Stella's Christmas Wish - Guest Post by Kate Blackadder (@k_blackadder @bwpublishing)

Published by Black & White Publishing

Ebook : 3 November 2016

One phone call can change everything…
Six days before Christmas, Stella could never have anticipated the impact on her life when the phone rings in her London office.
The phone call is from a friend of the family informing Stella that her grandmother has been hurt in a fall at her home in the Scottish borders and is in hospital. Torn between her responsibilities at work and the need to be with her grandmother she decides she must return to Scotland immediately.
However, on her return to where she grew up, it becomes apparent that her grandmother’s health is not her only concern. Relationships which have lain dormant for years are re-kindled and fresh opportunities present themselves – if she will only dare to take them…

I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Stella’s Christmas Wish by Kate Blackadder. I have bought a copy of the book to read when time allows but in the meantime I have a Christmas themed post from Kate. Two Christmas’s a year – sounds good to me!

Christmas comes but once – or twice – a year

Christmas is on 25th December – right?

Yes – except when it’s in July or November.

One day in July 1995 I made and iced a fruitcake and baked some tree-shaped biscuits. I borrowed some lovely Christmas garlands from a friend and draped them over the mantelpiece and the piano. I arranged some toys around the room. We lit a fire and closed the curtains to keep out the sun. The children were excited if bemused – at seven and three they knew that there was something not quite right about this Christmas. Why hadn’t they had stockings and why was teddy on the sofa?

The room became even hotter when the photographer turned up with his cameras and arc lamps to take a picture for the book cover my husband was designing.

I think the photographer did a great job with the lighting – the room looks (for the first and last time) as if it should be in a glossy mag.

The room was returned to normal, curtains drawn back and the window opened. Teddy was retrieved. We all had a cup of tea and cake and biscuits. And there was still the second, proper, December, celebration to look forward to. Can we have two Christmases every year, Mummy?

Well … no, I said. But last year, 2015, we did have a full Christmas dinner, crackers, carols on a CD, the lot, on the 25th of – November.

My daughter was going to Australia at the end of that week and planned to stay for a year – but wanted to have Christmas at home too. Wanted to have her Christmas cake and eat it in fact … The friend she was travelling with came round. We exchanged presents. There was just four of us so no turkey, but a nice free-range chicken with all the trimmings, preceded by smoked salmon and followed by espresso martinis. At one point in the afternoon I realised I didn’t have a particular ingredient so I popped out for it – all the shops were open!

It was odd, in a nice way, seeing everyone going about their normal business, hearing the usual programmes on tv and radio, while we were having a secret Christmas (and of course a month later, at different ends of the planet, we all enjoyed a second Christmas).

In Stella’s Christmas Wish Stella’s plans to spend Christmas with her granny and her sister have gone awry and she contemplates spending Christmas on her own. Friends are horrified at the idea – ‘Turkey slices for one? Pull a cracker with yourself? You can’t do that!’ Stella says she’ll be fine – she’ll ‘Eat too much chocolate. Watch Christmas movies. The usual things.’ But, as she finds out, there are other ways of celebrating on Christmas Day.

You can even have it in July and November.

Stella’s Christmas Wish, set in Edinburgh and the Borders, is published by Black and White Publishing at 99p.

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