today’s book: Christmas Tree Wars
Happy Friday! We are continuing our annual blog series spotlighting (over 60 this year) new and recently-released Christmas reads! Christmas is only 15 days away, so… snuggle in, grab your fave hot beverage and comfiest blanket, turn on some Christmas tunes and continue your bookish Christmas list! Oh… and did I mention there are GIVEAWAYS with EACH POST in this series??!! (Because authors are awesome!)
Today’s featured book is a Christmas romance set in the ’60s, and I’m chatting with author Delores Topliff about Christmas!
CHRISTMAS TREE WARS by Delores Topliff
GENRE: Inspirational Historical Romance
PUBLISHER: Scrivenings Press LLC
RELEASE DATE: October 5, 2021
PAGES: 199
affiliate links used
Also available to read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited
Q: Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Delores: Definitely Egg Nog. That’s something we used to have homemade and foamy with nutmeg sprinkles just at Christmas, so it brings back special good memories.
Carrie: we always did nutmeg sprinkles on our egg nog too – but ours came from a carton lol
Q: Candy Canes or Fudge?
Delores: I love seeing Candy Canes dangling on branches but prefer the taste of fudge—but could it be vanilla almond bark? I love its snowdrift appearance and fabulous flavor.
Carrie: I’ll allow it 😉
Q: Fancy wrapping paper or Find the gift bags from last year?
Delores: I just peeked in my closet and saw some of each. It’s lovely receiving gifts in fancy paper and ribbons but my writing/teaching/living schedule is such a juggling act, I’ll probably recycle my best gift bags from last year and hope to do better next time 😊
Carrie: haha a woman after my own heart!
Q: Open gifts Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
Delores: Definitely early Christmas morning with the tradition of our Christmas socks holding Peeled sliced boiled eggs
Carrie: ok wait….EGGS in your Christmas sock?!? We need to talk about this some more lol
Q: Tell us something you love most about Christmas!
Delores: The tenderness of people’s hearts when they slow down to celebrate our Savior’s birth, enjoy and create gorgeous Christmas music, and family times with special foods, when we make a point of taking more time with each other.
Carrie: yes! me too
Q: What is your favorite Christmas song or carol & how does it put you in the Christmas spirit?
Delores: It’s a hard choice between the timeless beautiful melody of “What Child is This” to the tune of “Greensleeves” AND the profound beauty and meaning of “Mary, Did You Know?”
Carrie: ooo i love those too!
Q: When you are decorating your own Christmas tree, what are your top 3 favorite ornaments to include?
Delores: Any kind of hand-blown glass ornament, I’m all about hand-blown glass in different shapes, colors, and swirls of color combinations. I also love folded paper Moravian stars dipped in wax with added glitter sprinkles. Years ago I had a gifted student who knew how to make them. I’d give anything to have several now. And of course, there has to be a fairly large star on the top of the tree. I don’t care if it’s silver or gold, either is fine, although silver like moonlight shining on snow might be best.
Carrie: i bet your tree is gorgeous!
Q: How were you inspired to write Christmas Tree Wars?
Delores: I know the exact time and place the story arrived gift-wrapped one Sunday morning as I drove a different Minnesota farm road to church and saw something unusual. A row of tall, stately evergreen trees lined one side of the road. On the other side, a lone evergreen bordered a hayfield. I instantly knew the owner of the row of trees would provide a prize evergreen for a national contest but instead of using one of his trees, he would cut his neighbor’s only tree and gave that, much like the O.T. prophet Nathan told King David about the wealthy man stealing a poor man’s only beloved ewe sheep.
Details change while writing any story, but I’m forever grateful for how this fun scenario entered my heart. I’ve driven that same stretch of road other times since to see if it will happen again. So far it hasn’t. I’m teasing here, but I’ll probably keep trying and explore new roads, too.
Carrie: i love that!
Q: What is one of your favorite quotes from Christmas Tree Wars and why do you love it?
Delores: When Marcie discovers the carved heart on the “winning” tree with her and Kris’s initials inside, she knows there’s been a terrible mistake. Or has someone made a supremely gracious gesture? She brushes her hand over the winning tree’s bark and tells her Uncle Halvor,
“See ? All these years later, the hearts and initials are still there. Someone tagged the wrong tree….
“I’m so sorry. I know your heart was set on winning, but there’s only one thing to do. Switch tags before anyone sees.”
I love Marcie and Kris’s mutual love for each other, that as much as each desires and needs to win, they sacrifice for each other. To me that captures and conveys the heart of the Christmas season.
Delores Topliff did years of college teaching, traveling, and writing before writing Christian novels. She continues teaching university online dividing her year between snow-bird homes on a farm in central Minnesota and balmier winter temperatures in Northeastern Mississippi where she loves the people and accents. She also loves the magnolia, pear, peach, and bougainvillea trees in her yard there. She brags about her two fine doctor sons and five delightful grandchildren.
Most reviewers awarded her WWII novel, Books Afloat, five-stars and praised its characters and adventures. She’s writing two more books in that series. Meanwhile, Scrivenings Press will release her next book, Wilderness Wife, a North American Frontier Historical in spring, 2022.
Christmas Tree Wars and Books Afloat are available on Amazon and other sites to order in print or Kindle e-Book.
Visit Delores’s website delorestopliff.com to consider her published children’s books and other publications and sign up for her blog posts on every 2nd Tuesday.
Connect with her on Facebook at Delores Topliff Books.
Delores Topliff is offering an ebook copy of Christmas Tree Wars to one of my readers! (Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.
What about you? What makes you want to read Christmas Tree Wars by Delores Topliff? What do YOU love most about Christmas?
I was born & raised in MN, and love to read stories that happen there! Also, the Bible example of one man having several, and another one, AND, what happens!? (Excellent teaser for readers!)
This book sounds so fun, I would love to read it. Thank you for the giveaway.
Sounds like a fun read!
festive cover
I love Christmas stories.
Love this cover <3