This may seem odd when I’m self-employed and can choose my own working hours, but I still look forward to bank holidays.
It’s the same as when I was a nine-to-five wage slave. Knowing most of the rest of the world is taking a break allows me to down tools with a clear conscience.
In my last column of 2024 for the Hawkesbury Parish News, I’m in the mood for traditional Christmas decorations.
It’s the time of year when sentimental souls start dreaming of a white Christmas, but this festive season I’m focusing on a different colour: green. I’m even drafting this column in green ink.
‘It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas,’ as Bing Crosby didn’t sing in one of the most iconic secular songs of the festive season.
These days, the two things that excite me most about Christmas are seeing all the fairy lights appearing in the darkness and hearing Christmas music. I’m always relatively late putting up Christmas decorations in my house, rushing to get our tree into the front window minutes before the lights are turned on at The Plain (our village green). But I’m always early with the festive music.
It was only when I started planning the HULF Talk Christmas Special that I realised just how much I have written about Christmas over the years and wondering just why that was. In this post, I’m exploring why I like writing about Christmas and highlighting my short stories and novels that relate to the festive season.
Each Christmas for the last three years, I have enjoyed taking part in Helen Hollick’s “Story Song” blog series, which is a bit like an advent calendar of stories.
Every day between 1st and 24th December, she posts a new story by a different author. Each story is inspired by a song, and readers are invited to guess the song by reading the story. You can read all of the stories on her blog completely free of charge.
This year, my contribution is a new Sophie Sayers short story set at Christmas, called The Secret Ministry of Frost.
It also features some characters from my St Bride’s School novel series.
Click the link below to read this heartwarming new story for free:
Read The Secret Ministry of Frost online now
***Please feel free to share the link to the story with anyone who might enjoy it.***
Although my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series includes a novel set at Christmas (Murder in the Manger), the cosy world of Sophie’s Cotswold village, Wendlebury Barrow, is a rich source of festive stories, and I plan to write enough to fill a little book with them in time for Christmas 2022. More news on that nearer the time!
In the meantime, I wish you a merry Christmas, with lots of good books under your Christmas tree, and a new year filled with peace, joy and love.
