https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPG3WRL5

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Hello Friends, and Happy Holidays!

With the 2024 holiday season upon us, I am pleased to announce the release of my latest work, “The Arnold Clan-Tall Christmas Tales,” an anthology of short Christmas stories, drawn from a lifetime’s worth of Christmases. And I really mean that. While there are two pure fiction works included, and one historical piece on Charles Dickens, most of the stories are anecdotal in nature, based on incidents that actually happened, though imbued with some artistic license. Through them, my intent was to share some of the true joy, spirit and magic of the season, and in that I hope I have succeeded.

I started writing Christmas stories back in 2002, and for the next dozen years or so would write one each Christmas season and give them to our parents and the families of my three brothers (Chuck, Billy and Davy) and two sisters (Meg and Nancy). As you can see, the Arnold family is a large one, and Christmas was always a big deal to us as kids; inevitably leading to some interesting and humorous adventures on various of our Christmases, as I hope you’ll discover if you read the stories. Also included are several stories from later in life. For years, Tammy (my wife) and I would make cross-state trips to Spokane to visit her family at Christmastime, where we would engage in spirited “white elephant” parties at her sister’s house, which, decorated for the season, had to be seen to be believed. We called that place “The Christmas House”, and it was the inspiration for the story of the same name.

Tammy’s parents, and even her sister, have all passed on now, as have my own parents, leaving us with a wealth of treasured Christmas memories, some of which are reflected in these stories. All in all, however, what you have in these stories is my personal homage to Christmas and its spirit, and I hope they inspire you to create and write some Christmas stories of your own.

Merry Christmas!

Mark Arnold

December 9, 2024