How I turned Scrooge into a Sexy Hunk in ‘A Naughty Christmas Carol’ by Jina Bacarr
December 11, 2024 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Christmas, Christmas eve, holiday, novella, Scrooge
I’ve always loved the Dickens’ holiday classic about Scrooge and his scratchy quill pen. But what if Scrooge worked on Wall Street and used a smartphone?
Sounds good. I set my fingers to tapping on my keyboard. I know the story by heart, including Scrooge complaining about giving his clerk the day off on Christmas and sending the poor to workhouses.
But we live in a social media world with Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. I had to update the story. And I wanted my Scrooge to be a sexy hunk. So I let my imagination run wild.
Imagine you’re rushing around doing last minute Christmas shopping and you run smack into the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen. Tall, broad shoulders, muscular chest filling out a well-cut $5,000 suit. Silky pin-striped tie, platinum cuff links. His deep blue eyes casting bold glances your way your mama would never approve of. But you do.
Oh, my.
‘Do you work around here?’ you ask casually, loving the way he smells just like in the commercial when he leans over to see if you’re okay. You nearly faint when you get a whiff of his aristocratic masculine scent. Sweet tobacco, musk. Cinnamon. He smells divine.
‘I work on Wall street,’ he says, smiling.
A banker, nice.
‘It’s hard to get an Uber this time of day,’ he says, so he sends you home in his limo.
You can’t believe your luck. Is he one of those sexy billionaires you’ve been reading about? You bet. You’re hooked. A Christmas present in your silk stocking and it’s only Christmas Eve. He gives you his business card and invites you to have holiday brunch with him in his penthouse.
You’re beside yourself with glee, humming a jingly tune.
Then you read his card.
Ebenezer Scrooge.
No, no, no…
I hit the Delete button.
It ain’t gonna work.
No matter how handsome, how sexy, how rich, who’s going to fall in love with a guy named Ebenezer? It’s obvious Dickens’ curmudgeon with his ill-fitting suit and stovepipe hat isn’t cover model material. No way would you want him catching you under the mistletoe.
Therein lies the rub: How to make my Scrooge sexy? And stay true to the Dickens’ classic? A timeless story of the hero seeing the error of his ways. That’s what we love about the story, watching him change. I wanted to take that idea a step further and write about an alpha male gone wrong who finds his way home through the love of a beautiful woman.
First, Scrooge needed a new name.
Nick Radnor.
Then I had to make the other characters sexy as well. What if his faithful clerk, Mr. Cratchit, was a gorgeous blonde secretary named Jinger?
I decided my modern Scrooge would also have a beautiful fiancée named Monique:
Nick frequents Mamie’s, a gentleman’s club in the financial district and Marley the Ghost became Nick’s business partner, Charlie Harris, who died in the arms of a beautiful woman at Mamie’s.
And we can’t forget the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future: three sexy female spirits with great bods and killer wardrobes. Not to mention magical powers.
Once I had my cast of characters (I have a Tiny Tim character, too), now what?
I wanted to stay true to the Dickens’ classic, so I opened the story on Christmas Eve in Nick’s office. It’s late and Nick is working overtime when Jinger asks him about a promotion. Not this year, Nick says.
Nick is a heartless one-percenter. Just like Scrooge. I had to find out why Nick is so cold-hearted. It goes back to Christmas Eve when he was a kid and his corporate raider father gave him coal in his stocking every year. That’s why Nick hates Christmas. He’s turned cold and heartless but he’s about to find out where that path is taking him when he convinces Mamie to open up her club for him late on Christmas Eve.
The old gal adores Nick, and not just his generous tips. Mamie sees something in him no one else does: he’s a lost little boy. She also knows Nick is still grieving over the sudden death of his business partner Charlie last Christmas Eve.
When Charlie’s ghost shows up after a night of wild drinking and womanizing, we’re off and running. The three ghosts make their appearance just like in the classic story and we discover Nick wasn’t always a greedy businessman. These three sexy babes take Nick on a whirlwind tour of his past, present, and future with each episode tied to his beautiful fiancée, Monique.
Monique is the anchor in my story. She never stops believing in her man, no matter what. It’s through her eyes that we fall in love with Nick, hoping he wakes up before it’s too late and he loses everything.
Including her.
A Naughty Christmas Carol is the story of a modern day Scrooge with three sexy female ghosts trying to save the soul of a Wall Street trader on Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
~Jina
A Christmas Novella for 99 cents:
Amazon Kindle https://a.co/d/inSjIhf
Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/99354
Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-naughty-christmas-carol
Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-naughty-christmas-carol/id480420054
Top Ten Popular Holiday Toys from the 1960s
December 3, 2023 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as 1960s Research, 1960s Toys, Christmas, working writers
I thought it would be fun to look back at the popular toys given for the holidays during the 1960s. This research brought back a flood of memories as both receiving them for gifts and buying them for the younger ones in my family. Hope you enjoy this walk down memory lane, also.
1. Army Men, or plastic soldiers of unbreakable plastic commonly molded in olive green. In the early 1950s Louis Marx and Company sold bagged or boxed sets of plastic military figures and accessories called play sets. Dressed in modern military uniforms and armed with WWII weapons, these army men were sold at low prices in discount stores and supermarkets.
Note: The makers of the green army men announced that army women would be sold in 2020. Gummy army men candy is now also available.
2. Die-cast metal toys High quality collectible, metal toys were produced using the die casting method, i.e. putting molten lead or zinc alloy in a mold to make a particular shape. Such toys are made of metal, with some parts made of plastic, rubber, or glass.
Dinky Toys was the brand name for a range of diecast, zinc alloy miniature vehicles produced by Meccano Ltd. They were made in England from 1934 to 1979, at a factory in Binns Road in Liverpool.
3. Barbie Doll spin-offs Mattel introduced Skipper Roberts in 1964 as Barbie’s younger sister. It made quite a splash in the Barbie doll world. More “friends” were introduced as the years went on.
4. Hamilton’s Invaders by Remco was a 1964 series of plastic toys modeled after giant insect type monsters, toy soldiers and vehicles. The line was marketed on television during the early 1960s.
4. Hamilton’s Invaders by Remco was a 1964 series of plastic toys modeled after giant insect type monsters, toy soldiers and vehicles. The line was marketed on television during the early 1960s.
6. The Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven introduced by Kenner Products in 1963, and later marketed by Hasbro. The original toy used a pair of ordinary incandescent light bulbs as a heat source. Kenner sold 500,000 Easy-Bake Ovens in the first year of production.
7. G.I. Joe is produced by Hasbro in 1963. Initially the figurines represented the four branches of the U.S. armed forces and later on, the Action Nurse. Their marketing focused on the term “action figures” vs “doll” because boys did not play with dolls. Thus, the word “doll” was never used by Hasbro or anyone involved in the development or marketing of G.I. Joe “Action Figures.”
8. By 1964, sales of Batman Merchandise had fallen drastically. Editor Julius Schwartz was assigned to the Batman titles. He presided over drastic changes, which was a “New Look”. Schwartz introduced changes designed to make Batman more contemporary. The Batmobile was redesigned, and Batman’s costume was modified to incorporate a yellow ellipse behind the bat-insignia. More slight modifications followed when the Batman television show debuted in 1966.
9. Kiddles were small dolls originally produced by Mattel. They were introduced at the1966 New York Toy Fair and put on the market soon after. At only three inches tall, they were tiny by conventional doll standards. The sensation they created in the toy world caused other toy companies to produce their own tiny dolls.
10.Disneyland Plastic figurines of Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck were only available at Disneyland theme park until the advent of Disney World and the Disney mall stores in 1987.
What toys do you remember from the 1960s?
Books by Janet and Will
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Happy Hallothanksgivingmas by D. T. Krippene
November 13, 2021 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group tagged as Christmas, DT Krippene, Hallothanksgivingmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Traditions
In case you missed it, Halloween was the starting gun for blubber season. Nothing like ingesting bags of candy to get things rolling. If you were diet-conscious, bars of hyperactive-inducing sugar were available in “mini” sizes – an oxymoron if ever there was. Local stores stocked shelves in August, but those who waited until the first of October to purchase might have been disappointed. Space was needed to make room for Christmas decorations.
What happened to Thanksgiving? People already have their Christmas trees up before the turkey is bought. When did it become the norm to play holiday music before we’ve had a chance to scrape egg off the front door because we left the lights off on Halloween? I feel as if all three holidays have been smooshed together, with Thanksgiving wedged between the others as a wannabe.
Thanksgiving is the day we’re expected to watch a New York City parade with inane commentary and vintage cartoon characters nobody remembers. We see relatives that hadn’t graced our door for a year, then remember later why. It’s a sacred celebration where the arrangement of food on an individual plate becomes a science, and we gorge like our prehistoric forbearers when they felled a mammoth. Would you like leg meat or trunk?
Food offerings are as varied and quirky as our relatives. What is left on the plate when finished, like Aunt Mildred’s cranberry-scrapple gelatin mold, returns every year so everyone can hate it all over again. The meal is often mid-day, to allow for slumbering digestion to the spa-like sounds of slamming athletic helmets on TV, followed by an encore visit to the kitchen. Always lots of cranberry-scrapple gelatin left.
I put some of the blame on conscientious health fanatics who chagrin our tendency for culinary excess. We live in a time of Paleo diets and CrossFit training. Paleo is defined as what our prehistoric ancestors foraged before animal husbandry and agriculture, which to me, suggests anything that moved was fair game. CrossFit is defined as a conditioning program that employs “constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity across broad modal and time domains.” I’ve always thought of the annual gorge as a high-intensity workout, but since it doesn’t occur across broad time and modal domains, I’m guessing it doesn’t count.
Maybe what we need is a different kind of Thanksgiving event that appeals to people like me whose exercise regimen consists of rolling out of bed. Let’s call it the Blubber Trot. Participants hop about with flabs of steel barely contained by Kevlar reinforced spandex. The first hundred finishers get to be first in line at the communal Horn-of-Plenty table. Those who don’t finish have to watch Hunger Games without popcorn. Paying spectators will be allowed to wander the leftover carnage and ask, “Are you going to eat that?”
As always, I’ll be flexing my Thanksgiving consumption with extreme prejudice. Once I’m done filling my gastrointestinal cistern with enough calories to heat a small city, I’ll need a solid concrete cap on that toxic well. I’m going for the pumpkin cheesecake.
Hats off to the intrepid writers immersed in NaNoWriMo. I hope your hard-working efforts don’t result in a take-out Thanksgiving meal or relegated to turkey sandwiches with a side order of cranberry sauce that retains the shape of the can it came in.
Happy Hallothanksgivingmas to one and all.
Anthologies with D. T. Krippene’s Stories
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
December 20, 2020 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm tagged as Christmas, holidays, Meriam Wilhelm
Books by Meriam Wilhelm
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Christmas Memories… and how they become the stories we love to write by Jina Bacarr
December 11, 2020 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat tagged as Christmas, historical fiction, Itaaly, Memories, women's fiction, World War 2, writing
Ah, the magic of Christmases past… even those we want to forget…
Like spending an hour hanging up Christmas tree lights that don’t work when you plug them in.
Or imbibing in two much spicy eggnog at the office party while wearing a tipsy Santa hat… and then seeing your grinning face splashed all over social media.
Or digging through your closet for your favorite red Christmas dress to impress the new man in your life and you find out it doesn’t fit anymore.
Not our best holiday memories and ones we’d rather forget. But what about the holiday moments that make our eyes misty no matter how many years go by?
Memories of Christmases past race through our heads like sugar plum fairies on a triathlon this time of year… for me, I’ve turned three of them into Christmas stories that turn back the clock.
————
https://youtu.be/WAjhrPtTt10
When I was stationed in Livorno, Italy, I worked in the US Army Service Club and every Christmas we hosted an event for the soldiers with the nuns and little boys from the local orphanage. I never forgot how the soldiers and little Italian boys had such a great time even though they didn’t speak the same language… except they did.
The spirit of Christmas.
I wanted to capture that lovely day in a story about a US Army captain in Italy during World War 2 who gets lost on the road to Rome right before Christmas Eve. He ends up helping out a beautiful nun and her charge of little boys and saves them from the Nazis.
If you like WW 2 romance, check out my holiday novella that takes place on Christmas Eve during the cold winter of 1943: A Soldier’s Italian Christmas.
December 1943 Italy
He is a US Army captain, a battle-weary soldier who has lost his faith.
She is a nun, her life dedicated to God.
Together they are going to commit an act the civilized world will not tolerate.
They are about to fall in love.
—————–
I was only six years old when I attended a strict parochial school behind a big iron gate in Philadelphia… at Christmastime, the nuns took us to see Santa Claus at Wanamaker’s department store, but we had to pass by the ‘poor house’ – an old limestone building with broken windows and no trees. Lost souls squatting. We gave them packages of food and the sisters told us kids we’d end up there if we didn’t learn our Catechism lessons.
It scared the heck out of me.
Years later when I saw ‘A Christmas Carol’ on TV and got a glimpse of Scrooge threatening to send the hungry and poor to a workhouse, I remember the nun’s warning.
I wanted to write my own version of Scrooge, but I fantasized him more like a tortured, romantic hero, so I created Nick Radnor… handsome, brilliant… and with a smartphone.
Meet him in ‘A Naughty Christmas Carol.’
And one so close to my heart…
I grew up hearing my dad’s stories about how he met my mom during the war… the red coat she wore when she saw him off at the train station… the letters they wrote to each other. The strong feelings of hope and love that kept everybody’s spirits up till the soldiers came home.
When I wrote Christmas Once Again about a woman who goes back in time to save the man she loves, I drew upon those memories, especially for my heroine’s mother. Kate’s strong bond with Ma, her need to see her again (she lost her mother before the book opens), also reflects my desire to see my mom.
My mother passed away a few days before Christmas many years ago…
So, when I talk about Christmas Once Again, you’ll understand the joy and poignant feelings racing through me when I wrote those scenes when my heroine reconnects with her mother once again… if only for a little while.
———
What are your most emotional Christmas memories?
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
Jina
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