Jen Gilroy's Blog, page 18

Joining a book club

Long before I became a writer, I was a reader. From childhood until today, books have been my comfort, joy and inspiration.

The library is one of my happy places, and when life hurts, I return to the pages of my favorite books, finding solace there only well-loved characters can give.

However, despite being a lifelong reader, I only joined a book club this year, at the urging of a friend who sings in my choir. And now all I can say is why did it take me so long?!

Reading outside my genre

As an author, reading is my “job” and although I read widely in women’s fiction and contemporary romance, I don’t have much time to read beyond that.

Book club reading stretches my reading menu and “cleanses my palate” to come back to my usual reading fare refreshed and inspired.

In the past three months, book club picks included The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger, Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan, and The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George.

These different reading experiences—from Pullinger’s account of an Englishwoman and her maid in Victorian Egypt (based on a true story), to MacLennan’s “romantic realist” novel of the 1917 Halifax explosion, and then a bookish France in George’s story—were not only thought-provoking but also helped me look at my own writing in new ways.

Book chat…with tea and cake

Before I joined a book club, my reading was largely solitary and I rarely talked about books I’d read with anyone else.

Now I can share my passion for books and reading with a similarly enthusiastic group of women who, as an added bonus, serve tea and cake, a staple of my life in England. 

Laughter and life lessons

My book club members are of various ages, backgrounds and life experiences.

Some are widowed or have husbands with medical challenges, or are dealing with their own health issues or family difficulties. Although they might have reasons to be sad, they’re upbeat, forthright, amusing and good company.

As one member with beautiful snow-white hair (the hair I want when I’m her age!) joked about an accident on her recent Caribbean holiday: “Remember, I fell on my way into the bar, not my way out!”

No matter what their life stage or context, these women have collective wisdom to benefit and enrich me.

A reader, not an author

Perhaps most important of all, at my book club, I’m a reader like everyone else.

Although I love my author life, it’s freeing to read one book a month solely for pleasure and talk about that book without being in full-on “author mode.”

Every writer should also be a reader, but sometimes I want to be a reader first, and my book club gives me a place to do that.

I may have discovered the joys of a book club late, but I’m now a happy convert! Do you belong to a reading group? Can you suggest any books my club might enjoy reading?

Prayers for Humboldt

A week ago, on a remote Saskatchewan highway, sixteen people were killed and thirteen others injured in a crash between a semi-trailer truck and a bus carrying players, coaches, a trainer, a local radio announcer and others associated with a Canadian junior (ice) hockey team, the Humboldt Broncos.  

Before then, Humboldt was a small Canadian prairie town few people had heard of. However, in the past seven days, my social media feed has been dominated by #PrayersForHumboldt, #hockeyfamily, #HumboldtStrong and many other hashtags as people in Canada and around the world reach out in the wake of a tragedy that has rocked my country—and me—to the heart.

It hits close to home

In Canada, ice hockey is part of our national identity and in small towns particularly, “the rink” links people together in good times and bad.

Whether for hockey games or other sporting or school activities, bus travel on rural roads is part of almost every Canadian’s shared experience, mine included. It’s commonplace—except when it’s not.

Although in a different part of Canada, I live in a small town much like Humboldt. Here as there, players from the junior hockey team are billeted with local families, and many of those players attend English Rose’s school. 

For these reasons and more, this tragedy feels both personal and heartbreakingly close.

Prairie people are inter-connected people

I grew up one province east of Saskatchewan, and small-town Saskatchewan is where my paternal grandparents met. My grandfather was a keen amateur hockey player and on their first date, he invited my grandmother to watch him play.

Hockey and the Canadian prairies are part of my history and once a prairie person, always a prairie person.

As Saskatchewan’s premier (like a US state governor) wrote on Twitter: “Our province has always been one community. At our core, we are one small town, neighbours, friends and families.”

In this vast and isolated region, where the edge of the flat land touches the tip of the big sky, people are tough, self-reliant, and down-to-earth, and the community spirit of the first pioneers endures. In our cities, people may not know the person who lives next door, but on the prairies, even though the nearest neighbour may be miles distant, people depend on each other in a special way.   

Everyone knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone else. The Broncos head coach was killed in the accident, and his widow went to school with the daughter of my choir director. The family names of the people riding that bus, of Ukrainian, Mennonite, French-Canadian origin and more, are reminiscent of my childhood.

They are my people and it is my place.

Family bonds, family tragedy

As a mum, my heart aches for the unimaginable pain the mothers, fathers and extended families of those killed and injured are experiencing.

When I heard how mothers cradled their dead and critically injured sons as though they were small boys, I hugged English Rose a little tighter and was reminded that I’m part of a bigger community of parents. When someone’s child hurts, we all do.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of a phone call telling me a loved one had been killed in a road accident and understand how life can change in an instant—and will never be the same again.

This kind of family tragedy sears your soul and although you go on, it’s something you may learn to live with but never truly “get over.”

My hockey book

My December 2017 release, Back Home at Firefly Lake, is a hockey book. Although set in Vermont, USA, it was in part inspired by what ice hockey means in my own life and family.

The story was shaped by my grandfather’s battered hockey skates, carefully kept by my grandmother until her death.

It was influenced by going to school with a boy who played junior hockey and, like the Humboldt players, road a team bus across the endless Manitoba prairie before realizing his childhood dream of reaching the NHL.

While I wrote Back Home at Firefly Lake, I heard the sounds of my childhood and adolescence—the scrape of ice skates against a frozen pond in the red twilight of a cold, winter afternoon, and the hollow echo as sticks connected with a puck.

And on my playlist for the book is “Small Towns, Big Dreams” by Canadian country music artist Paul Brandt (born in the prairie province of Alberta). In recent days, that song has become a kind of anthem for Humboldt, and one that Paul performed and dedicated to the town.

Small actions, big impact

As a published author, I’ve realized one of my big dreams, but for many people that night, their dreams either died or changed forever.

This week, all across Canada, hockey sticks are propped outside front doors in tribute to Humboldt. In schools, and from small businesses to big corporations, people are wearing hockey jerseys and green and gold clothing to honour the Humboldt Broncos and raise money to help the town, the injured, and families of those killed. 

In a small way, I wanted to do something to help too so I’ve donated some royalties from Back Home at Firefly Lake to the main GoFundMe campaign, one of the biggest in Canadian history.  

Love and family form the foundation of my writing. It is love, family and faith I hold fast to both in my everyday life and amidst tragedy. 

My writing life

I don’t often blog about writing, but in the past few months I’ve been thinking about what and why I write.

Whilst these experiences are mine, I suspect that published or not, other writers will recognize bits of themselves in me.

And if you’re a reader, I hope this post gives you some “inside insight” into the author world.

As a writer, I can’t help myself…

From eavesdropping on conversations when I’m out in public. To the chagrin of my long-suffering family, I’ve picked up many story nuggets this way.

I can’t help myself from hearing voices in my head as characters demand I tell their story. And I accept it’s a writer’s definition of “normal” and am mindful not to mention it when I see my doctor for an annual check-up.

I also can’t help myself from drifting off into my own little world. When I worked full-time in an office, I enlivened many dull meetings by multi-tasking—paying attention to the discussion with one part of my brain whilst escaping to an imaginary realm with the other.

I regularly reshaped colleagues into flirtatious debutantes or Regency rakes, a demure governess with a scandalous past, rugged cowboys, or versions of Jane Austen’s bumbling Mr. Collins.  

As a writer, I’m vulnerable in a way that only those in other creative professions understand.

When I send my writing out into the world—whether it’s in the comfort of a supportive writing group, on the bigger stage of agent and publisher submissions, or ultimately, a published novel—I’m opening myself up to someone not liking my “book baby” and saying so, in often painful, public detail.

Logically, I know I don’t enjoy every book I read so it’s unlikely mine will be met with universal acclaim. However, logic disappears when I receive negative reviews or yet another stinging manuscript rejection. 

I drown my sorrows in ice cream, learn what I can from the feedback and move on because rejections don’t stop post-publication.  

As a writer, I can’t stop writing.

Rejections, bad reviews, or when life hits me with the force of a semi-trailer truck—there are times when it’s too painful to write and expose pieces of my heart on the page. 

However, I always come back to it eventually, more determined than ever to tell those stories I can’t get out of my head.

And sometimes, life hurts so much that I have to write. Then, in the midst of all-consuming emotional turmoil, my fictional world is the only place I can find a small, temporary measure of solace.

As a writer, I’m prey to a peculiar set of anxieties.

Beyond the obvious…will this book ever sell and, if it does, what if everyone hates it and, by extension me…I also experience a suite of other insidious concerns.

If I include sex in my books, will people who know me assume those scenes are based on personal experience? Mine aren’t, but when Tech Guy’s work colleagues discovered he was married to a romance writer, he got teased about “Fifty Shades of Tech Guy.”

I also obsess about margin width, font choice, adverb use, and comma placement to an inordinate degree, along with the worry that if anyone in “authority” ever checked my Internet search history, I’d likely be hauled in for uncomfortable questioning.

As a writer, happiness is finding my tribe(s).

I’m blessed to have a supportive husband and daughter (although when I’m on deadline, they know to not interrupt me unless blood, broken bones, fire or flood are involved), but it’s only other writers who truly “get” the writing life.

My writing BFF’s talk me off the edge when my career seems to have more “downs” than “ups,” and they don’t give up on me, even when I’m tempted to give up on myself.

As a writer, though, happiness is also finding my readers—the ones who truly “get” my writing.

They’re the people who email to tell me they’ve “loved [my] books” and ask me about the characters as if they’re real.

They’re also the people who buy my books when they can, request them at their libraries, write encouraging reviews, chat with me on social media and, over time, become friends.

Although (and like all jobs) the writing life can sometimes be hard and frustrating, it’s still the best job in the world and one I’m blessed to be able to do.

A subscription note:

Since Facebook in particular has made it increasingly difficult for those who want to see my author posts to do so, if you didn’t receive this blog via email and would like to, you can subscribe to my fortnightly blog post mailings here (and once you’ve subscribed don’t forget to opt-in via the confirmation email). 

I also have a quarterly newsletter with book information and giveaways. Subscribe to my newsletter here and receive the Spring edition when it comes out next week.  

Family…from generation to generation

Since Tech Guy works in Toronto, English Rose and I spent this week’s school holiday there with him.

It’s been a time for our little family to have a whole week together (something we’re rarely able to do) and also visit with members of our extended family tree from “generation to generation.”

Although I’m an only child, I’m blessed to have a cousin who is the “sister of my heart.” While my visit with her was brief, it was nevertheless a time to reconnect in person after too many months of communicating via email and, in the midst of our busy lives, occasional telephone calls.

We chatted about topics of concern to most mid-life women—children, husbands and work amongst others. Yet, from the minutiae to bigger questions, we were reaffirming a family bond that extends back to our grandparents’ generation.

My cousin’s grandfather and my grandmother were brother and sister, raised in a family of ten children in a small Ontario town. That bond has extended down the generations—and across geographies—to encompass English Rose and my cousin’s tween daughter who are now forging a sister-like relationship of their own.

At the other end of the generational spectrum, we also visited Tech Guy’s mother who, because she has dementia, lives in a care home where she gets the around the clock help she needs to cope with everyday life.

For this once vibrant woman—who lived for her family, friends and faith—the world has narrowed to her room and the small community of the memory unit that is now “home.”

It’s also a world that usually doesn’t make sense to her, and where even close family are at best strangers, and at worst, ghosts in a shadowy and confusing reality.

Yet, even in her here and now, family love remains.

Although my mother-in-law did not recognize her son or granddaughter, when English Rose sang “You Are My Sunshine,” a song that my mother-in-law once sang to her young children, she joined in.

Her eyes were closed, and her voice faltered, but somehow, across the years, fragments of that special melody—with its reminder of the love of family and home —remained.

“Family” means different things to different people and sadly, not everyone is blessed with nurturing family bonds. Yet, whether it’s family by blood, or the family we choose (as Kylie, the troubled foster child chose Nick and Mia in my book, Summer on Firefly Lake), family relationships are a big part of who we are.

Like most women’s fiction and romance authors, my books are relationship driven. Alongside romantic elements, I also tell stories about families, friends and communities, often drawing kernels of inspiration from personal experiences.

It’s these inter-generational relationships that help us understand our past and also shape our present and future. And just as they have shaped my life, they are also the foundation of my fiction. 

Springing forward

When February slips into March and, irrespective of whether the new month comes in like a lion (as it has for my friends in the UK), or a lamb (here in the Rideau Valley), it’s the time of year when my thoughts always turn to my life in England.

Although there are many things I love about Canada, since I spent almost twenty years “across the pond” and am a dual national, England will always be my second home and have a special place in my heart.

I miss England most in springtime. British poets have long celebrated spring for good reason. There is a gentle and timeless quality to springtime in England I haven’t found anywhere else.

From the first snowdrops in February, to crocuses and daffodils in March, and then bluebells in the woodland in April and May, the English spring follows a slow and steady progression. In an often tumultuous world, I find this annual constancy both comforting and reassuring.

After months of darkness and rainy winter days, the return of the dawn chorus is also cause for celebration. Although Tech Guy bemoaned the cuckoo that called as regularly as an alarm clock outside our bedroom window from four-thirty in the morning onwards, it was an annual sign that spring was truly on its way.

Springtime is also a special season in England’s gardens, parks and historic properties, many of which reopen to visitors at this time of year.

One of my favourite places is Greys Court, a Tudor country house and gardens in the care of the National Trust and near the famous rowing centre, Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.

From March through May, we visited Greys Court almost weekly to savour the sights and scents of the different spring flowers as they came into bloom.

We also often went there on Mothering Sunday (British Mother’s Day, this year on 10 March) for a walk in the grounds followed by a scrumptious afternoon tea.

In Canada, spring is a much brasher—and more rapid affair.

Where I now live in Eastern Ontario, spring often seems like a comma between a harsh winter and hot summer. It’s not unusual to go from wearing mittens and a parka one day to shorts and a sun top the next.

Along with collecting the sap in the maple trees (to make sweet maple syrup and other treats), spring here is also synonymous with “pothole season,” a consequence of warm days and cold night when water freezes under roadways and causes them to crack. The only beneficiaries of this significant driving hazard are car repair shops who count on an uptick in business at this time of year.

For gardeners, the spring planting is also much later here than it is in England with the frost-free growing season usually starting around 23 May.

No matter where or when I mark it, though, spring is always a time of happy firsts.

The welcome warmth of the sun on my face after a cold winter. 

A return to flip-flops and pedicures in place of boots and closed-toe shoes. 

And the day when winter tires can finally be swapped for summer ones. 

Along with more hours of daylight, there’s also shopping for new spring clothes, the return of geese to local waterways, and ice cream time when seasonal stands reopen.

Although March can begin—and end—with a snowy reminder of winter’s bite, as we start these months of renewal, I wish you your own springtime joys and fresh starts—whatever they may mean. 

And for my North American and other non-UK readers who may be tempted to visit England this spring, here are some links to get you started:

Britain in springtime

Visit England – spring holidays

Love is…a few of my favourite things

Since February is the month of love, it’s a chance to celebrate a few of my favourite things and remind myself to be grateful for blessings big and small. 

1. My family

Tech Guy buys me chocolate “just because.” And when I’m on deadline, English Rose makes sure I remember to eat.

In these and so many other ways, my family is my strength, compass and refuge. 

2. Floppy Ears

My furry child gives me unconditional love, makes me laugh and is always there when I need a cuddle. 

3. Female friendship

My female friends support and nurture me in life and writing. 

4. My small-town life

For deep roots and a strong sense of community.

5. Ice cream 

Because sweet treats make life better.

6. Shoes (and slippers)

With fabulous footwear, life is more fun. 

7. Music

Because making and listening to music makes my soul happy. 

8. Reading

For comfort, inspiration and joy.

9. Writing

Learning and growing my craft to tell the stories of my heart. 

10. You, my readers.

And connecting with you virtually and in person. 

Wishing you love and joy in February and all year through!

Happy first birthday to The Cottage at Firefly Lake!

 This week I marked a very special anniversary. It’s been a year since my first book, The Cottage at Firefly Lake came out, and I realized my childhood dream of becoming a published author.

Publication day, 31 January 2017, was a day of excitement and a profound sense of achievement, mixed with a big dose of I-can’t-believe-it! The fact that characters who had lived inside my head for so long were out in the world in a “real” book was a thrill, but humbling and terrifying too.

Along with a flurry of online activity, publication week also included a lovely surprise—a tea party organized by Tech Guy who had secretly invited friends and family round to help celebrate my launch, complete with a fabulous, book-themed cake made by our friend Beth at Celebrate Cakes. 

The months that followed were busy ones. When The Cottage at Firefly Lake was released, I was at different stages of working on both Summer on Firefly Lake (which came out in July 2017) and Back Home at Firefly Lake (December 2017).

One of the big adjustments to becoming a published author was having to work on multiple books at different stages at the same time. More than once, I had to double-check to make sure which book was on the screen in front of me, and I resorted to Post-it note reminders to help keep the characters (and the book they “belonged in”) straight in my head. 

Since my first publication day, there have been many wonderful moments in my writing life, most often associated with kind feedback from readers.

There was the never-to-be-forgotten moment of my first reader email, as well as the joy of connecting with readers online via social media.

There was giving a talk about my writing at a local library and signing copies of my books at bookstores.

I’ve also enjoyed participating in blog tours and connecting with many lovely reviewers and readers through guest posts and other activities.

But for sheer shivers-down-the-spine excitement, I have to single out my first “shelfie”—seeing my book on a store shelf and taking a photo of it. As one of my favourite fictional heroines, “Anne of Green Gables” would say, it was “an epoch in my life.” 

Most of all, this first year as a published author has been one of learning.

I’ve learned more about writing craft, particularly conveying emotion in fiction. And I’ve also learned about the business of writing and the publishing industry.

I’ve learned about friendship too and owe a huge debt of gratitude to my agent, Dawn Dowdle, and the writing friends whose steadfast support continue to help me navigate the author journey beyond initial publication.

And, not least, I’ve learned more about myself as both a person and a writer—what I value in life, how that shapes my fiction, and the kind of career I want to develop over time.

As I mark this first book anniversary, I’m looking back but also forward with new dreams, new goals, and new story ideas. 

Thanks to you, my readers and friends, for being part of my life and writing and connecting with me in both the real and virtual worlds. I’m grateful for all of you.

Courage…and “learning to dance in the rain”

If you read my first blog of 2018, you know that the word I’ve chosen to guide me this year is “courage.”

Like all of us, my life has had its ups and downs. It’s through troubles, though, that I’ve found hope and inspiration to help me live courageously and grow.

Since much of that encouragement has come from books, as I start this new year with my new word, I’m stocking up on courageous reading, along with some wisdom from an unexpected source.

Courage in fiction  

One of my go-to “comfort authors” is Louisa May Alcott. Although famed as the creator of Little Women, she also wrote a number of less well-known stories, some based on her experience as a nurse during the American Civil War (e.g. Hospital Sketches, 1863), and others inspired by her life as a woman working to support herself in what was then the new industrial age (Work and Beginning Again, 1872).

Throughout her life, Alcott faced many times of sorrow, disappointment and bitterness. But from “look for the learning” in any painful experience, to “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship,” her nineteenth century words still ring true in a twenty-first century world, and are amongst those I return to often.

Courage in life

At the moment, I’m reading How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War by Norman Longmate. Based on first-person accounts, it’s a compelling social history of how ordinary British people coped with extraordinary circumstances, facing adversity with not only courage but good humour.

From food rationing to bombs, evacuation from homes and the loss of loved ones, along with the lighter aspects of wartime life such as films, songs and books, How We Lived Then is a powerful testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.

It’s also given me new appreciation for the hardships English relatives experienced in wartime and given fresh context for family memories.

In the summer of 1939, for example, my great-grandfather in Canada sent his daughter, then teaching in England, an urgent telegram summoning her home with passage booked on the last ship to cross the Atlantic before war was declared.

Years later, I knew her as an elderly great-aunt who wore pearls, served tea in ornate Wedgwood cups and smelled faintly of lavender. However, as an eager young woman she’d wanted to stay in England and do her bit for the war effort and resented being “packed home when things were getting interesting.”

And unexpected wisdom

Last week, I went to the bank safety deposit box where we keep family papers. Amongst the birth certificates and passports, a newspaper clipping slipped out, stuck inside a yellowed envelope.

It was about living in the moment and included something I often remember my late mother saying—namely, be as kind as you can because you never know what battle someone is fighting.

In the margin, Mom had noted what the piece meant to her and underlined the following text: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

And there, when I least expected it, was another source of inspiration for my year of courage. My dear mom, who guided and helped me in life, was somehow there with words of wisdom from beyond the grave, just when I needed them.

As I move forward into 2018, I draw comfort from those who have gone before, finding strength and inspiration in the courage of their lives and examples.

And as always, I’m well stocked with ice cream, my comfort (and courage) food of choice! 

Resolutions for a new year: “With a Little Help From My Friends”

Now that the holidays are over, and it’s time to look ahead to the New Year, I’ve decided to devote this first blog of 2018 to resolutions—not just mine, but also those of three good friends  from across The Pond. Tara Greaves, Kate Field and Susanna Bavin are all fellow-writers, but the resolutions we’ve made are to do with our lives in general.

My friends are a great support to me in life, as well as writing, and their resolutions have given me inspiration and food for thought—as I hope they do for you as well.

Tara Greaves is a freelance journalist whose “After The Rain” website covers lifestyle, books and writing.

If you’re planning a UK holiday, including going to the Norfolk area (one of my favourite parts of the country), “After The Rain” also has a useful section about things to do and places to visit.

 Tara says:

‘In 2018, I’m going to try and embrace one of my favourite quotes and ‘start each day with a grateful heart.’ I have so much to be thankful for but it can get a bit lost in everyday life so I’m going to make a point of thinking about it first thing in the morning (and maybe last thing at night).”

Visit Tara’s website

If you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you may already have met Kate Field when she joined me for one of my “Meet Me At The Diner” interviews. Kate is the author of the The Magic of Ramblings and The Truth About You, Me and Us, both of which I loved reading.

Kate says:

“For the first time in many years, I’m entering a new year without any major plans. I don’t have a book due to be published, or a writing deadline to meet; I don’t have any holidays booked or dates in the diary. It’s unsettling in some ways, but also an opportunity. My resolution is to make the most of each day as it comes, not waste time regretting the past or anticipating the future.”

“On a practical note, I want to walk more this year. I spent too much time indoors in 2017 and so in 2018 I’m determined to don my walking boots and enjoy the beautiful Lancashire countryside whenever I can. Housework can wait!”

Connect with Kate on Twitter

Susanna Bavin is another writer-friend who has also appeared on my blog. Her debut novel, The Deserter’s Daughter, was published last summer and, along with Kate’s books, was one of my favourite reads in 2017.

Susanna says:

“I’m with Kate on this—I definitely want to get out and about more this year. I live in North Wales, which is a beautiful part of the world, and after spending practically the whole of January to July last year indoors writing my next book, I’m looking forward to going for lots of walks. North Wales has a wonderful mixture of countryside, mountains and seaside, all within a stone’s throw of one another and the air is gloriously fresh and invigorating. I count myself lucky to live here.”

Visit Susanna’s website

And now me:

As some of you know, I choose a word to guide me each year and my word for 2018 is “courage.”

This year, I’ve resolved to face life’s challenges by consciously practising living courageously—not in a risk-taking sense but in terms of emotional growth and well-being.

I want to keep learning, embrace new opportunities and continue to move forward even when I’m fearful.

And like Tara, I’ve also drawn inspiration from a favourite quote, this one by C.S. Lewis: 

“There are far better things ahead than we leave behind.”

On a lighter note, I’m with Kate that “housework can wait” and with both she and Susanna on the need to walk more!

Wishing you happy times in 2018 and good friends to share your path. Do you make New Year’s resolutions?

My favourite Christmas memory

When I was growing up, Christmas was a magical time of year. Although money wasn’t plentiful, my parents made sure I never did without and, even when times were lean, brightly wrapped presents were always piled beneath the tree on Christmas morning.

However, as an only child herself, and the mother of another only child—me—my mom was mindful that we’re often negatively stereotyped as spoiled, selfish and self-centered. As such, and even if family finances hadn’t been an issue, I’d never have been given all the things I thought I wanted for Christmas and birthdays. 

The Christmas I was six was a particularly tough time for my family, and when I was scouring the glossy store catalogues to make my “wish list,” I already knew the season would be more modest than usual.

I’d heard that times were hard at the North Pole too, and even Santa Claus, who had millions of children to give presents to, had to cut back on expenses. So, when I went to a big downtown department store to visit him on the Saturday before Christmas, I was careful to ask for only one Barbie doll.

And then, as we left Santa’s grotto and passed the toy department, it happened.

On a shelf facing the escalator and just at my eye level, sat a perky, white stuffed dog with a jaunty red ribbon tied around its neck. Its amber eyes glowed and seemed to focus on me. I stopped in the middle of the busy store, oblivious to the people diverting around me, and my dad bent down to see what had captured my attention.

From at least fifteen feet away, I knew that dog was mine, and I wanted it for Christmas with every fibre of my six-year-old being.

I pointed and dragged my parents toward the shelf where the dog sat and reached out a tentative hand. Its fur was soft and, when I rubbed my cheek against one of its floppy ears, it was exactly the right size to cuddle—almost like a real dog would be.  

I swallowed and my eyes smarted. Without being told, I knew it would be too expensive, at least that year and only a week from Christmas. Besides, I already had lots of stuffed animals. And, as my dad reasonably pointed out, I didn’t “need” another one.

Maybe not, but I certainly wanted one. And as we left the store, and during the days that followed, all I could think about was that dog. In my imagination, I’d already named him “Snowball” and could picture him tucked into beside me in bed each night—friend, protector from the monster I thought lived in the closet, and more.

On Christmas Eve, I set out cookies and milk for Santa as usual and then tried to go to sleep. Why couldn’t I have seen that dog earlier? Maybe if I had, and it was the only present I’d asked for, I could have had it. I knew I couldn’t ask my parents, but Santa had always granted my wishes before. However, this time I hadn’t asked him for what I wanted most.

Although I finally fell asleep, when I woke the next morning, I didn’t have my usual Christmas day excitement.

With my parents’ hovering behind me, I went into the living room to get my stocking where it hung over the fireplace and stopped. Beside the tree and below my stocking sat Snowball, as white and perky as he’d been in the store. His amber eyes glowed, his red bow was still jaunty, and his fur was as soft as I remembered.

I don’t remember what other presents I received that year, but that moment of surprise mixed with childish joy is still as fresh as it was on that long ago Christmas morning.

I never knew what sacrifices my parents made to give me that stuffed dog, but it was a present that had a powerful impact on my life. It made me believe in miracles and that dreams can true. And throughout the rest of my childhood and adolescence, Snowball sat on my bed as a tangible symbol of how much my parents loved me.

Now as an adult with a family of my own, Snowball is still part of my life. Although these days he’s more gray than white, and his red ribbon is frayed, his amber eyes still gleam brightly from his perch in the bedroom my husband and I share.

And especially now that my parents are gone, each time I look at him, I’m reminded of the love of family, what it means to be a parent and, when December comes around, the true meaning of Christmas.

Happy holidays, and may you find joy in special seasonal memories of your own. I’m taking a break from blogging over the holidays but will be back with a new post for a new year on 5 January 2018. 

If you’re following my release tour for my new book, Back Home at Firefly Lake, there are only a few days left to win a giveaway (open internationally) to win an Amazon gift card and paperback copies of my Firefly Lake books. Enter here (the link is at the bottom of the post under “Giveaway”) and also read a guest post from me on Bookish Jottings about having a happy British Christmas in Canada. 

And if you missed it on social media, Christmas came early for me this year when Back Home at Firefly Lake was chosen as one of Amazon.com’s best books of December. See “Best books of the month: Romance” here.