Is it too soon for a Christmas book?

For me it's never too soon to start thinking about Christmas. Last year was an absolute write off as far as I was concerned because my beloved husband was in hospital, desperately ill, with a broken hip and not expected to recover. He did – as you know – get over this but then broke his other hip and had a further six weeks in hospital. He is now in an excellent care home but has just had a second stroke and I don't think the prognosis is good.

However, I'm ever the optimist and refuse to consider anything but having a good Christmas this year. I shall be in my new home – a delightful brand-new bungalow only ten minutes away from where my husband is now living – and have had an extra outside electrical socket put in so I can plug in my array of ridiculous Christmas lights.

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This brings me to the question I posed as my title to this blog: is the start of September too early to be thinking about Christmas titles?

A Christmas Betrothal is my offering for this year – don't you just love the cover? It has been released whilst we are still having temperatures in the 20s. There is a definite autumnal nip to the air – but summer is still going strong in Clacton (where my husband is now living).

I've already got my Christmas cards – admittedly quite a lot from last year as I didn't send many – and have started buying little gifts to give the wonderful staff at the care home my husband is in.
I've seen on Facebook that several people have already noticed tins of Christmas sweets are on sale in many supermarkets and also Christmas cards.
It always seems strange to me that shops bring out the Christmas things before Halloween – which is now much more of a thing in the UK, but not as big as it is in the US.

There is then a clash of orange and black alongside the red and gold of the Christmas decorations. If you don't buy what you want by the end of October there will be nothing of interest left on the shelf. 

I think Christmas is a time of hope over expectation – it is a time for family, friends and spiritual contemplation but over the past decades it has been reduced to a commercial event in which so many families overspend because they don't want to disappoint their children.

My little grandson has something new every week – not expensive – but a new toy of some sort. His parents aren't entirely comfortable with this but it's the normal now amongst his peers and if they didn't follow suit they fear he would feel left out. I give him a pound a week pocket money and so do his parents and he also saves this until he has enough to buy something bigger.

Next time I talk to you I will be living somewhere else.

Until October,

best wishes

Fenella J Miller