Author Holiday Extravaganza: Amy Holder (With Contest)

Monday we had pretzels... today, we have a holiday tradition from Amy Holder, author of the upcoming 2011 release The Lipstick Laws. I have to admit, this is a good one that I never thought to do growing up...


The holiday season is a time of heartwarming traditions, goodwill, giving and magic. I have so many heartwarming holiday tradition memories that I could share, but there are millions of touching holiday stories out there, and I want to be different. So, I'm here to share a story of an ingeniously sneaky holiday tradition that I picked up from my brother... although it may not be filled with goodwill, that doesn't make it any less magical.

I grew up with an older brother and sister. As the youngest, I often studied and copied what my older siblings did. After several Christmases where I noticed my brother was left with a huge pile of gifts to enjoy opening after everyone else was done unwrapping, I realized he was doing something extra special to savor the gift-getting excitement of Christmas day. You see, my brother (being the planner that he is) would use the month of December to rearrange most of his presents that were placed under the Christmas tree to the very back of the tree, behind all the other presents. In turn, his Christmas gift guzzling would last much longer than everyone else's whose presents were in front and distributed accordingly on Christmas morning.

It didn't take me long to adopt this gift burying habit myself, and soon both my brother and I would accumulate stacks of presents when everyone else was done unwrapping. This was much to my sister's dismay, as she never picked up on this genius tradition.... not to mention, my father wasn't too thrilled to have to dive under the tree, dodging crisp pine needles, to round up our elusive present piles (sorry, Dad). On a positive note, it was a great lesson on the rewards of saving... and to this day, I'm still tempted to slip a front and center present with my name on it behind the other presents at the very back of the Christmas tree.


Thank you, Amy, for sharing that look into your family's Christmas, not to mention the downright adorable photo. And now for the present left at the back of my tree, I have a contest for you guys, courtesy of Amy: A preorder of The Lipstick Laws and some swag to go with it!

To enter, fill out THIS form. Contest ends December 29 and IS international. Book will be preordered from The Book Depository.