'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 118

Sunday Shorts – Unwrapping Hank

It’s probably unfair that I’m talking about back-to-back holiday themed books two weeks in a row by the same author, but Eli Easton seems to have the magic this former-retail-worker-slowly-learning-to-love-Christmas-again needs.

This time, it’s Unwrapping Hank, and unlike Blame it on the Mistletoe, this story has a decidedly Christmassy theme to it.

Here’s the situation: we have a frat boy (Sloane) who is gay and part of the quite accepting and wonderful (and still very bro) fraternity, thanks mostly to his friend Micah. Micah’s younger brother, Hank, was the only person who didn’t want Sloane to join the frat. Sloane and Hank, obviously, don’t hit it off – except…

Well, sometimes it’s fun to not hit it off. And that’s what these boys do. But when the friction starts to be less snarky playful and gets a little emotionally intense, things get interesting. Especially from Sloane’s point of view.

Sloane is the child of two therapists, and the half of the time you’re in his point of view it’s borderline hysterical. He can’t help it. He analyzes everything. He likes to figure things out. He likes to understand why people do the things they do. And big burly bearded and inked Hank?

Hank makes no sense to Sloane.

So, while Sloane tries to figure out Hank, Hank tries not to let Sloane figure him out, and then Christmas comes and they’re all thrown into the same house.

This is a romance, so obviously the fellows end up together, but the journey is lovely. I particularly liked Hank’s process – Eli Easton does a good job with fellows starting to clue in to their own sexuality, and does so this time from a different angle than in Blame it on the Mistletoe, but one that works well. I also really appreciated the best-friend Micah storyline, as well as some wonderful family dynamics from the parents.

All in all, it’s enough to make a guy with twenty years of retail history think happy thoughts about Christmas again.

Maybe.

Queermas for the Young’uns.

Yesterday I spoke about some of the awesome books I’ve encountered more-or-less recently that would make great gifts for the queerfolk on your list, and today I wanted to revisit said idea but with the notion of young adults and new adults. Now, I’m not nearly as well-read in this area, and I’d be super-happy if you’d add your own comments to the list for other titles and authors you suggest. But that said, I do know some, and so here we go…

For anyone who loved the Percy Jackson series (or, who, frankly, just loves anything mythologically based, especially the amazons), I’m going to start with Jeffrey Ricker‘s The Unwanted. Here you meet a young gay boy who finds out he’s one of the unwanted sons of an Amazon, as in the Amazons. Tackling the Amazon mythology with a fresh take, The Unwanted throws in some great humour moments as well as mounting tension toward a very Greek-style quest-and-prophecy plot, and will definitely leave the reader satisfied. Bonus points for parents who aren’t foils but actually supportive, functional adults, and majorly kick-butt women characters throughout.

For YA with a leading young lady, I fell in love with The First Twenty by Jennifer Lavoie. I’d read all of Lavoie’s other books, which featured gay guy protagonists, and was super-stoked to read her young women, who not only get a post-apocalyptic world to explore, but even a bit of supernatural ability. The First Twenty does some really fresh things with the genre: it’s not doom and gloom and fighting over scraps, it’s about rebuilding, hope, and trusting and working together. I loved it. Bonus points for two gay dads, and also for a society that has clued in—finally—that there are bigger things to worry about rather than who fancies who.

New to me this year was author Bridget Birdsall, who I met at The Saints & Sinners Literary Festival on a panel discussing YA. Her YA novel, Double Exposure, was the first I’ve read with an intersex character, and the exploration of Alyx was wonderful. Alyx’s parents were cautioned not to make decisions upon Alyx’s birth (Alyx is born with ambiguous genitalia), and as much as they try to navigate a world without pronouns, Alyx’s parents slip into “he” with Alyx. Raised as a boy for fifteen years, Alyx knows otherwise: she’s a girl. And a move makes it possible for her to do something she’s never done before: be herself. There’s some dark stuff in this book that’s very real: bullying, truths about genderqueer folk and their treatment in the past and present, but the book is ultimately redemptive, and it’s about time we had those kinds of stories.

As I mentioned on Thursday with my “how to write a review” post, I also heartily suggest Cub by Jeff Mann if you’re buying for a New Adult gay reader who doesn’t fit the far-far-over-represented gay kid who is yearning for the big city and escaping the small rural town. Though content-wise you definitely want this one for older teens and new adults, the story here finally gives voice to a kind of gay kid I’ve never seen in YA fiction prior to this: the big burly rural guy who doesn’t want to escape to the city, but wants to stay and find happiness in his rural town.

Similarly, if you’ve got a goth queer (or even just a lover of ghost stories) you’re buying for, take a peek at Vintage. A YA novel by Steve Berman, Vintage does for the goth and alternative kids what Cub does for the burly bear-cubs: it adds a voice you don’t see very often represented.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with The Big Summer, by Jamie B. Laurie. Before anything else, I should point out how wonderful (and rare) it is to have a teen writing YA, and doing it so freaking well, and Laurie does just that. Here we bump into Will, a kid who has been betrayed and beaten down by his “friends” over his coming out, who decides that it’s time for a change. A big one. Taking a chance, he heads to a new town for summer with his aunt, and makes a list of things he wants to achieve before school starts again. The authenticity in this book is over-the-top on target, and the overall effect of the book was to leave a dopey grin on my face. I can’t wait to see what Laurie does next.

So there you have it – some YA and NA fiction you can pick up for the queer younglings in your life. I hope I was helpful, and like I said way back up at the beginning of this post, please please please tell me the Queer YA and NA books you’ve bumped into this year that were awesome. I love to learn more, and I love to read them (who says YA is for the young?)

Happy Shopping!

Queermas

There are two weeks left to shop for Christmas, which means you’re probably thinking about it quite a bit. If you’re done, congratulations—in my experience of retail, you’re ahead of the curve. If you’re well on your way, don’t panic. Two weeks can be more than enough time. And if you’ve not yet started, well, you’ve still got two weeks, but if you haven’t started because you’ve got zero ideas, maybe I can help.

Buying a gift for an LGBT friend for the holidays—especially if they’re not someone who has a family to go home to—is a huge thing. I had friends who adopted me into their holidays year after year, and it made that time of year bearable. Truly. So if you’ve got that rainbow-lovin’ friend, and you want to tuck something wonderful in some shiny paper to make their season a wee bit brighter, allow me to give you some suggestions. I’m quite lucky to be published myself with Bold Strokes Books, which means that I get to sneak-peek many of their books a month or so before release, and many of the titles I’m about to suggest were found that way.

Shall we begin?

If you’ve got a lady in your life who loves the ladies in her life, this year I fell whole-heartedly in love with Melissa Brayden‘s Soho Loft series. I listened to the first two on audio, and am anxiously awaiting the third. These are light, perfectly-paced romances with a great set of women who, as a quartet, run a boutique advertising firm in New York. Bonus points for including a wonderfully written bisexual character in Samantha.

If your lady who loves ladies is the kind with a sly sense of humour who always takes you by surprise with that timely bon-mot, then you need to get her The One that Got Away by Carol Rosenfeld. This book invoked instant nostalgia for me—as soon as I’d read it I wanted to read it again for the first time. It’s full of that sly humour and genuine clever wit I so admire in those blessed enough to possess it.

If the lady in your life likes other ladies and also likes things a little kinky, a little paranormal, or wants to see some characters of colour, then your next stop on your gift giving journey is Rebekah Weatherspoon. The Fling is super-sexy (and again, awesome bisexual content!), At Her Feet has the best role-playing and submissive characters I’ve ever read, and the Vampire Sorority Sisters series is paranormal reinvented (and super-sexy).

For the fellas who dig the fellas, if you’ve got someone in love with the speculative fiction side of the world, you need look no further than That Door is a Mischief by the brilliant Alex Jeffers. These tales of Liam, a fairy (who is unlike any fairy I’ve ever read, and I mean that as the highest compliment) are in turns amusing, moving, inspiring and heart-breaking. This book lives on my “place of honour”shelf.

If your guy into guys loves a good mystery, then look no further than the works of Greg Herren. The most recent Herren I’ve read was The Orion Mask, which has Herren’s signature “the place is as much a character as those who live and breathe” and is a darkly satisfying gothic romance of a mystery. Any of Greg Herren’s mystery series are worth noting—if your reader likes mysteries a bit dark, then go with the Chanse MacLeod books, but if your reader wants funnier and lighter (and sexier!) then move to the Scotty Bradley series.

Now, if your gay boy is more of a gay bear, a big’n’burly sort who maybe won’t connect as well with the twinkier fare found in many books, fear not. There’s a whole press just for him! Bear Bones Books is an imprint of Lethe Press specifically devoted to the ursine queer. If said big’n’burly fellow is at all rough-and-tumble, I’d be remiss not to mention Jeff Mann, who covers some pretty edgy and dark kink in Fog, moves into one of the best (and at times, bestial) takes on vampires I’ve read with his Desire & Devour collection, where a Scottish vampire drinks plenty of blood, dishes out plenty of vengeance, and has plenty of fun with other big’n’burly blokes. And this year, I also had the sublime joy of reading Mann’s latest poetry book, Rebels, which is not just wonderfully written, but beautifully illustrated. If you have a fan of poetry—especially a fan who also has a love of history, or the South—this book is perfect. Ditto A Romantic Mann, which is some of the finest poetry I’ve read.

The bisexual can be a bit of a unicorn in fiction, though I’ve mentioned a few up there with the ladies-loving-ladies that can easily reflect a bisexual reader. In fact, I see quite a bit of bi fiction with women, which is awesome, but less so for the guys. I can, however, recommend Bi Guys, a collection edited by Ron Suresha, a tireless force for Bi Male visibility. Any of his bi-themed books are worth checking out, seriously, and if you want something a bit more smexy for pal, then wrap up a copy of Bi Guys: The Deliciousness of His Sex, which Suresha edited under one of the many different versions of his name that helps delineate just how smexy the content will be.

I also bumped into a ménage book this year by the lovely (and funny as heck) Kayleigh Malcolm, Unconditional Devotion, which not only has two delicious men, but a lady who has a brilliant characterization of depression that I found so well handled and so rare to find in romance that I wanted to stand up and applaud. This looks like the start of a series, too, so I have high hopes for revisiting.

Now, if bisexual fiction is hard to find, trans fiction can be a painful exercise in frustration. However, I’ve had some great luck this year, and I pass it on to you! Dena Hankins has brought some nuanced and deftly handled trans and genderqueer characters to the literary world with two books thus far: Blue Water Dreams (a gentler romance) and Heart of the Liliko’i (much smexier, but still lovely). You can tell Dena is a world traveller (Dena lives life on the sea, for crying out loud!) and the settings shine through the page as much as the characters.

For the kinkier among those looking for genderqueer and trans books, look no further than Sassafras Lowrey. From a fantastic retelling of Peter Pan myth through an urban youth-runaway squatting lens in Lost Boi to a group of kids making their own family in Roving Pack, Lowrey hits all the right notes for those of us who dealt with family who were less than supportive (to put it mildly). Finding stories that actually tell your story is huge.

Now, I’ve spoken mostly from the point of view of buying books for adults today, and I’ll be back tomorrow to do the same for queer young adults.

What have been your favourite LGBT books you discovered this year (or any year)? What are your go-to books to give as presents? I’d love to hear.

 

Thowback Thursday(ish) – No Wrapping Required

This is a kinda-sorta Throwback Thursday post. I was online yesterday and a bunch of people were discussing reviews (specifically how reviews in some parts of the world were very spare—like how there are dozens of reviews on the “dot-com” version of e-tailers, but less on the “dot-ca” mirror site). The conversation moved to discussions of why, and someone pointed out that there was a healthy contingent of people in her area of the world who didn’t feel comfortable writing reviews.

Which brings me back to my ‘Throwback’ post.

Every year on my birthday, someone will ask me what I’d like for my birthday, and I always reply that I really don’t need anything. I’m forty, I’m happy, we don’t need more “things” really, and other than your time or well-wishes, I’m not sure what to ask for.

Except one thing: noise.

Books can live or die by word-of-mouth. And today’s digital version of word-of-mouth is the online review. Now, I say this not to suggest I want you to write reviews of my stuff specifically. I always feel sketchy asking for reviews. So I generalize: the best gift you can give me is a review of a book you loved. It doesn’t have to be mine. The love of reading is the thing for me, and always will be.

When I first started working as a bookseller, mumblety-mumble years ago, the online world of reviews wasn’t really a thing yet. Reviews were written with – gasp! – ink on paper, be that in a magazine, a newspaper, or on little cards tucked beside the books we’d just enjoyed right there in the bookstore. I loved doing that.

Most of the rest of the staff loathed it.

“I hate writing reviews,” they’d say, even after I saw them just hand-sell a book with perfection to a browser who wasn’t sure what they were looking for.

“Why?” I asked, honestly baffled.

“I never know what to say.”

These reviews I’m talking about writing? They’re not essays. In fact, writing a positive and helpful review can be broken down into three small pieces, to my mind. If I don’t have time to write a long and in depth review of something, I’ll often put in a placeholder until I can. But those placeholders can be just as effective, as long as they’ve got pertinent information.

So let’s talk a short review, in three pieces.

First, tell me the basics. What is this book about?

One of the most unique gay young adult books I’ve read in years, Cub is the brilliantly moving story of Travis, a young man on the edge of growing up in rural West Virginia who knows full well he might never find a place—or a partner—that’s right for him.

Second, tell me why you loved the book – specifically, what was the single thing that was so unique or fascinating about the story. Like this:

Jeff Mann’s Cub finally brings a voice to gay young adult fiction that I’ve never encountered before. Travis is not a slim, fashion-conscious guy waiting to escape to the city, but a stocky (and sometimes surly) young man who is far more comfortable on his farm.

Last, tell me who’d like the book. (Bonus points for comparing it to another author or series that might be better known, to help make that connection for a reader who has read that other work).

Cub is for anyone who wants to see a different side of gay youth that hasn’t been written about before, especially those of us who grew up gay and didn’t fit in even with the gay crowd that was supposed to open its arms and welcome us. Like what Steve Berman’s Vintage did with a goth gay, Mann’s Cub delves into new territory for young adult fiction and brings us someone different and rarely seen.

I’ve mentioned before the writing of a three sentance review, and though here I’ve written more than three sentances, you can answer those questions as briefly as a phrase each. If you’re being honest, and you’re writing from your own experiences with the book, you won’t go wrong.

That review might help someone else find the book you just loved.

When I talk about spreading the noise, I mean taking a second to cut-and-paste that review everywhere it can help. Post it on Goodreads, post it on the big-A (across as many “dot-whatevers” as you’ve got access to), blog about it…where you can make some noise, make some noise. And if you’ve got a local brick-and-mortar store, maybe the next time you drop by you can gush a little face-to-face with one of the booksellers.

Because that’s still the best way we learn about new books.

Then we sell them.

And if even that seems too much, there’s still things you can do. Many sites have a way to mark a review “helpful” or “like” it. Take a second when you’ve read a book that you’ve loved and if someone has written a great review of that book, click the “helpful” button. That nudges that particular review a bit up the stack, and makes it more likely to be the review the browser sees first.

So there you go. No wrapping required. No card necessary. Just take maybe five or ten minutes, type out a quick review, and let it fly. And hey, please let me know where it is—either by linking it back here or Twitter or Facebook or whatnot.

(The original “how-to” parts of this post were taken from various Livejournal posts from my birthdays of years past.)

Writing Wednesday – A Holiday Story

I’ve never written a holiday story. The closest I’ve ever come, I’d say, is “The Psychometry of Snow,” in The Bears of Winter, and even then I don’t mention that it’s taking place close to Christmas, just that it’s winter.

Partly this came from my, uh, “aversion” to the holiday season, given my retail profession for so long. It’s been a long time since I was jolly for the holidays, so to speak, and though that’s coming back now, I didn’t really feel it whenever I’d sit down at the keyboard.

But then I started reading them. I’d always read a few holiday stories that spoke to me (often re-reading them, because brainpower in December was at a minimum, and a re-read is less challenging than a fresh book), and – again, thanks to not being a retail Christmas guy any more – I’ve found a few new ones, especially audiobooks, and I’ll be talking about them throughout this month, and how I’m really starting to like reading holiday themed stories at this time of year. Especially novellas.

Two things, though, still play in my head with holiday stories. One, as a queer writer, is the notion of a chosen family. I don’t much connect with the “Christmas solves everything!” mixed with “Families are important!” vibe that seems to crash through so many stories, and I watch for those carefully, and try to find stories that instead focus on people finding their own way through the holiday.

Two, as a former grinch working his way back to the love of the season, I’m not a huge fan of grimdark holiday stories. No horror for my holidays, thanks.

But, all that said, I’d never tried writing one myself. I had no real notion of what to write, or how I’d ever create a character who cared about the holidays.

Until last month.

Last month I did NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, and I cheated. Well, okay, I didn’t cheat – but I didn’t write a novel. I wrote multiple novellas and a short story. Over the course of November, I wrote more than sixty thousand words, and part of those words was a novella with no current title (though I’m potentially going with “Ornamental”) that is absolutely Christmas themed. In fact, the story itself takes place over almost two decades, with each piece of the story being centred around a particular year’s Christmas.

It’s not-so-loosely based on my own history and traditions around Christmas ornaments, and at the start of the story, the main character finds himself in the same position I was in: facing his first Christmas alone as a young adult, buying a Christmas tree and then realizing he has no ornaments.

As you check in with him, year after year, you see his life changing, his friends growing, and what began as a very grim holiday evolving into something different. Something hopeful. And maybe – just maybe – even something full of love.

It needs a tonne of work, as obviously it’s just a draft, and I haven’t even named all the characters in it (I know, I know, so many writers find this baffling, but it’s a thing I struggle with, okay?)

So how about you? Have you written any holiday stories? Or do you have any you love more than others?

Naughty or Nice

I’ve never been one for false dichotomies. For one, as much as I say I’m a cat person, I freaking love Coach, and he’s a brilliant dog, even when he’s naughtily refusing to drop that foul thing he just found in the field and gobbling it up whole to deliver back to me as a not-so-nice surprise later.

Naughty or nice is one of those dichotomies that makes me raise an eyebrow. Because, let’s face it, naughty can be very nice, and it’s sometimes nice to be naughty.

So, while it might not score you points with Santa, how about two holiday anthologies—one a bit naughty, one a bit nice—to enjoy together as a whole?

On the “nicer” scale (though there’s some naughty in there) is Upon a Midnight Clear.  An anthology edited by Greg Herren that I bumped into a few years ago and re-read throughout December of 2013, when I was doing my “Short Stories 365” project to review a short story a day for a year. It’s a fantastic anthology and tackles some great thoughts on the notion of the holidays and how they intersect with the queer world. In his introduction, Herren points out Christmas is one of the few times of the year that being queer is felt so damn strongly for many.  I certainly feel it. For years, Christmas was me, outside, looking in, and while I was alone, it freaking sucked. And everywhere I looked—especially once I started retail—it was all about the perfect family, with perfect children (all white, by the way, which I’m sure adds an extra level of awesome for the intersectional folks out there), and the perfect presents, and that perfect morning. The 0ther “joy” that is the frustrating—and endless—parade of holiday movies. Just as sickening, just as devoid of anything queer, and always the same message: Christmas will fix everything!

Like hell it will. The stories in this anthology, though, add some gay to the narrative in a way that I adored. Here are Christmas stories—finally!—for us dispossessed. Especially the stories “It’s a Life,” by M. Christian, “Comfort and Joy,” by Jim Grimsley, “Skating,” by Stephen Soucy, “Secret Family Recipe,” by Warren Dunford, and “Rainbows,” by Jameson Currier.

Now, on the “naughtier” side, there’s Stocking Stuffers.

This was an anthology that got rescued from being out of print by Circlet Press (erotica for geeks!) and I bumped into this one as well during my quest for short stories in 2013.

The stories in this collection walk a solid range of kinks, heat levels, romance levels, and have such a wide variety of tone that I’m certain you’ll find something to love in it. The stockings, as it were, are well stuffed here.

Some of my favourites were: “Pink Santa Claus,” by Leigh W. Rutledge, “Under the Tree,” by M. Christian, “The Story of O. Henry, or, The Gifts of the Leathermen,” by Simon Sheppard, “To/From,” by Matthew Rettenmund, and “Christmas 1979,” by Jameson Currier.

So now I’ve shown you some of my “nice” favourites and my “naughty” favourites – which side do you generally look to during the holiday season? Nice and warm stories to rekindle your joy, or something a bit hotter that might send Santa skipping by—but totally worth it?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

I’m a lover of audiobooks. From a practical point, they’re fantastic while working on mindless chores or in places where physically reading isn’t going to work because my hands are full or I’ll start feeling sick (raking the leaves in Autumn, doing the dishes, laundry, riding the bus somewhere…)

I have some favourite performers – top of the list are Barbara Rosenblat, Jayne Entwhistle, and Jason Frazier – and I’ll often take a risk on an audiobook that might not otherwise entice me if one of those performers is involved in the audiobook. When you find a great performer, as an audiobook fan, you hunt down everything else they’ve done. It’s a thing. Trust me.

As the holiday season approaches, I always found myself listening to more books than usual – on the bus to and from work, especially, but also on my days off, when my brain power was much reduced, and I took a long bath and just listened. Now that I’m not working through the season, I rather thought I’d shift from that habit, but it wasn’t quite been true – I’ve craved someone telling me the stories as much as ever. And, also, I’ve been specifically hunting down some queer holiday audiobooks. Now, a couple of them get entries of their own on some upcoming Sunday Shorts for December, but here are a few I’ve found that I enjoyed, and are worth a shot if you’re in the mood for someone to tell you a sweet queer holiday story.

The first audiobook comes with a bit of a caveat – His for the Holidays is actually four queer holiday novellas. So, from a story-to-credit point of view, there’s quite a lot here to get. But I have to admit, of the four, there were two I really enjoyed, one not so much, and one that – while really good – was really quite dark and not at all what I was looking for given the cover and vibe of the book.

That said, Z.A. Maxfield‘s “I Heard Him Exclaim” is awesome, and just what I was looking for. It’s about an uncle who – under sad circumstances – is facing his first Christmas taking care of his niece, and a former bear of a man (now much slimmer) who used to be the seasonal Santa of everyone’s dreams, but is trying to run away from the “new” him that he doesn’t really want to be. The two find each other near Christmas via a poorly maintained car, and the sparks fly. It’s a warm and cute story, as well as a little bit sexy. I loved it.  The other story I quite enjoyed in this collection was “Mistletoe at Midnight,” by L.B. Gregg, but the collection as a whole was worth it just for the Maxfield story.

Also sweet (if you’ll pardon the pun) is Candy Man, from Amy Lane, which follows a fellow who finds himself with one last chance. he’s looking after his cousin’s place after crashing and burning from his career, his family, and pretty much his entire life thanks to the consequences of coming out and loving the wrong guy. He needs a job – any job – and he finds one at a local Candy shop, where he also meets a bright and upbeat fellow with an unconquerable streak of hope and brightness that might just be enough to crack through the big guy’s shell. A cute and fun story.

Another “four for one” deal (with four novellas, and most of the same authors) is Men Under the Mistletoe, and again, one story grabbed me more than others. I quite liked Ava March‘s “My True Love Gave to Me” which was a historical, and had the added bonus of including characters who really struggled with the reality of their time and their sexuality (what with it being illegal and all) – I like that touch of realism in a historical queer setting, but it doesn’t overshadow the overall happy ending. That said, the two men hurt each other a lot before they get there. The Christmas cheer here comes as much from the sense that they’ve finally got a chance at happiness as it does from the two of them finding each other in the first place.

Do you have a holiday listen you’d suggest? Or is it all carols, all the time? Got a favourite audiobook performer? Do tell.

Sunday Shorts – Blame it on the Mistletoe

It’s amazing how much I used to struggle with trying to love Christmas. Then again, if you’ve ever worked retail, you probably get it. So it’s nice to return to Christmas and find it actually enjoyable.

Also – Christmas stories.

That said, this isn’t one. Or rather, there’s a very tenuous Christmas component to it, but it’s not a story that really has Christmas centre-stage. And even post-retail me is okay with that.

Eli Easton‘s Blame it on the Mistletoe is a fun novella-length audiobook that I listened to in a single afternoon worth of household chores, and it was a lovely way to pass the time. The narrative set-up is pretty simple: a jock has a roommate who’s a super-smart (and rather cute) nerdy type. They’re very close, and when the nerd learns that jock has the reputation of being the best kisser on campus, he asks for lessons.

Yup. That’s right. Lessons.

The reason why, and how the two end up together (there’s no spoiler there, as anyone who’s ever read any gay romance will know they’re on a collision course), is actually quite adorable. Even better, the (as-yet) straight jock character doesn’t come across as a gay-for-you character at all (a trope I have little patience for), but rather a character who has successfully managed to not-think-about-it for a very long time – until his roommate’s request makes him realize what’s going on.

It’s sweet. It’s fun. And it’s performed wonderfully by Jason Frazier, who I honestly think is one of the best audiobook performers out there. Seriously – everything I’ve heard him perform is elevated by his skill as a narrator. If you’re at all an audiobook enthusiast, check him out.

Don We Now…

For those of you who’ve known me a while, you may recall the “Jingle Socks.”

The Jingle Socks were a pair of dubious quality holiday socks I’d always put on while decorating the Christmas tree. Well, two years ago, I tried to don my gay apparel, and my toe went right through the jingle, and that was the end of that. So that year (last year), we decorated our new dog instead with some tinsel, and he was not amused.

We came up with something else this year. There’s Coach, all ready to help us (read: watch and stare in confusion) with the Christmas Tree.

Now, if you haven’t heard of my Christmas tree ornament tradition, there’s a Flickr Album explaining the whole journey, but the short version is this: in 1996, I found myself very alone for Christmas. I had been disinvited (which is a kind way of putting it) and was looking ahead to starting a solo path with no idea how to do so. At the time, I managed to save up enough money to buy the last floor-model (heavily marked down) of a false Christmas tree at the department store of the mall, and I brought it to my tiny apartment and thought I’d just have to make my own merry. What I really hoped for at the time was to have something—anything—to feel good about during the holidays. So I bought the tree, lugged it home (on the bus no less, which was an adventure, let me tell you), and set it up. It barely fit in my tiny little bachelor pad, but I stepped back, nodded to myself…

And realized I had no ornaments.

I ended up decorating that first tree with a box of candy-canes, and one of my friends, who did cross-stitch, made me a single Christmas ornament. The next year, I bought a set of plain white ornaments to fill the tree up a bit, and another friend bought me a unique ornament (a little mouse with a typewriter sending a letter to Santa), and a tradition was born. Every year, I found an ornament that spoke to me about the year, or was involved in something I did that year, and as my collection grew, decorating the tree became something joyous I looked forward to every year.

As my friends learned about this tradition, I started to receive more than one ornament a year. When I got married, my husband and I also started to give each other ornaments in our stockings. 

This year’s ornament? It might remind you of someone.

We put our tree up today, and my husband and I marvelled at how quickly the tree was “full” (for the first time ever, we didn’t put all the ornaments on the tree – we ran out of room, and some ended up back in the box from those years where we had duplicates).

I’m always humbled when I put up my tree, and that over-abundance of this year’s ornaments was all the more moving. Back in 1996 I felt unloveable and very much alone. Today I feel overwhelmed with love, to be so surrounded by friends and family—and an awesome dog, too.

This is this year’s tree. We had another ornament break this year – one of Dan’s, from his first Christmas set, but happily there are still three of those ornaments left. Last year, one of my dated ornaments (from 1998) broke. It happens. Happily, I have my photographs of them all, and there are other years to celebrate and remember.

In abundance, no less.

The tree is full because my life is full.

That kid in 1996? He got everything he was hoping for.

 

Keeping Christmas Tales Shiny and New

I love tales retold cleverly.

For a very long time, though, I was not one who loved Christmas in a traditional sense. Especially not the carols and stories that I got to hear over, and over, and over. There’s only so many times you can hear about that little Drummer Boy before you want to shove his drumsticks right up his pa-rum-pum-pum-pum. Working retail often leaves much of the “ho-ho-ho” replaced by “go-go-go” and the end result is being tired of it all. I made it a point to find new traditions for myself and my family and friends whereby I could enjoy small pieces of the holiday as much as possible – and finding “The Firflake” was one of those moments that brought a fresh breath to the season.



The Firflake is a lovely story, taking pieces of Christmas tales and turning them just a little sideways, so the light can shine on them from a new angle – one that’s refreshing and cheerful from the new point of view.

The characters are charming, the magic sparkles in the words, and I finished the tale – which is more like a half dozen tales woven together into a whole – with a genuine smile on my face, over the course of a few nights reading. I have to recommend that, frankly, and I honestly think parents looking for something to read their kids other than that freaking Rudolph or Frosty story one more time would find The Firflake at least a week’s respite from the same-old, same-old. And the stories really do have that right touch of joy to them.

I’m no Grinch these days (heading into my second non-retail Christmas since I was kid is making me a bit giddy), but I still need to work on my Christmas cheer. Anthony Cardno delivered a book of cheer. As far as I’m concerned, the Firflake has earned a place front and centre with the older traditional Christmas stories, where it can shine every year.

And bring relief to those over-exposed to the same darn stories.

What about you? What are some of your favourite Christmas Stories (be they classic, or newer)? Let me know – I’m always looking for more ways to freshen up my holiday joy.