The Eighteen Days of Christmas

2015-12-01 13.06.10

On the fourteenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me – Mall Santa Castles

OverCastle

Once the Halloween candy is finished and all thoughts look towards Christmas (at least in Canada…the States have an extra holiday thrown in between), construction starts at almost every mall in the country. Because of course, every Santa needs his Santa castle.

Asher has three homes. Where he sleeps, where he serves coffee, and where he helps children deliver their Christmas wishes to Santa. Santa’s castle is his home away from home during the holiday season, and it is at Santa’s castle that Candy Canes & Coffee Beans begins…

“Oh. My. God.”

“Told ya,” I said smugly. Lulu never believes me. She maintains that I tend to be a just a wee bit dramatic in my descriptions. Witch. It’s a good thing she’s my best friend.

“It really is…” her head nodded as she attempted to finish her sentence.

“A giant candy cane breast pump,” I finished for her. She really should have believed me.

 

BoobPump

Behold…the candy cane breast pump. It is real, and it lives at our local mall. Now, had it been just a giant candy cane gumball-like machine as the bottom of the contraption seems to be, I could completely be on board with that. But someone thought it needed a funnel on the top. The addition of said funnel turns this festive decoration into something many mothers are very familiar with during the first year of their babies’ lives. And it’s been there for at least four years.

Being able to add real world madness into stories is one of the great things about writing. When I began Candy Canes, I was having a hard time with the hook – that perfect beginning that grabs the reader’s attention. For days I wrote and deleted words, not finding any combination that was just right. Then I remembered the festive breast pump. And the hook was found.

As I wrote in an earlier post, sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up.

Until tomorrow all!

Saxon

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