Christmas Decorations ... or, Decorating with What We Got for Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I learned something this year, something that I think I've needed to learn for a long time - the Christmas spirit is a tremendous blessing in our lives, and it's such a special time to reconnect with the Savior and our families, that the opposition will go to extraordinary lengths to distract us from feeling that spirit. I always go through a little bit of holiday depression this time of year. But with this realization, and doing what I could to shake it off and pray myself out of it, I think I've had a better Christmas this year than I have for a long time, even though I wasn't sure at first if I would.

Enough of my rambling. Let's move on.

For the last couple of years, I've had two framed pictures on my wall over my desk. One is of the cover for "Nothing to Regret," my first published novel. The second is of the cover for "Strength to Endure," my second published novel. When I released "Season of Sacrifice" in 2008 and "Agent in Old Lace" in May of this year, I thought to myself, I really should get more frames and add my new books to my wall. But I never got around to it.

When my sweet honey asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year, I decided to delegate that assignment to him. I asked him for those two covers, and also for the cover for "Stolen Christmas," the Christmas compilation book in which my story "Arrows to Heaven" appears. Then I asked my mom to come over and help me redo my walls.

Here are the results:
This is the wall directly over my desk. Notice how the cover for "Season of Sacrifice" is right next to my large picture of the Hole in the Rock. Very fitting that they go side by side.
This is the wall to my right as I sit at the desk, and above my smaller couch. Here we have the covers of my other books, and to the right on the bottom you'll see the certificate I got from the League of Utah Writers for "Strength to Endure." I admit, it's kind of a brag wall, but I've got pictures of my kids on the other wall, so they all get equal space.

You noticed, I presume, the hole on the bottom left of the group picture? A nail has been driven in to mark the place so that in March, when "Secret Sisters" is released, I can immediately hang it up. There won't be any procrastinating this time ... that hole is already bothering me. I've decided that I need to make a "coming soon ..." sign to put there so it doesn't look so empty.

I also got a hand mixer for Christmas, but I decided that wouldn't look so good hanging from my wall. I didn't say I was going to decorate with everything I got for Christmas ... that would just be silly.