Issue #4 • December 2017
Dear Readers,
Holiday season is upon us! Which for me means my most productive time for writing. I love writing during Christmas.
It all started when I was in Grade 3, and I decided I wanted to give a Christmas gift to all of my relatives. Every year, my very large extended family gathers together to have supper, sing Christmas Carols, and exchange gifts. (We're pretty much like the Whos in How the Grinch Stole Christmas!)
Of course, being only eight years old, I didn't have a lot of money to buy gifts, so I decided to write a Christmas story and print a copy for all my family.
In Santa and the Bubble Gum, Santa is stressed out and chewing bubble gum and falls asleep. When he snores, he breathes the bubble gum up into his brain! Chaos! Mrs. Claus must find a way to get the gum out of Santa's brain.
Soon, this book was followed by others:
Notice my wonderful spelling abilities? I must admit, The Romantic Reindeer is probably the worst story I've ever written. Just think: a matchmaking reindeer!
The tradition of making my own Christmas stories continued all the way into high school when I started commissioning my friends who were good artists to do the images for me. Santa's Snow Angels is one of my favourites. The story went that if a child made a perfect snow angel in the snow, with NO footprints or handprints, a real little angel would pop from the shape and go live in Christmas Castle. But because there were so few perfect snow angels, they didn't have a task to do. They end up basically being like "Charlie's Angel" crime fighters.
It's no wonder then that my love of Christmas stories has continued into my professional writing and publishing career. I'm lucky to have two stories that take place in the winter season.
The first is my picture book, The Lost Gift, A Christmas Story, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin.
It's a classic Christmas tale, that's warm and fuzzy. You can read more about it here. I dedicated it of course to my extended family.
The next is not specially a Christmas story, but it takes place in winter, and there is a celebration for animals (St. Slumber's Day) that is basically Christmas. It's the second chapter book in the Heartwood Hotel book series, The Greatest Gift. You can find out more about it here.
I don't think I'll be writing any Christmas stories this Christmas, since I need to work on my winged horse series, but I know that I'll likely get lots of writing done, curled up by the fire, sipping hot chocolate.
Hope you all have cozy and wonderful holidays too.
xo,
Kallie
Extra Fun
Featured Activity - Holiday Gift Tags!
Here are some cute holiday gift tags, from The Lost Gift, a Christmas Story illustrated by Stephanie Graegin.
Download the tags here!
