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| Gail Gaymer Martin |
Holidays are a time when most everyone wants to be home with their family and friends. Whether birthdays, Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas, home is where the heart is. But when my mom was a little girl, her mother had a stroke shortly before Christmas. Since she was the youngest child and needed care, she was sent to spend Christmas with affluent relatives living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hours away from her home and family. While the experience frightened and saddened my mom, later in life she talked about her visit with a few warm memories.
Most of the remembrances revolved around the family’s Christmas traditions—the gifts she received, the Christmas décor and music. But the memory that stood out in her mind happened on Christmas Eve. Mom said the main parlor doors remained closed during her stay, but on Christmas Eve, the doors were opened and she gasped at the huge Christmas tree decorated in a multitude of ornaments and lighted with real candles. Buckets of water sat nearby to put out a possible fire.
Yet a child wants to be with family at Christmas time, and the poignant situation settled in my mind and became a Christmas novella called Yuletide Treasure, a romance with a thread of mystery involving a package Livy, the heroine, is asked to deliver in secret. Instead of a young girl as my mother was, I wrote about a young boy named Davy. Though the story is fictional, the basic idea came from my mother’s situation and the Christmas memories of that experience.
These types of occurrences make great fodder for story ideas, but they are also touching and sad. I have never been away from family at Christmas, except one time by choice, and I’m grateful. I’m sure some of you may have had that experience and can remember how you longed to be home with loved ones.
If you would like to read Yuletide Treasures, it is included in An Old-Fashioned Christmas Collection from Barbour Publishing along with nine other Christmas novellas by various novelists.
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Preparing for Christmas: Christmas memories with @GailGMartin.
Using poignant situations for uplifting stories.
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| About the Author |
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| An Old-Fashioned Christmas Collection, anthology by various Christian authors including Gail Gaymer Martin |
Many of us have a secret picture of Christmases past—a time when windows shimmered with lacy
frost and candlelight, fireplaces kept a home warm and snug, ladies’ skirts swirled and gracefully skimmed the floor, and gentlemen were gallant and true. Experience Christmases spanning over one hundred years through nine inspiring historical romances, beautifully and economically packaged for you and all your gift-giving needs.
Award-winning novelist, Gail Gaymer Martin is the author of contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and women’s fiction with 52 novels published and nearly 4 million books in print. Her novels have received many national awards, including: the ACFW Carol Award and RT Reviewer’s Choice Award. Gail is the author of Writer Digest’s Writing The Christian Romance. CBS local news listed Gail as one of the four best writers in the Detroit area. She is a cofounder of American Christian Fiction Writers and serves on their Executive Board. She is also a member of Advanced Speakers and Writers and the Christian Authors Network. Gail is a keynote speaker at churches, civic and business organizations and a workshop presenter at conferences across the U.S. She lives in Michigan with her husband Bob.
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