Dawn Halliday is ready for THE SWEETEST REVENGE (are you?) Back to Blog
Update: The winner of THE SWEETEST REVENGE is Heather B! Congrats!
It’s been a long party day…so I guess that means we should switch over and start talking about the party night! Author Dawn Halliday is here to get us in the night mood. She’s sharing some of her holiday traditions and offering one lucky commenter a copy of THE SWEETEST REVENGE (which I think looks awesome!!). Dawn, thanks so much for coming by!
Holiday Traditions
I think one of the best things about the holiday season is the different traditions we share with family and friends. There are traditions that many people share (turkey on Thanksgiving, for example!), and traditions that are individual to families. For example, here are some of my family’s traditions:
(1) make sugar cookies from scratch and hand them out to friends and neighbors
(2) take down the Christmas tree on the 2nd of January
(3) open 1 present on Christmas Eve; the rest on Christmas morning
(4) sing and listen to Christmas carols while decorating the tree
What are some of your family’s holiday traditions? One commenter will win an early copy of The Sweetest Revenge!
The Sweetest Revenge
December, 2012
Three Determined Women, One Fallen Man
When the Earl of Leothaid took Isabelle Frasier’s innocence, the resulting scandal drove Isabelle to England in humiliating exile. Seven years later, she befriends Anna Newton and Susan, Lady DeLinn, two other women whom Leo has similarly debauched and abandoned.
Isabelle joins with Anna and Susan to seek vengeance on the man who ruined them. But when her friends choose Isabelle as the object of their revenge, she faces an impossible choice: stand by Anna and Susan, or betray them by surrendering to her reawakening feelings for the wicked earl.
When Leo lost the woman he loved, he sank into a life of depravity and vice. Now, nothing and nobody can seep into his hard shell of a heart. But when three mystery women abduct him and shackle him in a dark cellar, Leo just might rediscover his humanity…and a love that may just lift him back into the light.
Warning: Revenge is a dish best served cold, and a woman scorned can deliver the coldest dish of all. Even a powerful alpha hero like the Earl of Leothaid will have no choice but to succumb to these women’s wicked plans…
www.dawnhalliday.com/coming-soon/
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Awesome holiday traditions, Dawn! I make cookies for neighbors as well 🙂
A lot of your traditions are similar to our; we do lots of baking before Xmas, we put our tree up about 5 days before Xmas because of our cat, we open one gift Xmas Eve, we get together for Xmas day breakfast and supper, the tree comes down by the 2nd of January, cat again, and we eat what we baked!!!
My favorite holiday tradition is when my sister and I would jump in the car after Christmas dinner (and anyone else who wanted to come) and drive around town looking at all the Christmas lights and decorations. Then we’d come back to the house and have pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Yummy! 😀
Hiya Dawn and Cynthia!
Wow….I have to many family traditions but I will give you the most important ones!
1. Have Christmas in Kelso, Scotland, then on Boxing Day go down to Grans in England for a few days to have a second x-mas! 😀
2. Make sure all presents and cards are wrapped and written before the second week in December then on the 12th decorate the house.
3. Buy cakes and cheesecakes from Floors Castle for x-mas down at Gran’s.
4. On Boxing Day go do some shopping with what money I got for x-mas! hehehehe!
Kind Regards,
Michelle Louise Pratley
Scotland
michellelouisepratley@yahoo.co.uk
Great traditions.in our community, we have several Christmas trees with stars…each year my family and I pick 3 stars and purchases gifts and clothes for three needy children.
Now that my daughter is grown, she is carrying on the tradition with her young family.
Thank you for the giveaway opportunity.
sandy@thereadingcafe.com
We usually make cookies from scratch (Sugar, Almond Bars, Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Cranberry and some others) to give out to friends and family. We also celebrate on Christmas day with my younger sister and her family at their house – either for breakfast or for lunch – we make the ham and some sides and my sister makes some sides. We usually attend church for either on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day too.
Great holiday traditions. We don’t take down our Christmas trees until after little Christmas in January and always play carols while decorating.
My favorite tradition is driving around and looking at Christmas lights while listening to Christmas music!
ehaney578 at aol dot con
What a sexy cover and I love the blurb. My traditions are all discombobulated this year. We had a shed fire in April that destroyed EVERY holiday item we had–trees, wreaths, lights, cards, stockings, ornaments, & other decorations. It could have been much worse–we’re alright, the cats are OK, the house wasn’t touched. However, it’s bittersweet to let go of some of the old traditions, even while looking to start some new.
I love holiday traditions. In our house, we start making Jello spritz cookies about a week before Christmas (we make between 15 & 20 dozen each year). My kids help me decorate them & then we package them for our friends & family. We also open 1 gift each on Christmas Eve. Something that’s become tradition in the last couple of years is to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, starting on Christmas Eve. I know, not very “Christmasy”, but our family really loves the movies & it’s the 1 time of year that we’re all home & can watch them together.
When I was a kid we put the tree up on my mom’s birthday, the 18th and took it down on the 6th. Hubs puts it up the Sat. after Thanksgiving and down on the 2nd. Ours goes up the week after Thanksgiving and down on the 2nd.
Thank you.
I enjoy watching shows on BBC and I like the comedy shows especially when they have christmas episodes. I noticed all the people wearing paper crowns around the christmas dinner table so I googled it and found out that they have the paper crackers and when you “crack” it a paper crown comes out and usually a toy or candy. So I found the crackers at Pier One and my family has a new tradition “crackers”.—Rachel
Love holiday traditions..
One of our traditions is getting together on a Saturday and
baking cookies 🙂
Thanks for stopping by Dawn!!!
This year will probably begin a tradition of cookie making with my 4 y/o granddaughter who loves to help in the kitchen. She was a big help with the pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving, so I’m going to encourage a cookie bake.
I never win these things. 🙁 But I hope this is my lucky day!!! *fingers crossed* XD
I have a lot of the same ones as you. We decorate the tree after thanksgining and watch christmas movies. On christmas eve we open one present, the the rest on christmas day. On christmas day I watch 24 hours of the christmas story. I have to watch my favorite movies too like, christmas story,home alone 1 &2, charlie brown christmas, and elf.
Traditions in our house are:
Tree up Thanksgiving eve and down on January 6th.
All the ornaments are from our children/grandchildren. Either made or bought for them.
Baking lots of cookies. Especially my gram’s Hungarian cookies. She made them every year. She passed away almost 9 years ago and I got the recipe. Now I make them every year. It’s like having a little piece of gram still with me.
Since it is just the two of us, for the past 10+ years we have been going to Disney World, enjoying the decorations, shows, holidays stories in each Epcot country, etc. Then on the 23rd we drive to Tampa and spend Christmas with our two daughters and families. Always a fun time!
Holy Smokes! That is one HOT cover! I love it :)Wow… oh, Christmas…I got a little distracted with that sexy book cover.
Every Christmas Eve, my family attends Christmas Eve Mass and then we head over to my sister’s house to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. There is always way too much food and we have such a wonderful time. It’s not easy to get family together, so once a year I treasure the time I get to spend with my side of the family. Christmas day my children get up before the crack of dawn to open gifts and then we head over to my husband’s side of the family. It’s nice to be with family.
The day after Christmas is spent trying to find the living room floor!
Happy Holidays!
Julie K
kornhsl@yahoo.com
Traditions..
Put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving
Do cut out cookies and decorate them
Gosh I need more traditions.
Great traditions! We also let the kids open one present on Christmas Eve, I remember doing that as a child as well.
We make Christmas cookies for Santa in fun holiday shapes with the same cookie cutters my mom used, drive around looking at the Christmas lights on people’s houses, visit the Studios to see the Osborne Family lights, and every morning when I take the kids to school we listen to holiday music. 🙂
We always have Christmas carols playing while we decorate the tree, too. Such a fun time with the kids.
We also do the open one gift on Christmas Eve.
And the whole family going to parents for Christmas Day and dinner.
Oooh what a yummy book cover! 😉
Traditions with my family… make M&M cookies for Christmas, have an ornament with everyone’s name including our pets…
Christmas Eve dinner with a lot of family recipes when are different from most peoples. Thats what I always look forward to!
We have tons of traditions and it always depends on if my firefighter husband has to work on Xmas day. We give our presents to the kids on Xmas eve and then Xmas morning is Santa presents along with coffee and total chaos but I wouldn’t change a thing. Xmas eve with my huge family is always fun because it is church, presents, and great food. My favorite tradition is playing the music loud while decorating the tree. Always the second day after Thanksgiving.
We always go out to look at the lights on Christmas eve dressed in pjs then come home and have hot chocolate.
Our tree comes down after little Christmas (Jan. 6th).
Thanks for the giveaway! Happy Holidays!!!!!
we don’t have many. Watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and get a new set of Uno cards so we can play over the holidays. lol Pretty simple stuff.
Lisa B
We begin decorating Thanksgiving. We always drive around and look at the lights a couple of times and we always watch A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim.
Hubby likes to start about now or right after thanksgiving. It’s usually when I feel like it. I usually take the tree down either late Christmas day or the day after. Usually I’m so done.
We just decorated our trees last night and we had the Christmas carols on. Each Christmas each family gets a new ornament. My mom started the tradition and I have kept it going with my girls.
We always gather at my parents house on Christmas day and have dinner.
Since there is only the two of us, for the past 10+ years we have gone to Disney World and enjoyed the decorations, holiday stories at all the Epcot countrys, and especially the Candlelight Procession. What a magical night! Then on the 23rd we drive to Tampa and spend Christmas with our two daughters and families. It’s always a great time of fun and togetherness.
The only traditions we really went by was putting up the tree after Thanksgiving and opening presents on Christmas Day and waited until after January 7th to take the tree down. Other than that it was whatever we felt like doing that year.
My favorite holiday tradition is the holiday marathon. It involves the whole family and we never get sick of seeing the movies. Love the themes on family and love.
Your traditions sound like ours. My fave is opening one gift on Christmas Eve. Your book sounds very cool!
Our traditions are:
Putting up and taking down the tree
Oops, I accidentally submitted before I was finished!
Our traditions are:
Putting up and taking down the tree
Turkey dinner on Christmas day
Opening presents on Christmas morning
Making cookies, especially my soft sugar cookies
Sing and listen to lots of Christmas carols
Well, the last two are mostly my personal traditions.
I pull my tree down the day after Christmas! By that time I had enough of my pups stealing things off it 🙂
My favorite tradition is each year the kids add a new ornament to the tree whether is a bought one or a handmade one. Its fun looking at the ornaments from past years.
One of our traditions is to put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. It’s a 8ft flocked tree we’ve had for 34 years. We used to put up two trees. The artificial in the basement and a real tree in the living room upstairs. We handmade all our ornaments for the artificial tree. Using store bought ornament kits, ornaments bought at craft shows, and just ideas of our own. We’ve kinda slowed down the decorating in our old age, and only do the artificial now. I just love turning the lights on on the tree. There’s something about just seeing them on. We laugh, and joke and have such a great time putting the lights, tinsel, beads and ornaments on our tree. The decorations always go in the same place, the nativity scene on top of the tv, certain decorations have their special place on the stands and walls. I love decorating, it’s the putting away that’s the hard part.
I grew up on the Oregon Coast, so our one big tradition every Christmas is Prime Rib and Dungeness Crab!!! Everything else is open to negotiation!
We open our presents on Christmas Eve and we usually sit around and watch A Christmas Story half a dozen times when its on for the 24 hr. marathon.
Great Christmas traditions! I try to watch It’s a Wonderful life on Christmas Eve. We open presents and have a big Christmas dinner on Christmas day.
We decorate the tree together.
Sexy Cover!!!!
Putting up the christmas tree is my favorite… although we tend to be lazier and don’t put the tree away that quickly!
going shopping with my friends, and buying our own decorations for the tree 🙂
we always put the tree up on Thansgiving and then let the kids–my grandkids now,tho it used to be my kid, decorate the tree,then after they go to bed we redecorate it more nicely haha and they never even notice so they always say they put up the tree,its so cute and we don’t take it down till Jan.2nd either lol,and we always dance while putting up the tree (tho I have to confess that its rock-n-roll not Christmas songs,but we play Christmas songs when we open presents lol
One of our family traditions is to eat my Aunty Ruth’s chocolate toffee carmel cookies. She made them every year and sent us a box from Minnesota. She would never share the recipe until she met my oldest son. She taught him how to make them and we can still enjoy them even though she is not with us anymore. She taught a boy to cook and left us a yummy tradition.
We don’t have that many traditions but we do the opening one present on Christmas Eve thing too, and I like to do Christmas cooking/baking (definitely gonna do some sugar cookies), and we HAVE to get a real tree. Even though everyone seems to have fake ones now.
Holiday traditions here involve sleeping in on Christmas. Yes I am super excited but I like sleep more. We decorate the tree together and I always take tons of pictures. For me personally I like to sit outside regardless of the cold and just enjoy the weather as well on Christmas. The main thing I am learning this year is to be thankful for what I have, and I’m sure that will continue. For me I’ve been all about giving this year.