15 days until Christmas

 Note: For those of you who saw this post before 2:30 PM, the Bonus Entry has now been changed. Sorry I didn’t catch that earlier.

DM Coffman lived in the People’s Republic of China for four years, teaching at Peking University and South China University of Technology with BYU’s China Teachers Program, and with the US-sponsored WTO China Judicial Training Program at China’s National Judges College and Tsinghua University. Prior to China, DM worked in the legal profession in Washington, D.C. She is the author of the 2011 Whitney Award-nominated suspense thriller, The Hainan Incident, published by Covenant Communications, Inc.; China Through the Eyes of Her Students –a recently released non-fiction book providing a rare glimpse at life in China through personal journals of Chinese students; and A Peking University Coursebook on English Exposition Writing published by Peking University Press. She has also served as editor and foreign consultant for numerous English educational texts published in China. She has a M.Ed. from Brigham Young University and a B.B.A. from National University. She and her husband retired to Spanish Fork, Utah, to be near family.

Connect with D.M.: BLOG | Facebook (DM Coffman)

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LDSWBR: What Christmas-related activity would you like to do this year that you have never done before?

DM: I have given some thought to volunteering time at a homeless shelter/food kitchen. My sister has done this at Thanksgiving time, and says she was amazed at what a spiritually rewarding experience it is.

LDSWBR: If you could find one book under the tree this year, what would it be?

DM: I was impressed to learn at a recent fireside of BYU Professor Royal Skousen’s research work on Joseph Smith’s original manuscript and printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Skousen’s edition (published by Yale University Press) of The Book of Mormon – The Earliest Text documents about 600 corrections to our current Book of Mormon, many of which affect meaning. I would love to have a copy of this edition, considered the closest version to Joseph Smith’s original manuscript, as a cross-reference for my scriptures.

LDSWBR: What is your favorite childhood Christmas memory?

DM: My favorite Christmas memory is of two blown-glass “Santa” Christmas tree lights. When I was a toddler, my parents purchased a strand of lights containing two glass Santa-shaped light bulbs. Year after year, our Christmas tree was extra special because of those unique lights. We never saw replacement bulbs like them. So, after so many years of replacing all the other bulbs on that strand, we began to worry that the Santa lights would burn out and we wouldn’t be able to replace them. They had really become an important part of our annual celebration!

Each year, when we got out the Christmas decorations, we watched and worried to see if those Santa lights would work. Somehow, we felt that if those Santa lights didn’t light up, Christmas would not be the same. Well, those unique Santa lights burned year after year for more than twenty years. It wasn’t until a few years after I had moved away from home as an adult that I learned of the Santa lights finally burning out. I consider it a special Christmas miracle that those lights brightened every year of my childhood Christmas memories.

LDSWBR: How amazing that the Santa lights lasted so long! Thank you, D.M. Merry Christmas!

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Buy The Hainan Incident by D.M. Coffman

DESERET BOOK | AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE

Did you have a Christmas item or decoration in your childhood that became so much of a tradition that it just didn’t feel like Christmas without it?

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Book prizes donated by their authors: