{"id":1118,"date":"2010-07-24T00:01:22","date_gmt":"2010-07-24T07:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2010-07-22T07:52:33","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T14:52:33","slug":"the-holidays%e2%80%94love-%e2%80%98em-or-hate-%e2%80%98em","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/the-holidays%e2%80%94love-%e2%80%98em-or-hate-%e2%80%98em\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holidays\u2014Love \u2018em or hate \u2018em? by Cassandra Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, July!\u00a0 Here in Missouri, it’s hot, sticky, and unpleasant.\u00a0 Lately, it’s been either thunderstorms or high 90s with crazy humidity.\u00a0 What better time to turn my thoughts to a cooler time of year.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, I adored Christmas.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t wait for December to roll around, and once it did, I\u2019d count the days until Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Then I\u2019d set out milk and cookies (or pie) and hope Santa brought me good presents.\u00a0 Christmas Day was spent in a happy haze of candy, presents, dinner, and family.<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019m an adult, I\u2019ve become a major Grinch.\u00a0 I hate the holidays.\u00a0 I dread seeing the decorations pop up at the local Wal-Mart, because I know it\u2019s almost time for frenzied shopping (complete with traffic jams at all the stores), too much food, and forced, prepackaged cheer everywhere I look.\u00a0 I still spend time with family and friends, of course, but I\u2019ve made an effort to ignore the material aspects of the holiday and focus on the rest of it.<\/p>\n

\"funny-pictures-merry-freakin-christmas-cat\"<\/p>\n

The thing is, despite my dislike of the holiday season in general, I look forward to holiday books.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care if the story features Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, or New Year\u2019s Eve, they\u2019re all good.\u00a0 In a book, I can recapture that feeling of holiday spirit, the joy and magic of Santa and flying reindeer and happy families.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing like the ending of a great holiday romance to restore my good cheer.<\/p>\n

What about you all?\u00a0 Do you love the holidays, or hate them?\u00a0 Do you read holiday romances?\u00a0 If so, what kind do you like best?<\/p>\n

Cassandra\u2019s Bio:\u00a0 By day, Cassandra is a (relatively) mild\u2010mannered middle school teacher. At night, she lets the characters in her head out to play as she writes erotic romance. Unfortunately for her husband, neither of Cassandra\u02b9s personas enjoys doing housework.\u00a0 Find out more at www.cassandragold.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Fantasies:

Fantasies: Christmas cover<\/p><\/div>\n

Fantasies: Christmas by Cassandra Gold<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Hastings is having a bad week. All he wants to do is buy a six-pack and spend an evening moping. Instead, he wins a weeklong trip to Hawaii, thanks to a young man at the liquor store.<\/p>\n

Tattoo and piercing artist Travis Barton is surprised when the cute guy he helped out wins a trip and invites him to come along. Still, he\u2019s not about to pass up a free trip to Hawaii. Despite how different he and James are, they find themselves drawn to each other.<\/p>\n

Travis\u2019s idea of a no-strings fling goes against James\u2019s nature, but it might turn out to be just what he needs\u2026<\/p>\n

Buy it at: http:\/\/redrosepublishing.com\/books\/product_info.php?cPath=2_14&products_id=85<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, July!\u00a0 Here in Missouri, it’s hot, sticky, and unpleasant.\u00a0 Lately, it’s been either thunderstorms or high 90s with crazy humidity.\u00a0 What better time to turn my thoughts to a cooler time of year.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 When I was a kid, I adored Christmas.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t wait for December to roll around, and once it did, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52],"tags":[151,171,173,174,27],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event","tag-cassandra-gold","tag-christmas-in-july","tag-fantasies-christmas","tag-grinch","tag-holidays"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pzLgx-i2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}