Release Date: December 1, 2014
Blurb:
A story
from Boughs of Evergreen: A Holiday
Anthology.
Simon
hates the Holidays. It’s the same every year—awaiting the dreaded Christmas
Eve, when his father gets drunk, while the family fake Christmas spirit and
strain to hear the TV over Dad’s snoring. This year, Simon’s sister is
celebrating Christmas elsewhere, leaving him to deal with their parents on his
own. But there’s a glimmer of hope. A work colleague introduces Simon to her
son Hannes at the Lucia Day celebrations, the trouble being that Simon
mistakenly believes it’s a blind date, and as if that isn’t embarrassing
enough, Hannes wants them to be friends, and Simon’s starting to see signals
that aren’t there. He’s beginning to wonder if he’ll make it through Christmas
with his sanity intact.
Message From Author:
I’m
Ofelia Gränd, and I thought I’d come here today to talk a little about a
Swedish tradition called Lucia—it might be good to mention that I am Swedish.
I’m not really
sure if anyone outside Scandinavia and Italy knows anything about Saint Lucia
of Syracuse. I’ve got the feeling that she isn’t one of the most well-known
saints out there. Long story short, she was a martyr who was tortured and
killed in 304 for her Christian believes. But our celebration isn’t really
about that. Every Swedish kid learns about Saint Lucia in school, but when
someone says Lucia we think of girls in white dresses with candles in their
hair, and we think of glögg (sort of like mulled wine) and sweet saffron buns.
This time
of year is dark in Scandinavia and Saint Lucia day is a festival of light. Before
the reforming of the calendar the celebrations coincided with the Winter
Solstice, the darkest day of the year. Due to the dark and cold both people and
animals needed extra nourishment. So when Lucia came the celebration of
Christmas began, and everyone got to eat a little extra.
It was
believed, being the longest night of the year and all, that there were a lot of
supernatural beings present. It was also believed that animals could talk
during this one night. To protect yourself from evil you had to stay awake,
which often ended up with people being up all night partying. This was also the
night when you slaughtered the “Christmas pig”—Swedes eat baked ham on
Christmas. Seems a bit strange to kill an animal on the one night a year it’s
supposed to be able to talk, but what do I know?
Nowadays
people don’t run around killing pigs in the dead of the night, and they don’t
believe they need to stay awake to protect themselves from evil spirits. Partying
is still a tradition though, but mostly among young people.
I’m one
of the authors behind Boughs of
Evergreen: A Holiday Anthology and my story, From All of Us to All of You,
starts with the Saint Lucia celebrations in church. I could continue this post
by talking about another bizarre tradition we have which would explain the
title of my story, but I’m not going to…or maybe I should? Okay, on Christmas
Eve (we celebrate on the 24th not on the 25th as people do in many other parts
of the world) at three p.m. about 40% of the Swedish population sit down in
front of the telly to watch Walt Disney’s From All of Us to All of You and has
done so since 1960. If you want to know what role that movie plays in my story,
you’ll just have to read it.
But back
to the Saint Lucia celebrations. Simon is in church to see his niece perform in
the Lucia procession. He hates this time of year, he hates holidays, but Lucia
is beautiful and he doesn’t want to miss out on seeing little Annie walking
down the aisle with candles in her hair. He is there together with one of his
colleagues, Monica, and she introduces him to her son. Simon misunderstands her
intentions, though.
“Well,
dear,” she said, turning to me, “this is my son Hannes. Hannes this is Simon.”
We shook hands like good little gentlemen, and added a polite nod. “Good, now
you two talk, while I go and get us some more glögg.”
“Eh—” I
began as she walked away.
“I’m
sorry,” he blurted out. “She means well, she really does, but…you know.”
“Yeah,
I’m not your type.”
“What?”
Hannes looked alarmed.
“The
blind-date thing, I’m not what you’re looking for.”
“Blind
date?”
I pointed
discreetly back and forth between us. “It’s okay, no hard feelings. It wasn’t
like I asked her to set us up,” I said with a smile, even though it hurt a
little to see him that taken aback by
the thought of dating me.
“I’m
not…she didn’t…it’s not…I’m not gay! It’s not a date…She just wants me to make
some friends. Last week she arranged for me to help a young lady change over to
snow tires in hopes of us getting along.”
Shit! I wished the ground would open
and swallow me whole.
About Ofelia:
Ofelia
Gränd is Swedish through and through. She lives in a small west coast town with
her husband and their three children. She has absolutely no time to write, so,
naturally, that’s what she wants to do. Have you ever tried to write something
with one child in your lap and two more standing around wanting attention?
Ofelia does all the time—try, that is. She could give up her glamorous
life as a stay-at-home mom, and go back to her work as a teacher. But why not
take advantage of the situation when she’s living in a parental leave utopia?
Enough about her being a parent, you think, and you’re quite right. Ofelia is a
No ‘Poo practiser, a pescatarian who bakes her own bread and makes her own
soap—now, you wished that we’d stuck to the children, don’t you?
Find Ofelia Here
About Anthology
Authors: S.H. Allan, Larry Benjamin, Rick Bettencourt, L.L. Bucknor, K.C. Faelan, Hunter Frost, Ofelia Gränd, Kathleen Hayes, Hans M Hirschi, Laura Susan Johnson, Terry Kerr, Amelia Mann, Debbie McGowan, Shayla Mist, Raine O'Tierney, Ava Penn, Jonathan Penn, Amy Spector, L.M. Steel, Al Stewart and Claire Davis, J P Walker, Matthias Williamson, Alexis Woods
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, LGBT, History, Romance, Fantasy, Women's Fiction, Short Stories, Humour, Contemporary Fiction, Holidays and Celebrations
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Boughs of Evergreen is a
two-volume collection of short stories celebrating the holiday season in all
its diversity. Penned by authors from the UK, the USA, Scandinavia and Eastern
Europe, these are tales of the young and the not-so-young from many different
walks of life.
Themes of family, friendship and
romance take readers on a journey through some of the major holidays, both past
and present, including Thanksgiving, Advent, St. Lucia Day, Hanukkah, Eid,
Saturnalia, Winter Solstice, Yule, Christmas and New Year. In each we find at
the very least hope, and often love, peace and happiness.
Each story will also be
published individually as ebooks on 1st December, 2014.
Proceeds from sales of this
anthology will be donated to The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is the
leading national organization [USA] providing crisis intervention and suicide
prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning
(LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24. For more information, visit: The Trevor Project.
THE STORIES: (links go to
samples and author biographies)
Volume One
Volume Two
Video trailers
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