If you’ve been following my 12 Sleeps ‘til Christmas publishing journey, you may have seen a few posts and comments about how this book is extra special to me. Most of my books are dedicated to my boys (however many were in existence at the time of publishing) or family in general. This book is a bit different. 12 Sleeps ‘til Christmas is dedicated to two important women in my life who I lost in 2023 – Grandma Betty and Mrs Davis.
I have so many great memories of my Grandma Betty, a lot of them at her lake house. But this book is partially dedicated to her because of all the special things she did for Christmas. She hosted her (quite large) family on Christmas Day every year, which provided many memories in itself. But she was a very talented artist, and shared much of her work with her family. Each new member of the family – whether her own child, a new son or daughter in law, a grandchild, the spouse of a grandchild, a great grandchild – received a hand knit stocking. For years, she gifted hand carved santas to each of her children. These are so coveted, I’ve only managed to snag one for myself from my parents’ collection of more than a dozen. All this to explain that when I think of Christmas, I think of Grandma Betty.
The book is also dedicated to Mrs Davis. I met Donna (always Mrs D to me) when I was 5 years old. She was the school crossing guard for the intersection by my house. Despite the decades between us, we hit it off immediately. the whole family got to know Mrs Davis, especially her love of snowmen. Each winter, she would lovingly unpack hundreds of snowmen and decorate her entire house with them. Not only that, but each one had a name that started with an S, and she could tell you who gave her each one. Her and her love of snowmen was actually the inspiration for a short story I wrote years ago. She would also sign Christmas cards as Billie the Brownie, who (for those of you like me who had no idea who/what that is) was an elf that had a radio show where he would talk with Santa and read him letters from kids around the Milwaukee area. So, similar to Grandma Betty, I can’t think of winter and Christmas without thinking of Mrs Davis.
Now, it was special enough to write a family-themed, wintery/Christmas story that made me think of these two women the whole time, but this book was made a whole lot more special by the illustrator I worked with. I explained how the book was to be dedicated to these two women, and why. And she was able to put some special easter eggs in a few of the illustrations.
There is snow throughout the book, but I said there HAD to be a snowman somewhere. So this spread’s snowman is special beyond just illustrating the text. And of course I’ve given it an S name. This is Sleepy the Snowman.
This next spread shows hand knit stockings hung at the fireplace and a display of carved santas on the table. The santas pop up in another place too, but this spread is one of my favorites because it has a bit of everything. There’s even an easter egg from the Lien side! That figurine next to the santas is a family of singing meerkats that was always out at Grandma Sandy’s house during Christmas, usually in the bathroom (so any time anyone went to the bathroom the meerkats would sing).
These are just the special aspects related to Grandma Betty and Mrs Davis. There are many more memories and traditions from my family that I won’t go into (it could be a book in itself!). But I hope that everyone can find some connection to their own holiday memories and traditions. In fact, I’d love to hear about how 12 Sleeps ‘til Christmas reminds you of your holiday traditions!
Such awesome memories!