Once upon a Christmastime, I had a fun experience with the Oprah Show that has remained a fond memory… even if it took a different path than the show planned…
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‘Ring… ring… ’
I was halfway out the door when the telephone rang. I slammed to a halt, clutching my car keys, my purse slung over my shoulder. Who could be calling me this early in the morning?
It was 8 a.m.
I was running late for a meeting and the last thing I needed was another telemarketer trying to sell me carpet cleaning for Christmas.
Then it hit me. I remembered the Christmas tradition story I wrote about my mom and her old piano and sent to the Oprah Show.
I swallowed hard. It was 10 a.m. in Chicago. Oprah Time.
I grabbed the phone and mumbled a breathless, ‘Hello… ’
‘Hi, this is the Oprah Show calling.’
‘Did you say Oprah?’ I gulped, my heart pounding like a million elves working overtime.
“Do you have time to talk?” the producer asked, hopeful.
I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, sure… no problem.’
Wait till I tell my boss why I’m late today.
‘Awesome. We received your story about your Christmas tradition… ’
I tossed my purse and car keys onto a chair, my pulse racing out of control. ‘Yes?’
‘We’d like to use it for a segment on our holiday show.’
‘You do?’ I said, my voice squeaking like a little kid seeing Santa Claus.
The producer chuckled. ‘Yes… now here’s what we need from you.’
Knees wobbly, I fumbled in my purse for a pencil while the producer give me instructions on what happened next. Tears misted in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. My Christmas tradition was going to be on Oprah.
I let out a deep sigh. If only my mom could see this, praying somehow she did know.
My mother loved to play the piano, especially at Christmastime. She knew every holiday carol by heart and every year, she’d sit down at our old studio upright piano and take us on a musical trip to Bethlehem or a journey with the Three Wise Men or rock ‘n roll with Jingle Bell Rock.
We lived in the Pennsylvania woods when I was a kid and one Christmas we were snowed in and couldn’t get into town to buy a tree. So my mom decorated our old piano with shiny, silver tinsel and red and blue and green balls with a gold star on top.
After all, a piano is made out of wood, and that wood was once a tree.
So why not a Christmas Piano Tree?
My mother passed away a few days before Christmas many years ago. I didn’t have the heart to trim a tree that year. Then I remembered her Christmas piano tree. I decorated that same old, wonderful studio upright with Christmas ornaments that year and I do so every Christmas since then as a tribute to my mom.
It was an exciting time after the Oprah Show producer called. They asked for photos of my Christmas piano tree, then we taped the segment for my holiday tradition with me reading what I wrote about my mom. The sound crew added holiday music and I got all ready to watch the show when it aired…
But the show ran overtime, so my segment didn’t make the national broadcast. I was devastated, but the Oprah producer promised she’d do something for me.
She did. The next year the Oprah Show ran my old home Christmas movies and used them as part of their promo for their holiday show.
So here’s my pretty young mom at Christmastime hanging up Christmas stockings.
Awesome…
When I wanted to write a Christmas time travel story, I thought about how much I missed my mom every year and those wonderful holidays when I was a kid in Pennsylvania. If only I could go back in time and see her again and tell her how much I loved her…
I dedicated CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN to my mom. It’s the story of the Arden Family during World War 2 on the home front with Kate, the older daughter, as the heroine sending the man she loves off to war in 1943… she never sees him again.
Then years later she has the chance to go back in time and warn him about a secret mission gone wrong in France. Will he believe her?
All she wants for Christmas is to save the man she loves…
Christmas Once Again is available at e-tailers everywhere, print, and audio book, too!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Jina
PS – some of my favorite scenes in Christmas Once Again are when Kate reconnects with Ma…and their wonderful moments together.
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CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN is on sale for 99 cents for a limited time!
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Audio US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL6KG3W
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2 0 Read moreIf you love Christmas and romance, you’ll want to add author, Jina Bacarr’s latest book, Christmas Once Again, to your holiday reading list, it’s available TODAY!!
Jina has taken all that is Christmas, and woven it through this tale of love, heartbreak and breathtaking magic to take us back in time. Kate Arden, an accomplished career woman in the 1950’s has never gotten over the loss of her first love in World War II.
Defying the conventions of the 1940’s, Kate, a beautiful young typist from a warm, caring, blue collar family, and Jeffrey Rushbrooke, heir to the Rushbrooke paper mill that supports the economy in the small town of Posey Creek, fall in love, pledging to be together forever.
On the night that they plan to elope, Jeff is called to Washington on a special mission, and Kate never sees him again
By 1955, Kate is an accomplished single, career woman, living in New York. When her younger sister calls and begs her to come home for Christmas, Kate reluctantly gives in dreading the memories of her lost love. She would give anything to be able to go back in time to change history, or at least see Jeff just one more time.
But once on the train, the magic of Christmas and true love take over. Kate finds herself getting off of the train in 1943, one week before Jeff is called to Washington. Going back isn’t as easy as it seems. While she looks like the 19-year-old girl that all of the people in her life knew, inside she’s a more mature and independent young woman, and she knows what the future holds for those around her.
Can two young lovers reach across time to be together again? Is the magic of Christmas strong enough to change history?
Christmas Once Again is the perfect mix of romance and Christmas past, and a great start to the current holiday season. If you’re looking for that Norman Rockwell Christmas with a little bit of Miracle on 34th Street. Look no further. You’ll find it here!
And to watch the book trailer:
A Soldier’s Italian Christmas: Excerpt from Chapter One from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.
A web debut: I just finished this video trailer for my holiday novella. I’m debuting it here!!
“A Soldier’s Italian Christmasâ€
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If your Christmas reading is on the spicier side (as in erotic), check out A Naughty Christmas Carol about a modern day Scrooge named Nick Radnor. A New York Wall Street hottie who has it all…except the woman he loves.
What if Scrooge was a sexy hunk?
I couldn’t resist writing about this modern day Scrooge in my holiday novella, A Naughty Christmas Carol.
Three sexy female ghosts try to save the soul of a Wall Street trader on this naughty Christmas Eve.
Nick Radnor is a Wall Street trader with no heart.
Money is his mistress.
That doesn’t stop him from having sex in his office on Christmas Eve with his secretary, Jinger Hunt.
Or keeping his beautiful fiancée, Monique Ashford, dangling on a string. He’s relentless in his pursuit of wealth and power. Wall Street is in his blood, along with the thrill of risking it all, but he can’t forget the painful memories of Christmas when he was a kid.
Nick works hard, but plays harder in a gentlemen’s club called Mamie’s. After a wild Christmas Eve at Mamie’s, Nick is in a drunken stupor when he hears the eerie sound of rattling chains proclaiming the arrival of the tormented ghost of Charlie Harris, his dead partner.
The last thing Nick needs is Charlie’s ghost telling him he is doomed to walk the earth for eternity, chained by his sins.
What’s even more disturbing to Nick is the arrival of three sexy female ghosts, who warn him that if he doesn’t change his ways he will lose it all, including Monique, the woman he loves.
On this naughty Christmas Eve, Nick will learn the terrifying full scope of where his life is headed because of his corporate greed. In a peek into the future that will shatter his every expectation, Nick realizes the choices he makes now will have deadly consequences for everyone he loves.
Check out A Naughty Christmas Carol on Amazon Kindle.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
Jina
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