Advent Calendar 5th December.
This
holiday advice column is brought to you by Monica Jackson, the heroine in Eliza
Watson’s romantic comedy, Under Her Spell. Monica is a fun, quirky, and creative
character with an often unique outlook on life.
Fake It, Don’t Bake It or Make It:
A Busy Girl’s Guide to Surviving the Holidays
Stressed is desserts
spelled backwards. Appropriate, since baking stresses me out and when I’m stressed
I eat massive amounts of chocolate, and gaining weight is stressful. My cousin Hope
makes Martha Stewart look like a total slacker, so I figured she’d be playing domestic
elf this year—baking, cooking, and decorating our townhouse. But her no-good cheating
hubby is giving her a large divorce settlement for Christmas, so she’s
celebrating by popping a champagne cork on a two-week cruise. I can’t skip the
holidays. I love the holidays and this is one of the busiest times for my
romantic event planning company.
If
there’s one thing I’ve learned from my stressful job, it’s that you need to
look like you’ve got it together even when you don’t. I suffered panic attacks
a few months back when Reed, a divorce lawyer, moved in next to my business. It
wasn’t pretty. However, Reed turned out to be good for my stress. A lot of
people experience a high level of stress around the holidays because they are perfectionists
and insist on doing everything themselves. So here are my top time management
ideas and how I’m going to enjoy a perfectly imperfect holiday.
1) The Island of Misfit Cookies. Last year, I bought gingerbread cookie dough for a
holiday party, and then I realized I didn’t own cookie cutters or a rolling
pin. No time to run to the store, I rolled out the dough with a glass and found
a gingerbread cookie cutter online and printed it out. Half of the cookies
ended up with frowning faces and I even decapitated a few. So this year I asked
Hope to make my cookies before she starts sailing the high seas. Hope owns a
cake decorating business and her cookies are a work of art. I can’t pass off
perfect cookies as my own, so she made me some skinny Santa cookies with
fuchsia colored suits, one-eyed gingerbread men, and reindeer without antlers. Hope’s
misfit cookies business is taking off. However, she has to be discreet or her
secret will be out and she’ll lose her clients.
2) Recruit Elves. I’ve started over twenty businesses. When I was ten
years old, I dressed up as an elf and went around the neighborhood offering my
gift wrapping services. I was an awful wrapper and once mistakenly wrapped a
centerpiece and salt ‘n pepper shakers that were sitting on a client’s table. I
didn’t last more than one season. My wrapping skills haven’t improved and
everyone knows this. So I’m hiring a nine-year-old neighbor girl to wrap my
presents. I’m also having her wrap the pictures on my walls, which will make
festive decorations.
3) Dual-Purpose Cards. Last year my cousin Ellie posted her annual Christmas
brag letter on Facebook and asked everyone to share it with friends and family
who weren’t on Facebook. Rather than being put out that she wanted us to
distribute her letter, we were happy that Ellie wasn’t so perfect after all.
This gave me the idea to do e-cards this year. I e-mailed photo cards of my assistant
and me dressed as somewhat sexy elves and her cute little Shih Tzu dressed as
Santa, standing in front of my business. I posted this photo on Facebook with
our business address and a caption reading We
can help you be a little naughty, or nice, this season with your significant other.
Not sure if it was the cute little dog or our sexy elf outfits, but the promo just
went viral on Facebook. You may have already seen it.
4) Voila—A Holiday Feast. I’ve been watching Hope cook for the past few months
and if there is one thing I’ve learned—the only thing—is that cooking is all
about presentation. Hope and her soon-to-be ex owned a restaurant, so she knows
the secret of haute cuisine is small portions, stacking and garnishes. I’m
going to buy deli turkey with the fixings and reheat the turkey on Christmas
Day in a slow cooker so the aroma fills the air. Then all I have to do is place
a few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes on a plate, top it with a dollop of
stuffing, slap a slice of turkey over it then drizzle with gravy. Garnish the
plate with a few cranberries.
5) Indoor-Outdoor Decorations. We recently had a major snowstorm in Milwaukee. Go
figure. School was cancelled. When I came home from work, some kids who live in
an apartment building without a yard were building a snowman in the dirty snow
plowed up on a curb. I offered them my yard. I asked them to take the snow from
my sidewalk first, so I didn’t have to shovel, and to decorate the snowmen with
red and green attire and to build them in front of my windows, so they could be
enjoyed inside or outside. Of course this only works if you have snow.
***
Which of Monica’s suggestions
do you like the best? What do you do to simplify your holidays?
Book Blurb
When a series of failed
relationships and business ventures have Monica Jackson doubting her
self-worth, she turns to spell casting to attract positive energy and the
opportunities needed to achieve her goals.
But can Monica’s belief in spells restore her belief in herself?
Monica creates a spell to find
her soul mate, and one to ensure the success of her new romantic event planning
company, Enhance Your Romance. Monica is confident she has found her niche
until divorce lawyer Reed Walker opens a practice next door to her office. The anti-marriage slogan plastered on his
office window, and his down-on-love clients, quickly prove detrimental to
Monica’s business. When his arrival
appears to trigger a string of bad luck, Monica fears one of her spells sent
negative energy into the universe and it has returned to her threefold. Although Reed is beyond sexy, and she admires
his self-confidence, she’ll do whatever it takes to get the universe back on
her side, and Reed out of her life. No way is she losing another business.
Reed finds himself attracted to
Monica’s beauty and her optimism. His job and his parents’ divorce have made
him a pessimist, especially when it comes to love. However, he soon finds that
Monica’s pro-love attitude is rubbing off on him, causing him to lose his
edge. If Reed doesn’t distance himself
from Monica, he’ll likely destroy his reputation as a pit bull divorce lawyer.
Can Monica and Reed look past
what they might be losing to realize
the love they have found?
Thanks so much ladies!
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome! Thank you for joining in! <3 xx
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