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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Family Holiday Traditions and a Lyon's Legacy Giveaway

It's been a while since I've participated in a blog fest, but when I heard about Briane Pagel's "The Merry Christmas to All (e)Book a Day Traveling Blogathon of Doom," I knew I had to sign up. (If I didn't, I would have been, well, doomed.) You can win a free e-book every day between now and Christmas, so please check the link in the sidebar for the schedule of participating blogs.

For my post, I'd like to share our Almazan family Christmas traditions with you, because we have traditions within traditions. For example, every Thanksgiving weekend, we go to the Kristkindlmarkt in downtown Chicago; the last two years, we've gone on Thanksgiving Day because the weather was good. As part of our visit, we eat potato pancakes and chocolate-dipped fruit, drink spiced wine or cider, and buy German ornaments, a chocolate Advent calendar, and a house or accessories for our Christmas village. We put up our tree on Black Friday and leave it up until January 6th.

Normally I start baking cookies Thanksgiving weekend, but since we don't send out as many cookies as we used to, I decided to slack off this year. We have, however, started a new tradition of participating in a cookie exchange with the families of Alex's friends. I have several favorite recipes I bake every year; these include lemon slice cookies, sugar cookies with homemade frosting, pfeffernusse, and choco-mint snaps. (You can find all of these recipes at christmascookies.com.) My husband makes a couple different types of biscotti.

Since our son was born, we've added a couple other traditions, such as visiting the indoor train exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Garden, going for a holiday train ride, and building/decorating a gingerbread house. We don't make a big deal out of Santa, but we do take Alex to visit him at the mall. Our family celebrations mesh well, as my side of the family celebrates Christmas Eve and my husband's side on Christmas Day.


To celebrate the blogathon, I'm giving away a copy of Lyon's Legacy to a random commenter on this post. Please comment before midnight CST 11/29; I'll announce the winner on Friday. Please let me know what format you need. If you already have a copy of Lyon's Legacy, please let me know, and we can discuss whether you'd rather have copies of my two short stories or wait until Twinned Universes is available next year.
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7 comments:

  1. PT Dilloway11/27/2012 7:45 AM

    That's a lot of traditions. I don't think my family has much in the way of traditions except there has to be turkey, rolls, and scalloped corn (ick) and usually watching the Lions lose. Hooray!

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  2. Briane11/27/2012 10:04 AM

    I love Pfeffernuse. I'd forgotten all about those.

    You have your tree up for a LONG time. We usually put ours up about a week before and take it down by New Year's Day (if not a bit earlier.)

    Thanks for taking part in the Blogathon!

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  3. Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader11/27/2012 11:15 AM

    Definitely interested in a copy of Lyon's Legacy. May the best commenter win!

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  4. Raley Blue11/27/2012 11:23 AM

    L<3VE holiday traditions. We put up our tree the day afte Thanksgiving too, but leave it up until after Jan. 8 because it's my birthday and mom always left it up until then as a special treat for me. Now my kids carry on the tradition.

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  5. Catherine Stine11/27/2012 12:44 PM

    Your Thanksgiving activities sound super-fun! As for me, I made a Tennessee jam bundt cake with caramel icing. BTW, I already own a kindle copy of your novel!

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  6. Andrew Leon11/27/2012 1:11 PM

    Hmm... I thought I already had a copy of your book, but my Kindle app is telling me I was wrong...

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  7. Anonymous11/28/2012 4:37 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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