Wonderful weekend

I'm trying to catch up with everything again. I didn't have time to do very much in the run up to the weekend and over the weekend itself and that's because I was celebrating an early Christmas with some very special friends.

I love Christmas. I love the way that it brightens up the dark, cold (well, it's cold here in the UK - and wet!) days of December with decorations and celebrations, I love the way that, when it's celebrated right, it brings together loved ones from near and far, puts you in contact with people you don't connect with the rest of the year, and brings friends and warmth into your life and home.

I just had my traditional early Christmas with a group of very special writer friends who all come to stay at my home for a long weeked. They only left yesterday afternoon, and then I needed to catch up with some much needed sleep! That's why I'm a little late writing this blog. We ate a lot, drank some wine, visited 'Christmas World' in a nearby village. We played silly games, laughed a lot, some of us had things they needed to shed a tear or two over as well. And we talked and talked and talked . .

There were different generations gathered together too - one of my friends couldn't make it last year because the birth of her baby was very close. This year, her almost one year old son joined us for the weekend - hopfully the first of many such visits by him and other new members of the 'family of friends'. The Offspring and his lovely girlfiend joined us too, and everyone blended together brilliantly.

For a time, for various reasons, I'd been feeling too stressed to think of Christmas without worrying but this weekend has brought home to me just what it's really all about.It's about sharing. About reaching out to other people and letting them know that they are important in your life. And that includes my readers. Every year as Christmas approaches, I run several contests to involve my readers in my Christmas celebrations. To reach out to them and let them know how much I appreciate them and how grateful I am to all the readers who buy my books and so keep me writing and published next year and for years (hopefully) to come.

Like this post, I'm a little late with organising this but now I'm in the Christmas mood I'm organising my 12 Days of Christmas contest and the details will go up on my web site just as soon as I can get them there. And then over on My Tote Bag Leena will be running my 12 Days of Christmas contest.

Every day for 12 days leading up to Christmas I'll be giving away a signed copy of one of my books and a little extra Christmas Gift to all the lucky winners. So why not keep chekcing out my blog or my Contest page on my web site soon to see when the contest is starting?

The other thing I do is ask my readers to help me with my Christmas Charity Card. I would love to be able to send you all a Christmas card to wish you all the happiness of this special season, but the planning and organising of all that is just impossible - so I'm going to be doingwhat I did last year, and that is to give a real, practical gift to those in need instead of cards. Last year's gift was a batch of essential medicines for a whole village - that was the choice voted for by most of the visitors to the blog. So this year I'll be running the poll again and I hope you'll drop by and vote for your choice of special gift that I'll be sending this year. It is, after all, in place of a card to say thank you to each and every one of you for your support for me all through this year.

And as I did last year, I will be posting up a special cyber card foryou all on my web site from December. I have at least got that organised and it's up on my web site from today so I hope you'll come by and see that.

And I have the Christmas Stocking contest to announce too - phew! I'd better get on with it!