23 days until Christmas

Did you know? The bonus entries on each author post are different every day.

Leave a comment on each Countdown to Christmas 2011 post (you can go back and get the ones you missed) and complete each bonus entry for even more chances to win the amazing books listed below and $50 at Amazon.

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Sarah M. Eden was born. She grew up. She started writing books. That pretty much catches you up to where she is today. Also, she has two children and a husband and a cute little house that is much, much older than she is. When she isn’t pumping out the historical romances, Sarah is researching random historical facts, presenting at conferences, playing taxi driver for her kids or attempting to catch up on many years’ worth of sleep deprivation.

Connect with Sarah: BLOG | Twitter | Facebook

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

SARAH: To NOT stay up late Christmas Eve night cleaning my dumb house so I can have the gift of a sparkling clean house for Christmas. I do this to myself every stinkin’ year, and every year the place is trashed within an hour of everyone getting up. Then I feel depressed. Feeling depressed on Christmas is wrong on so many levels.

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

SARAH: Absolute dream book, money’s no object, neither is actual feasibility: original, 1818, 3-volume edition of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Almost as much of a dream, money still needs to pretty much be no object, much more feasible: original, 1960 edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Much more likely & still much appreciated: Anything by Georgette Heyer

LDSWBR: What is your favorite childhood Christmas memory?

SARAH: One of my favorite Christmas memories is one that likely is horribly distorted from reality–not because I have any delusions about it, but because I was only four years old. This would have been a week or two before Christmas, and we were living in a teeny, tiny house in a less-than-swanky neighborhood in Portland, Oregon.

I distinctly remember this incident beginning with my older brother, he being all of five, and I rocking our rumps to a Mousercise record. In case you aren’t familiar, this was an ingenious little product put out by Disney that basically rehashed all the songs from any movie they’d ever put out that had enough of a beat to dance to–that dancing was supposed to count as exercise, hence the lame combo of Mouse (as in Mickey) and ercise (as in Exercise).

So we were shakin’ our bonbons pretty hardcore when one of us did something to the other that started a minor scuffle. For the record, if I was the one who instigated the fight, I am sure my misdeed was entirely unintentional. If it was my brother, he totally meant it.

Where were we? Ah, yes the happy memories.

So in the midst of our valiant attempts to dismember one another, my mother, in her wisdom-of-the-ages way, announced in a voice filled with completely believable amazement that she thought for certain she’d just seen a Christmas elf peeking in our window.

I remember we froze on the spot, heads snapping in that direction. Holy canoli! Had we really just been seen by a Christmas elf going for each other’s jugulars? We ran to the window and peered out.

To this day–this day, mind you–I am absolutely convinced I saw little elf footprints in our front yard. I stared in shocked horror. That was it. Christmas was ruined. I knew my mom was right. I mean, she was my own mother, she wouldn’t lie to me about something as crucial as really nosy mythological creatures who held in their hands my very happiness come Christmas morning. Of course she wouldn’t!

We asked her in utter panic what we could possibly do. We’d be on the naughty list for sure. I don’t remember what solution she came up with, probably something involving child labor and enslavement for the last few days of the Holiday season. We went along willingly, anxiously even.

I don’t know how my parents managed to get those footprints in the yard, or if I imagined them out of sheer guilt and a desire to believe my parents above such petty things as lying to their children in order to stop them from killing each other in the living room. And though I’m older and wiser now, there’s part of me that wonders just what it was that really happened all those years ago.

LDSWBR: Best. Story. Ever. (Wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.) As for your choice of 1st editions – I knew there was a reason I liked you so much. You have amazing taste in books. :) Thanks, Sarah. Merry Christmas!

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Buy Seeking Persephone by Sarah M. Eden

DESERET BOOK | SEAGULL BOOK | AMAZON

Read Shanda’s Review of Seeking Persephone.

Do you have a funny elf, reindeer or Santa story? How do you encourage your kids to behave as Christmas approaches?

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To enter the Countdown to Christmas 2011 contest, complete the following and then tell us what you did:

• **Required entry (+1) – Leave a thoughtful comment on this post. (More than just “Great contest!” please.) You must leave a comment on this post for your other entries to count. If you are reading this post through email or an RSS reader, please click through to leave a comment.

• Bonus entry (+1 total) – Go follow Sarah on her blog, Twitter, or Facebook (see links above) then send an email to ldswbr (at) gmail (dot) com telling us how you follow Sarah. You’ll want to follow her anyway. She’s hilarious. You won’t regret it. Seriously.

• Additional entries (one time +1 entry each) – 1) Subscribe to LDSWBR through email 2)Follow @LDSWBR on Twitter 3) Like LDS Women’s Book Review on Facebook (all found at the the top of the right sidebar on the LDSWBR blog). NOTE: If you already subscribe through email, follow us on Twitter, or Like us on Facebook you must tell us in a comment for the extra entries to count.

• By leaving a comment and entering the Countdown to Christmas 2011, you agree to the contest information found here.

***If you haven’t read the contest rules and info, read them here.***

Book prizes donated by their authors: