Guest Blogger Joey Hill Spreads Goodwill

Joey Hill is today's Winter Wonderland Week Guest Blogger. She is running a tremendous contest for one lucky winner who'll receive a $50 donation to the charity of their choice and an autographed copy of one of her books. Read below for details, and thanks to Joey for truly spreading the Christmas spirit! THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED. CONGRATS TO ALLISION!

(Look in the post below for the winner of yesterday's contest!)

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Love and Sacrifice – The Christmas Message

Does anyone remember The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell, written in the 1940’s? It’s a beautiful Christmas story about a little boy who has a hard time fitting into Heaven. His halo stays tarnished, he’s late for heavenly choir, etc. Eventually, he’s called before one of the head angels to figure out what the problem is. And he confides to the unexpectedly understanding angel that he’s homesick. “Oh, not that Paradise wasn't beautiful! But the Earth was beautiful, too! Wasn't it created by God, Himself? Why, there were trees to climb, and brooks to fish, and caves to play at pirate chief, the swimming hole, and sun, and rain, and dark, and dawn, and thick brown dust, so soft and warm beneath your feet!”

In the end, the littlest angel is brought a box that he’d had under his bed as a human boy, to help him feel better about being in Heaven. And when the momentous occasion of the Christ child’s birth comes about, he decides to give his treasured box to the new infant as a gift. The contents of the box? “Well, there was a butterfly with golden wings, captured one bright summer day on the high hills above Jerusalem, and a sky-blue egg from a bird's nest in the olive tree that stood to shade his mother's kitchen door. Yes, and two white stones, found on a muddy river bank, where he and his friends had played like small brown beavers, and, at the bottom of the box, a limp, tooth-marked leather strap, once worn as a collar by his mongrel dog, who had died as he had lived, in absolute love and infinite devotion.”

God is so pleased by the littlest angel’s gift, the box is placed in the sky as the guiding star that brings the shepherds and wise men to Bethlehem.

It’s amazing how stories we read as children can come back to us as authors. My latest, A Witch’s Beauty (January release), features an angel named David as my hero. David is thirty, which is practically an embryo to the other angels, particularly considering he’s human born, rather than divinely born as most angels are. He came to Heaven as a 14 year old suicide, and at the age of 30 he has a serious and surprising core of steadiness to him that has earned him the respect of the others. He also has a lethal ability with daggers he employs as part of the Dark Legion, the angels who fight the enemies of the Goddess.

One of the first scenes that drew me into David’s mind was this recollection: When he was six years old, David remembered reading The Littlest Angel, the tale of the young angel who longed to be a human boy. He didn’t miss it, really. Not the way that poignant little angel had. The last eight years of his human life had been a taste of hell that eradicated much of the pleasure of the first six. But being the youngest of the Dark Legion and a made angel, he sometimes longed for the familiar, something that was a true part both of who he’d been and who he was now. Something to tie those two things together and fill the emptiness that still existed in the lingering part of his human soul.

But it’s those two parts of him that help him connect with the dark and complicated seawitch Mina. He’s inexplicably drawn to the female who is part Dark One and part mermaid, and whose powers as a witch are as yet unknown. He’s assigned not only to keep her safe from Dark Ones, but to be her executioner if she can’t resist the dark blood within her. And of course this sets up one of those wonderful stories where both characters end up making terrible sacrifices to honor the love that grows between them.

Unconditional love, sacrifice and connecting with one another. At Christmas more than any other time, we seem to understand and long for that feeling, to the point, as Bill Murray said, “it’s the time of year we’re a little nicer, etc”. Since the search for connection is the primary focus of a love story, and unconditional love is a central theme of BOTH Christmas and love stories in all forms, it makes me all the more delighted to be a romance author at this time of year.. On that note, I’d have to say that The Littlest Angel is probably my favorite Christmas love story. A close second? The Christmas special Nestor, the Long-Eared Donkey. Oh yeah, every time Nestor’s mother gives her life to keep Nestor warm, I bawl. Geez, I’m doing it now, just typing it. Even though we all know love is in the little things we do for each other every day – making a conscious decision to give a kind word instead of an irritated snap, helping someone in a way that might seem small, but really sends the vital message that “you’re not alone” – I think many of us are suckers for the stories of ultimate sacrifice. I also think these types of Christmas stories have a way of inspiring us to do more of the little things to cherish our loved ones and those who need extra offerings of love and kindness.

So tell me the title of your favorite Christmas love story, or how Christmas inspires you to be a more loving person at this time of the year. And in a change of pace, because it’s Christmas time, I’m going to draw a random name from those who post comments, and the prize will be a $50 donation to the charity of your choice, as well as one of my signed books, also your choice. So if you don’t mind, briefly mention your charity with your comment. It might give us new charities to add to our own giving lists! [I’ll post the winner in the comments section of this blog post sometime on Friday, Dec 19.]

A very blessed Christmas, Yule and Solstice season to you all.