My REAL Christmas Angel
by Warren A. Shepherd

Children are born believing in magic. The very nature of life is a miracle to them, every new experience casting a rapturous spell of mystery and wonder. Christmas is the epitome of that sweet, innocent outlook — every good intention, every ounce of goodwill and cheer, all the excitement of sharing gifts with treasured loved ones — it all manifests in one beautiful time of year.

I have very fond memories of my childhood Christmases. I’d be lying if I said that a great number of them didn’t revolve around me lying under the tree, eagerly scrutinizing each wrapped present, trying to guess the contents or better yet, hoping the recipient was me! But even at that early age, I knew that the true meaning of the season was not in tangible gifts, but rather in the values epitomized by my very own Christmas angel, the reason for every heartfelt moment, every magic memory — my mum.

We lost Mum earlier this year as she finally succumbed to the double threat of cancer and dementia, and it’s been hard plodding on in a world without that guiding light, that quiet, subtle core of strength and inspiration. For sure, this Christmas is going be a very different one, but I’m comforted by the warm memories of her sacrifices, her love and protection, and her generous spirit.

So how can I pay tribute to the person who’s meant so much to me all my life and always will? Well, through food, of course!

Let’s get one thing straight, my mum was not a great cook, but she did try. My mind still boggles when I think of the variety of meals she used to prepare for us. (In later years she sadly seemed to devolve into surviving on frozen, processed meals for the majority of her sustenance.) But one thing she always took pride in was her Christmas feast. Turkey was a specialty of hers, wrapping the bird in a layer of bacon was a magical wonder to my young eyes – and taste buds! But what really set her meal apart was her Potato Croquettes. They weren’t fancy, and they sometimes weren’t pretty, but they always were a comfort, hitting all the right notes of flavour and indulgence.

So, what do you need to prepare this tasty treat? It’s pretty simple.

• Potatoes (if you’re making your mash fresh, you probably already know that drill. OR use instant mash — stop your laughing and read below!)
• Egg – for binding
• Flour – if you’re using freshly-made mash, you’ll also need this as a binder
• Breadcrumbs — Mum always used plain, but I like to season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and maybe a bit of paprika. You can also use panko crumbs for that extra crunch.
• Butter/Oil or a frying medium of your choice — Mum used to use vegetable oil, but I like to use a mix of butter and Olive Oil.

 
Of course, you start with the mashed potatoes. Let them cool so they’re easier to work with. As I said earlier, you’re going to laugh at this next bit, but true to Mum’s simple, prefab proclivities, she always used instant mashed potatoes. And you know what, they work best — something about already having a binding agent that negates the need to add flour which might make them a bit claggy. (I’ve tried to replicate this dish with real mashed potatoes and no flour, and they’ve always fallen apart.) For extra zing, she’d use the garlic and herb flavoured mash.

Feel free to use your real mashed potato mix, add what every herbs you desire, but remember to add some flour for binding.

Add a beaten egg, also for binding. You don’t want the end result too wet as they need to hold their shape. You be the judge. (I can’t do everything for you.)

Mum always used to shape the croquettes into flattened capsule shapes about 2” by 3”. (Don’t ask me where she came up with that design.) You can make whatever shape catches your fancy, but this is the form that will always remind me of her.

I know some recipes suggest rolling the croquettes in flour and then egg and then the breadcrumbs, but Mum would never have been so cheffy. She went straight for the breadcrumbs, plain and simple. (Feel free to experiment with your own family to weed out the food snobs.)

And then fry away, flipping as necessary to achieve ultimate golden crispy magic.

And that’s it! Guests will be amazed, but if they’re not, you’ll know who not to invite for next year. In the end, it doesn’t matter if your food is perfect, or is restaurant quality, or is even edible. It matters that it was prepared with love, for those you love.

I’m happy to have been able to share only a sliver of what my mum means to me. So, as we all sit around the dining table this Christmas season, take the time to appreciate those in your family/friend circle. We build our lives on the experiences and memories shared with others. Tell them how you feel while you still can, before they’re no longer in your life, and hopefully you can make some new memories with your loved ones this year that will last a lifetime. However you celebrate, enjoy this special time to the fullest and, above all, Merry Christmas!

Sonata’s Snag
by Jen Frankel

Sonata knew exactly who was at the door when she heard the deep bong of the bell. She was tucked up in her bed with the green and crimson covers drawn up to her chin, the velvet tickling her nose in a way that was both comforting and subtly annoying. It was cold in the room, as usual, and the hot chocolate her mother had brought up earlier was losing its halo of steam despite the magic infused to keep it warm.

The rumbly bass of the North Polar Bear followed the bell. “We have visitors!” he called, in his NP bear dialect. Sonata was fluent in seven bear languages thanks to him, but sometimes his accent made it hard to understand him. He once claimed that she just needed to grow more fur in order to understand him properly, something that she found a little insulting since she was thirteen at the time and desperate to start shaving her legs despite her mother’s insistence she wait.

“Once you start shaving, it just comes back bristly like your father’s beard in springtime. We don’t need more than one ouchy bear in the house!”

Visitors was exactly why Sonata wanted to start shaving her legs, and armpits, and the weird white hairs that grew around her earlobes. It didn’t help that her mother liked to twist the latter into curlicues that stood out in stark contrast to her own brown hair. It didn’t even matter that no one but the elves, the reindeer, and the Bear were around to see for most of the year, and none of them would dream of commenting on her appearance. Being the boss’s daughter was generally harmless but mostly irritating, especially since it meant that no one really wanted to interact with her except in the most superficial way.

But during the midsomer nights holiday, it really hurt. Santa liked to bring children up to the workshop when things were at their quietest, show them around, and soak in the adoration. The kids loved it, of course, especially since they were hand-picked from the upcoming year’s “nice” list. Sonata suspected it was a ploy to inspire them to maintain their goody-goody status until Christmas Eve. There was nothing that got Santa more upset than a nice kid who slipped off the list.

Sonata sighed and tried to pull the covers further over her head while still staying within hot chocolate-grabbing distance. Sixteen years of age now, she’d already been through fifteen too many of these command performances: putting on her best dress, letting Helga Elfwand do her hair up in braids with holly woven through them, and standing like a good little doll beside her mother on the long, sweeping staircase in the Great Hall. There was no way she was going through it again, this pointless show of unseasonal cheer. She felt anything but cheerful. If you could put a colour on her mood, it would be as dark as midnight at midwinter, which was about the blackest thing she could imagine.

In the olden days, she mused, kids around the world probably were as shocked as delighted by the toys Santa brought them on Christmas Eve. That must have seemed insane – just this random box with a ribbon around it showing up and no one could tell you where it came from except with some fantabulous story about a jolly fat man sneaking into your house in the middle of the night. It was different if you ate dinner with the guy every night of your life.

Stupid warm-weather kids, with their electronics and their t-shirts. She bet all the girls had their own personal favourite shops online or even at a mall. There was no such thing as a mall at the Pole. She might live at the epicentre of Christmas toy production, but did she have any opportunity to express her own taste? Yeah, her dad encouraged her to write a letter to him every November asking for what she wanted to find under the thirty-foot tree in the Great Room, but it wasn’t much of a thrill when you knew perfectly well Santa was real.

Online shopping was entirely out of the question, and there was no courier service anyhow. Mail service to the North Pole was strictly reserved for Santa letters. She’d dreamed of having a pen pal when she was younger, but nothing every arrived but the mountains of mail from eager kids (and a surprising number of grown-ups).

Which meant, of course, that everything in her closet had the literal stamp of Santa’s workshop, and unless she made it herself, it was going to be tinselly, bright, and cheerful. In other words, utterly awful.

The bong of the door meant she should be ready to go with bells on, literally. Bells in her hair, ribbons around her wrists, like she was more parcel than person. Humiliating.

The question she should be asking herself was, “Does it matter?” These kids were total strangers. Not only that, but they’d wake up in the morning under the comforting illusion that the night before had all been a dream.

She turned the corner at the end of the hall and emerged onto the landing above the Great Hall. Her mother was waiting, a huge grin suddenly freezing on her face, the hand she’d stretched out to toward Sonata drooping like all the meat had gone out of her sleeve.

From below, a gasp from the collective throats of the visiting children.

Then, from Santa himself, as he twigged to the fact that all was not unfolding correctly in his carefully rehearsed pageant, a bellow.

“What in the blisteringly frozen North are you WEARING?”

Sonata looked down as if she had forgotten herself what she’d put on. Doc Marten-style boots that she’d begged Elfer Third Class Redicchio to craft her earlier in the year, with their red-and-green leather buffed over with black polish, the candy-striped tights that looked positively punkish under her black leather almost-miniskirt, and of course, her homemade Misfits t-shirt, which she’d torn in several artful places.

Santa’s forehead turned as red as his cheeks. His fat, friendly white eyebrows snuggled themselves closer together than she’d ever seen them before, making the twinkle in his eyes more of a sinister glint.

Mrs. Claus was making a jerky transition from stunned to horrified, each element of her face twitching before changing, the expression defying all description until it finally settled. She hadn’t said a thing, but her hand finally picked itself back up to grasp her own throat, as if she couldn’t understand why she’d abruptly become mute.

There were a few dozen kids circled around Santa below, still bundled up in their winter coats and scarves. As Sonata scanned their faces, she noted as many different reactions as there were children, but all of them seemed to live in the neighbourhood around “confused.”

“Hey,” she said, giving an inadequate little wave.

Santa breathed in, swelling his round chest enough to threaten a couple of the coal black buttons. “Hey? Is that honest to Christmas all you’re going to say?”

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

#

Instinct told her to prop a chair under the door handle. It was a candy-cane-back one with a bright crocheted seat. She waited for the inevitable – either the thump-thump-thump of her father’s big fist, or the softer but just as firm rap of her mother’s knuckles.

Instead, there was silence, or at least silence in the hallway outside her door. She could hear carolling from below, some round of “Up On the Rooftop,” she thought. Her hot chocolate was still warm, and she plunked down on the edge of the rug beside her bed to drink it.

Finally, when she had almost convinced herself that she’d been blissfully forgotten, the door bumped inwards, dislodging the chair as if she hadn’t even tried to block everyone out. The yellowish point of the North Polar Bear’s head, black shiny nose in the middle, poked in. “Sonata, Big Guy wants to see you.”

Of course he did. The Bear wouldn’t meet her eyes. He knew she was in for it; usually, it was something he’d done that required Santa’s stern finger-shaking. Sonata knew she wasn’t a bad kid; she didn’t set fire to the Christmas tree even though the real candles made it a serious temptation when she was in her worst moods. She didn’t scream “Boring!” when the time came to hear her mother read ’Twas the Night Before Christmas for the millionth time. She didn’t steal the boot black from the elves and try to use it to dye her hair. Not after the first time anyhow.

But then, the North Polar Bear wasn’t a bad bear either. Well, he was probably a bit bad for a bear, because he liked to live indoors at the North Pole in the stable with the reindeer, and drink hot cocoa, and never tried to eat any of the elves even though they were the same size (and some of them the same shape) as the seals he preferred for his dinner. But he was good for a Bear who lived with people (and elves, and reindeer). The trouble he got into was usually accidental, and he was very accident-prone, in part because his friendly nature convinced him he could attempt tasks that, for example, would have been much better for someone with thumbs.

Sonata wasn’t sure what a child at the North Pole was supposed to be, exactly, because in all the centuries Santa and Mrs. Claus had lived here together, she was the first one. There wasn’t exactly an instruction manual. Even if there had been, Sonata couldn’t see herself following it, because it would necessarily have been written by someone who wasn’t her. Someone who didn’t know what went on inside her head or her heart, and who obviously wouldn’t suggest that punk rock or heavy metal were worth listening to, or that asymmetrical haircuts including at least a little shaved scalp should be chosen over neat bangs and a centre part.

No one was going to write that manual, and so she was going to continue to get into trouble, she supposed. But tonight felt different. Tonight, her parents had let the North Polar Bear come to get her instead of coming to her room themselves to talk over what she’d done. She finished off the cocoa, and followed the Bear out to discover just how bad she’d been.

#

Santa’s office was in the heart of the Big House, just off the huge kitchen for easy access to cookies and milk. It had its own wide hearth beyond which burned a cheerful fire. Sonata shuffled her feet, far too conscious of the black boots covering them. She imagined herself answering him, “But you have black boots! Why do mine have to be all green and red?” She was so sick of green and red.

Santa himself was fluffy sideburns-deep in a large leather-bound ledger, the North Pole guest book that every child signed when they arrived on their special once-in-a-lifetime journey here. Every now and then, there’d be a squeal from one of them as they saw the name of a parent or other loved one on a preceding page – Santa encouraged them to look through the book for just this reason. Once a kid, eyes wide, had whispered to Sonata that seeing her mom’s name in there was “like magic.” Or a PR stunt? Sonata had almost replied, but bit her tongue instead. So what if the Big Guy liked to manufacture a little extra sizzle for his young guests? Everything at the North Pole was manufactured one way or another – including Sonata herself, if you thought about it.

The heat in the room was almost too much as Sonata waited. She wished she could magically transport herself to the stable where the thin, uninsulated walls would allow the harsh wind to cool her down. She could bury her face in Donner’s velvety neck, inhaling the musky scent of the doe’s fur. Donner was probably the least talkative of the reindeer in the team, and Sonata loved her for that as well as for the animal’s appreciation of Sonata’s cello-playing. The other deer could take it or leave it, but Donner was happy to sit for hours while Sonata practiced, her legs folded neatly under her, liquid eyes half shut.

It was always a bit of an ordeal to find a temperature that was comfortable for both of them, not too hot for the snow-loving reindeer but warm enough for Sonata to play without her fingers freezing up.

In fact, it had been Donner’s suggestion that Sonata look for a way to pursue her music, even if it took her beyond her home and into the world below the Arctic Circle. If she was not mistaken, Sonata could even now see the envelope she’d been desperately waiting for sticking out of the pile of letters on Santa’s desk, the distinctive Julliard logo on the corner. A chill went through her, then a flush that made the room spin a little. Not today, of all days! Not when she was already in so much trouble.

Not that it even would be good news. After all, she had sent in her audition recording knowing that the distance and the cost of the prestigious music school were both prohibitive if not the most serious barriers to her attending.

Some errant, and definitely naughty, gust of air from the roaring fire caught hold of the letters on the corner of Santa’s desk, the stack containing the one with the prominent Julliard crest.

Sonata actually said, “Whoops!” as if she was a cartoon instead of a desperate daughter-of-a-Claus (a version of something she’d heard her mother call Santa when she was really, really mad at him). She made a grab for the letter, hoping past hope that she’d be able to snag it mid-air and stash it before Santa saw, but instead, she knocked over the whole pile. She tripped backwards over the edge of Santa’s cheery deep-shag green rug, and landed with a snowfall of envelopes drifting down onto her supine form.

Santa reached out with one of the big fingerless mitts he wore even inside, and caught the nearest letter. It was the exact one she had hoped to hide.

“Sonata!” Claus rumbled with concern. “Are you all right?”

Sonata scrambled to her knees. It was all she could do not to scarper forward and snatch the dangerous missive out of her father’s fist. Instead, she made a quick inventory of all her parts and found that they were in order and mostly unharmed.

“I bumped my bum a little,” she said ruefully.

“Come here,” said the jolly man. The serious mood he’d seemed to be stewing in when she entered apparently evaporated by the fear she’d injured herself. Sonata ran to his arms and was enfolded in the familiar softness and warmth of his embrace.

She found herself tearing up in relief, and when he realized she was crying, he said, “Oh sweet Sonata, my heart’s music. Run off and get some cocoa. We can talk about earlier after that.”

She did, almost tripping over her own boots in her haste to depart. She said nothing about having barely finished her last hot chocolate and ran as fast as she could, not to the kitchen but through it and into the bitter cold outside.

She couldn’t let him find her again, not until she’d hidden the letter she’d managed to swipe out of his hand during the hug. Not until she knew what it said, and maybe not even then. Maybe she’d just keep going until she hit Alaska and hop a bus to parts unknown. If he saw the letter, it was going to get even colder at home.

#

As the weather gets colder and we start spending more time inside, it’s definitely the right season to curl up with holiday foods and some heartwarming books. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with the air fryer and discovered that you can fill wontons wrappers with just about anything and they will be delicious. So for a holiday spin on this idea, why not try my Cranberry and Brie stuffed wontons?

You can, of course, use canned cranberry sauce, but to make your own:

Slow-cooker Cranberry Sauce
1 bag (approx 2-2.5 cups) fresh cranberries
½ cup sugar
Orange zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Pinch of cinnamon
Put everything into the slow cooker and leave on low heat until the cranberries break down and a jammy consistency is reached. Chill, then serve. Freezes well.
 
To make the wontons:
Fill store-bought wonton wrappers with a teaspoon of cranberry sauce and a small piece of brie cheese (goat cheese or cream cheese would probably also work here). Dip your finger in a glass of water and run it along the edges of the wonton before folding in half on a diagonal. Press the edges together to seal. Lay the wontons in your air fryer, careful not to overcrowd them. Drizzle lightly with a neutral oil and air fry at 200’c for 6 minutes.

As for a book to pair these with, why not check out my winter-themed fantasy romance, Uncommon?

Ebook:
Mirror World store
Amazon
 
Paperback:
Mirror World store
Amazon
 
About the book:
Would you write a love letter to a stranger?
Rygal Saline has always stood in his sister’s shadow. As heir to the Clan Chief, Rhea has been trained in the art of leadership and warfare. Rygal is just, well, Rygal.
 
After several years away at a College in Ismera, Rygal returns to Jaram for his father’s funeral only to find a letter from his sister. She’s gone, she’s sorry, and she expects him to take her place as the next clan chief. Never envisioning a place for himself within the clan, let alone taking on the responsibilities of leadership, Rygal finds himself alone and out of his depth. 
 
Desperate for companionship and for someone he can turn to for help, he writes a letter to every eligible maiden on the continent, hoping to find a wife. The letters travel far and wide. Most are rejected until an accident of fate sends Rygal’s letters into the hands of two women for whom they were never intended, setting in motion a plot that threatens to bring Clan Jaram to the brink of war.

Today, Day One of the 12 Days, I've got something a little extra special for you - a video interview with children's author Rosie Amazing (who is herself a young child!), plus Rosie reads an excerpt from her latest Christmas book, Burfurt and the Christmas Cats!