Fond holiday season memories: from our authors

It didn’t seem like Christmas. The sun was shining. The flowers were blooming. I had just mowed the lawn, for crying out loud. This was nutty, even by California standards. Yvonne and I had recently married, and Christmas hadn’t yet changed from his and hers into ours. It was December 20, and we hadn’t even bought a tree. That was when Yvonne decided we needed a dog. We found an ad for puppies that were in a little mountain town. When we drove there, an amazing thing happened. It started to snow. We found the house, where we were attacked by twelve bundles of fur. The one called “Fuzz Face” kept nibbling Yvonne’s hand. Twenty minutes later the puppy was ours.

And, for the first time then and joyfully ever since, so was Christmas.

–Ronald Kidd, author of Night on Fire

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Amy’s sister’s wedding

With seven kids in our family, my mom didn’t have much one-on-one time with us. But Christmas brought the best day of the year: Wrapping Day. Santa doesn’t bring presents for kids over ten. Parents buy presents for those kids themselves, and those presents need to be wrapped. So on Wrapping Day, Mom kicked all the big kids out of the house and I got to help her wrap their presents. I was about four on my first Wrapping Day. I tore the paper, ate ribbon, taped myself to the carpet. I was a disaster, but I was a disaster with my mom. And that was pretty cool.

–Amy Allgeyer, author of Dig Too Deep

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Storytime was my favorite part of my job as a school librarian. I have fond memories of reading aloud The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate; it inspired important discussions with my students.

The book is based on a true story that took place in 1993 in Billings, Montana. When a prejudiced group threw a rock through the window of a home displaying a Hanukkah menorah, the townspeople rallied to decorate their homes with menorahs, too. This group effort made a bold statement that hate would not be tolerated. It is a message we need to hear just as urgently today. I look forward to reading it one day with my grandchildren.

–Jacqueline Jules, author of the Zapato Power series

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Growing up in a big Italian family, Christmas was always about family and homemade food and gifts! We still carry on the Italian Christmas Eve dinner tradition of the “The Feast of the Seven Fishes.” (Yes- we count them!). This year, as I do every year, I carefully unwrapped the homemade ornaments and place them on our tree. This simple act was what sparked the idea for my book,” A Homemade Together Christmas.”

The book is dedicated to my mother, Rose, who taught us that being together is the best gift of all. Though she won’t be sitting at our dinner table this Christmas Eve, she’ll be there, in our hearts as we celebrate togetherness.

–Maryann Cocca-Leffler, author and illustrator of A Homemade Together Christmas