, I’ll be drawing a winner–that’s five winners in all–so there are lots of chances to win. And how do you win? Just answer this easy question:

What day does Confessions of a Little Black Gown go on sale?

If you haven’t a clue, try this hint, then enter the contest. Each of the five winners will receive a special, autographed limited-edition hardback copy of Love Letters from a Duke. For all the fine print, the rest of the rules can be found on my Contest page.

Here they are–the Twelve Days of Christmas winners!

1. Susan E. of Monterey, CA
2. Amy K. of Milwaukee, WI
3. Ellie K. of Nashville, TN
4. Lara B. of Keller, TX
5. Theresa K. of Toledo, OH
6. S. S. of E Meredith, NY
7. Susan P. of Pembroke Pines, FL
8. Jane S. of Wasola, MO
9. Eva M. of Richmond, VA
10. Sara R. of Muskegon, MI
11. Eva M. of Tega Cay
12. Sarah N. of Sydney, NSW, Australia

Please watch your mailbox this month for a package of holidays goodies and glad tidings. If you didn’t win, don’t despair. I’ve posted my new contest, which will run between now and February 14th. Good luck!

Just a quick post to let you know that everyone here survived the holiday weekend–I’ve got to finish page proofs today–so this is a quickie blog. Pics and more to follow. We were down in Seaside again, like we did last year, and yes, DH cooked. He cooked off and on all day and after we ate the entire meal in less than fifteen minutes, he looked over at me, shook his head, and said, “That is way too much work for one meal.”

Ya think?

More tomorrow–oh, and contest winners tomorrow.  How was everyone else’s weekend? Bargains found? Turkey disasters? (Ours was horrible–chewy and dry. I suggested brining and basting, but what do I know?!)  Best pie? Christmas lights up?

A thank you to all of you who support my work, write me, read this blog, comment, read and don’t comment. I hope today is blessed, full of love, and an extra slice of pie.

The big one is coming. Yes, that one. Getting Thanksgiving dinner on the table by Thursday. Before midnight, hopefully. I say this because the DH has decided he will cook Thanksgiving. It all began when I started talking about all the work that goes into cooking Thanksgiving, and he scoffed saying how easy a turkey dinner is to make. So I shot him the skank eye and made a big “harrumph.” To which he said, “Well, then I’ll cook Thanksgiving.”

Now that would be cause for celebration if it meant he will actually be cooking Thanksgiving, because here is how it is already going and it is only Monday. For you see, he is already “cooking” by telling me what he needs from the grocery store and what I need to get ready for him.

“Honey,” he says, “make sure to make the relish and the pie crusts ahead of time for me.”

“Sure, Sweetheart,” I say, wondering how this is making it so easy for me.

“And I’ll need you to make the pies that morning.”

“Will you now?”

“Well, yes,” he says in that managerial voice of his. Gads, some days I pity the people who work for him.  “Because I’ll have to make the stuffing and the turkey!”

You can see immediately how that might overtax a poor person. A man person, that is. So this week will probably continue along those lines and as we all sit down to dinner on Thursday, I am sure he will take credit for the entire meal and declare it easily done. Hopefully I won’t be holding the carving knife at the time. Then again, I hear leftovers work well for a wake.

Sides? Did I hear some of you saying sides? What are your favorite side dishes on Thanksgiving? Mine? Fresh cranberry relish and stuffing. Yummy. 

If you are traveling in the next week or so for the holidays, I would love to recommend a great book: Silent In The Grave by Deanna Raybourn. This isn’t so much a romance as it is a historical mystery, but most of the time, at least for me, when someone says “historical mystery” they had me at hello.

And Silent in the Grave is no exception. It is an engaging story about a Victorian era widow who delves, rather reluctantly at first, into her husband’s sudden death and discovers a world she never knew. And while Lady Julia considers herself quite modern and a woman of the world, she realizes how sheltered she’s been the deeper she goes into the secrets her husband concealed from her. The cast of characters is fascinating and Raybourn’s ability to create Victorian England is breathtaking.

Always great fun to find a new series, and this one continues with Silent in the Sanctuary, which I am currently reading, and have the third book Silent On The Moor queued up for ordering. Just thought I’d share.

So, what new author, book, series, whatever you are reading now that you are sharing with all your “reader” friends? Well, we’re all friends here, so spill . . .’cause who doesn’t love finding a new can’t-put-down read?

Hey all, just in case the holidays can’t come any soon enough for you, you should drop by my Contest this month and enter to win one of twelve “Days of Christmas” packages I’ll be sending out next month, which will include yummy, nummy homemade Christmas treats, autographed books to keep, and autographed books to use as extra stocking stuffers and hostess gifts from me and a number of your favorite Avon Authors including, Lorraine Heath, Julianne MacLean, Tracy Anne Warren, Kerrelyn Sparks, Sara Bennett, Alexandra Benedict, Anna Campbell, Isabel Sharpe and more!

These are going to be fun boxes that are a special gift just for you to take a break with during the busy holidays.  So let me know now:  fudge or peanut brittle? Sugar cookies or chocolate bars? What are your favorite homemade holiday treats?

Last week, Sarita Leone of From the Heart blog surprised me by giving me (well, my blog that is) an award. It’s nice to know that not only does someone read my blog, but likes it enough to make such a nice offer of recognition.  I am honored and just plain thrilled.  Oh, let’s cut to the chase–I love winning anything as my post Bringing Home the Elephant will attest. I’ll have you know I blew dry my hair this morning in honor of publicly accepting it. It’s not every day I blow dry my hair. I went out for coffee with author, Serena Robar the other morning and she was all pretty with her make-up done and I was just proud that I was wearing clean jeans.

Can I confess something else?  I have always wanted to win a blogging award.  It is right there on my list between being interviewed by People magazine and being on Oprah. So really Sarita, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am, because not only do I get to proudly wear my award in my sidebar, but I also get to cross “winning a blog award” off my goal list. Of course, if anyone else wants to offer me another award, I am always willing to drag out the hair dryer and accept another one. There is no reason why a goal can’t have two or three lines through it.

But onto Sarita’s kind award, and the formalities. Because this award comes with a couple of rules:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blog

So in no particular order, I award this honor to the following:

1) The (Mis)Adventures of a Single City Chick.  Christina’s blog always has great giveaways and she has a better social life than I do.

2) Melissa’s Diary. Harlequin author Melissa McClone let’s us peek into her daily life.  Like every day–sharing the great songs and pictures she finds along the way.

3) Channeling Erma. Erma Bombeck was probably the original great blogger–the grandmother of us all, and these authors make their own wry observations about life and families in much the same way.  They make me smile all the time.

4) Posy Gets Cozy. The musings of Alicia Paulson, a Portland area blogger always leaves me ready to cook, craft and enjoy life.  Her wonderful pics and lovely style always inspires.

5)  Maya Rodale. I love it when she does her “The Same Six Questions.” Too funny and lots of fun. You got to like someone who wants to know what super powers you secretly covet. My answers can be found here.

6) The Goddess Blogs. These gals crack me up.  Suzanne Enoch, Rachel Gibson, and Sabrina Jeffries especially, but there isn’t a one of them that doesn’t have a very funny (as in hilarious) way of looking at the world.

7)  History Hoydens. Because I am a total history wonk and a hoyden at heart.

There they are! What blogs would give an award to? And if you blog, please tell us all about your blog–you can never have too many blogs to read. Hook me on reading your blog, and next time (assuming there is a next time) I can send an award your way!