I didn’t do it on purpose, but it just so happens that the author of our very first story in WARM MULLED KISSES is my last author to highlight, and this gal is a hoot!
Her story, “Reindeer Games,” is full of humor along with a jolly dose of romance! Her memories of Christmas run in the same vein!
Welcome Lisa Crane!
One of my favorite memories from Christmas is the way my mom used to tag the gifts under the tree. I’m the youngest of four, and naturally, Mom wanted to discourage any shaking, peeking or any other method of our discovering what any of our gifts might be. She came up with the idea of assigning a code name to each of us. For example, one year, I was the Beatles, one sibling was the Rolling Stones, another was the Monkees, and I think the fourth might have been Paul Revere and the Raiders. Another year we were all colors (I was blue). One year each of us was an important year in history: 1492, 1776, and so on. She wouldn’t tell us until Christmas morning which secret name was ours.
Then there was one year, on Christmas morning, Mom revealed our code names, and we began opening presents. I opened a Longhorn (as in the University of Texas) watch. I can still remember trying to act excited about it. I said, “Oh, yay, a watch.” My mother whipped around and looked at it and said, “What?! That’s not yours!” In her sneakiness, she’d put the wrong code name on a gift meant for one of my brothers. We teased her about that for years afterward.
Marji Laine 