Bittersweet Holiday Memories #candyandcookies #memories #giveaway

The Holidays are hectic trying to shop for everyone one else, so myself and several other authors decided to get together and help make your Holiday brighter! To celebrate this festive season, I am bringing you several fabulous authors that are going to share how they celebrate and maybe a treat and decoration. We are also having a huge giveaway. One Lucky winner will get a Kindle fire 7 and some gift cards to help fill it. Then each author is offering an ebook as individual gifts! So not only one winner but lots! Read to the end to see how!

So grab a cuppa your favorite beverage and settle in your favorite spot with a warm throw and enjoy!

Cat: Today our guest is Mary Kit Caelsto.  Hello, Mary.  Are you ready for Christmas?

Mary:   Christmas for me has become a bittersweet holiday, so on one hand, though I’ve sent cards and don’t plan to decorate, I can say that I’m ready. On the other, I’m never ready. Nearly fifteen years ago I lost my father to cancer over the holiday season. The past couple of years, the holiday has gotten more meaningful and difficult.

My mother loved Christmas. It was her favorite holiday wrapped up in baking and family and gifting. She loved giving presents and cooking a big meal, not to mention making fudge, cookies, and candy, kept her busy throughout the entire month of December.

Mom passed away in October 2018. (I talk about this in my book Chronically Disabled: A Mother/Daughter Memoir of Life & Death in Rural Medicine.) Going through her belongings, I found more Christmas decorations than any one house could use and sold most of them. However, I kept her plastercraft Santas and Mrs. Santas that she painted back in the early 80’s. They always were a happy memory, sitting on either side of our Christmas tree. I haven’t quite had the heart to get those Santas out yet, but I know they’re there. And I do plan on making some candy. I also bake cookies to send to friends and family since we’re all in the “don’t need anything else/trying to downsize” stage.

I use mom’s cookie cutters. This year I’ll be using grandma’s since she gave them to me. I use her recipes, such as melting chocolate almond bark and mixing in chow mein noodles to make “haystacks” candy or using white chocolate almond bark and fruit loops. I know they sound weird, but they’re delicious!

And there was one other special thing I found when going through mom’s belongings. She’d always wanted to be a writer and she really supported and encouraged my books. She told everyone her daughter was a published author. I found the start of a story. A very typical “mom” story, because she loved Hallmark movies with all the sentimentality the season could bring. She also loved cowboys and often watched old westerns. In this story, a woman found a paint horse at an auction. Mom loved paint horses. Well, I had to finish it, and dedicated it to her.

This story originally appeared in an anthology for kidney disease, which she died from in conjunction with other illnesses. But now, I’ve released it, and am happy to offer it to my readers.

Title: Shiloh’s Second Chance

Author: Mary Kit Caelsto

Publisher: Charmed Chicken Media

Genre: Western romance

Heat Rating: sweet

Pages short story

Cover Artist My Author Home

Blurb Rebecca Brown finds a paint gelding at an auction and brings him home in spite of the warnings of Dusty Chandlers, a cowboy with a past. But when Rebecca forges a connection with the horse, Dusty’s admiration for her grows, and it seems there are enough second chances to go around. Or so she hopes.

Buy Link:  https://www.amazon.com/Shilohs-Second-Chance-cowboy-romance-ebook/dp/B07YCV579H/

Meet Mary Kit Caelsto:

Mary Kit Caelsto never grew out of the phase of being a “horse crazy girl”. Though she’s now over 40, she’s finally fulfilling her dream of writing equestrian books for others who haven’t grown out of being “horse crazy”. She lives in the Ozarks with her four very spoiled and very opinionated horses, as well as a large flock of poultry and enough cats to qualify her as a crazy cat lady. Her husband, though not an equestrian himself, understands and supports all her equestrian dreams.

She’s convinced three of the best things in the world are the smell of a sun warmed horse, the smell of leather tack, and making sure to hug her horses every single day.

To help you have a happy Holiday season we are having a huge giveaway! Prizes listed below.

Mary is giving a copy of Shiloh’s Second Chance to one lucky winner

Rafflecopter