Michelle Styles: Holiday Traditions old and new

The other day I discovered that I mess with my children’s notions of Christmas traditions at my peril. That my children are all in their twenties does not seem to make a difference. They want Christmas as they remember it rather than allowing me to tweak or change things that I feel have become outmoded or past its sell by date. I had not realised that my actions as a young mother to make my life easier would have consequences for my older self!

My advent calendar with instruments
not in the proper order

My latest transgression involved the advent calendar. The calendar I use is the one my aunt gave me when my children were tiny. She sent it as a present from California as I had complained that UK advent calendars were not up to much (at the time they were very different to US ones and filled with cheap chocolate) My daughter who is now 26 was a babe in arms. It involves sticking Velcro backed musical instruments on to a tree of angels.  When they were young, I put the instruments in the various pockets in a specific order to make it easier for me. Over the years about 5 have gone missing. This year, I decided as I was the person who would be doing the advent calendar, I would put them in random order and have the blank ones at the start. Cue outrage from my daughter who then texted my sons to complain — I had changed the tradition. Same advent calendar but it bothered her in a way I’d not anticipated. I am afraid she is going to have to deal with a new tradition as I find it fun and I am the one putting up most of the instruments, but I had not understood how important she felt the putting up in a specific order was.

I suspect that it is how traditions get started — people do things  because it makes their life simpler at the time but then the reasoning behind the decision becomes forgotten and  the action becomes written far larger than the originator intended.

As a historical romance author who has written about Christmas (the Victorian set A Christmas Wedding Wager and the Viking set  Sent as the Viking’s Bride), I love investigating the traditions of Christmas — where they came from and what their first meaning were.  It has long been my belief that one of the stronger parts of Christianity is its willingness to embrace different cultures and to allow them to celebrate in familiar ways.  This certainly proved the case with the Vikings. We owe things like yule logs, wassailing,  wreaths and  the eating of ham/pork to them.  

A Christmas Wedding Wager is set in early Victorian England just after Charles Dickens reinvented Christmas with A Christmas Carol and it was lovely to find out the why of certain British Christmas traditions. Having grown up near San Francisco, I used to go to the Dickens Christmas Fayre but the actual British Christmas I experienced when I first moved over here was very different. I will admit that at first I struggled because I thought (and sometimes still do) that Americans, particularly Northern Californians keep Christmas a more agreeable way. It took me a number of years to get my head around mince pies at every gathering, flaming Christmas puddings and iced Christmas cakes which are made months before as well as Christmas crackers with silly jokes and paper crowns. After 31 years of living here though, they have become part of my Christmas tradition, including the British way of wishing people a Merry Christmas.

  I like to think the Christmas season is more enjoyable because of those long-standing traditions.  And it is equally good that we are constantly adding new traditions or ways of celebrating as families grow and change.

However, you celebrate with traditions old, new and as yet undiscovered — may I wish you a Happy Christmas and a Joyous New Year.

Michelle Styles writes warm witty and intimate historical romance for Harlequin Historical in a wide-range of time periods. Her most recent  A Deal with Her Rebel Viking was published at the beginning of December. Her next  book  Conveniently Wed to the Viking which is the 3rd book in the Sons of Sigurd Harlequin Historical continuity series will be published in July 2020. You can find out more about Michelle and her books on www.MichelleStyles.co.uk 

Does Age Matter? By Kim Boykin

DOES AGE MATTER?

When I was writing my Tule title, FLIRTING WITH FOREVER, my heroine was of course  beautiful and smart. At the time, I'd read a bunch of romances with mostly twenty-something-year-old heroines, and I wanted different, so I made Tara Jordan 45. 

The setup for the story was fun--Tara's first book, The Perfect Marriage in 30 Days, is at the top of the bestseller lists and her publisher wants her on book tour ASAP. While Tara's about to live her dream, her husband of 15 years has just walked out leaving Tara on the brink of financial ruin with no choice but to promote a marriage self-help book while hers in secretly in ruins. 

I finished the story, sent it to my editor, loving my older protagonist and the fact that she ends up falling for her 30 year old publicist. And then I got back her notes, mostly all good, hardly any changes, except one. 

My editor felt 45 was too old, 40 was pushing it, but I liked idea of a May/December romance where the woman was the December part of the duo. So Tara ended up being 40,  and got her HEA despite her age. 

Granted I write sweet, and Kristen Ashley writes hot, but she is a favorite of mine. I particularly loved her second book in the Magdalene series, SOARING. But mostly I love her because that wasn't the first time she made me fall in love with a 40+ year-old-heroine or hero for that matter.

 Does the hero and heroine's age matter to you? What's your limit, so to speak? If you're over 50, like I am, do you still prefer to read about twenty -something-year-old protagonists?

 Be sure and check out FLIRTING WITH FOREVER. It is a fun story and is going to be set free on Kindle JULY 6-10 ONLY!