A Christmas Contest

My Christmas books came from Hatchette this week! I love holiday books and even though Christmas is over I was still excited to see these books come. They are nice little "feel good" stories that are easy to read. The reason I won this set of books is because Anysia at Booklorn - Books I Have Known chose my favorite holiday memory. It was so sweet of her and very much appreciated. It was also fun for me to retell it and my teenage boys love hearing it again too. In fact, they've been watching old videos of themselves during their vacation. Since the VCR had been broken and Santa just brought a new one they can now watch them again. I really need to convert those to DVD but I don't see that happening anytime soon. A new VCR was easier and cheaper for now, although they are getting harder to find. Soon to go the way of the beta players? Anyway, I thought I would post the story again directly from Anysia's blog. It was a fun contest!

******************************************************

The last winner of a Hachette Holiday Season book pack.

By Anysia | December 17, 2008

Sorry for the delay in picking the last winner (it’s been crazy here–more so than usual–is my only excuse). It was also really hard to pick one winner from the stories that were submitted. After a lot of dawdling and thinking I picked the following story by Wrighty:

I have so many Christmas traditions and memories that I cherish. We became engaged on Christmas Eve, my oldest son was born on Dec. 22nd, my brother became engaged on Christmas Eve, the list goes on and on. But one of my favorite memories was when my two oldest children outsmarted us.

My husband and I stay up late every year putting together gifts and watching A Christmas Story marathon (”you’ll shoot your eye out!”) until the wee hours of the morning. When my kids were 9 mths. 3 1/2 yrs. and 5 yrs. we got them a electric powered jeep to ride on. We were up until 3:00 a.m. putting it together and charging the battery. We put a huge red ribbon on the top, checked all of the presents and headed to bed. As a precaution, we locked the door with the hook and eye latch that’s up at the top of the door. Since they wouldn’t be unwrapping the jeep we wanted to make sure we went into the room with them in the morning to see their excited little faces when they saw their big gift. We went to sleep knowing they would be up and in our room in just a few hours.

We woke up later than expected with no kids in our faces and it was too quiet upstairs. We checked their rooms and they were empty, even the baby’s room. We hurried down the stairs just knowing we would have very anxious kids. The door was shut but it wasn’t locked. We opened it and all three of them, even the baby, were sitting in their jeep! We had no idea how they did it. They were so proud because they helped the baby out of his crib and down the stairs. Then they took the broom and raised it up to the lock and popped the hook out of the eye! They had been riding back and forth for almost an hour. They only had about 15 feet of space in that room and it was too narrow to turn around so they were just going forward and then reverse, over and over again. But they took turns! We were so shocked but it was the funniest thing to see.

It’s only one of many stories we tell our now teenagers but it’s one of the best. Sorry I rambled but thanks for letting me relive that one. Happy Holidays!