Today's guest is Em Petrova

The Music of Christmas
By Em Petrova

Baking cookies that turn into pavers for the driveway. Family gatherings where awful games of Pictionary are played. Battling the lines at Walmart just to purchase a damn fruit basket for someone who doesn’t care to receive it.

For most of us, the events leading up to Christmas really mean spirit, rather than the actual day when Santa bounces down the chimney and drops off a load of gifts. And while these events I named might be some of the frustrating ones that accompany the holidays, there are several which truly get me in the Christmas spirit.

I come from a family of musicians and vocalists. Almost every single person in my enormous Irish Catholic family plays something or sings in a choir. Some perform professionally. So for us, Christmas isn’t complete without a concert. We kick off December with a church festival where my children participate in several choir performances. I love to sit in the audience and watch their faces lit up by the words they’re singing, whether it’s a rousing rendition of Rudolph or a twisted version of The Twelve Days of Christmas. These songs are lovingly practiced for weeks before the concerts, and not a day goes by that they don’t break into song in the car, their little voices blending like angels singing.

Also, Christmas means music recitals. Violins, pianos, guitars. The nervous energy of the family member eager to perform. My passion for music by far outweighs the moments of insanity brought down by the holidays, so that I actually long for the month of December. Sitting down at the piano and pounding out a remixed version of Carol of the Bells or a funky Little Drummer Boy feeds the fires of my own personal need for music. And when I slip into the cathedral for Midnight Mass, the voices of the choir washing over me, along with the scent of candles and the peaceful hour, I truly refresh my soul. Seeing my 90 year old grandmother stand with the choir, her frail shoulders swaying a bit to the music, is perhaps the best Christmas present I could ever get.

For each of us, Christmas means something different. As long as the spirit connects with ours in some way, and spurs us on for another year, then we’ve found the magical significance of the holiday. What gets you through the bustling season? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.


Blurb for RUNES:
When immortals Will and Evangeline are thrown together by a phenomenon known as The Calling, they share their blood and bodies, entwining their minds and souls. But Evangeline has been yanked from the arms of her mortal love, Sean, and the echo of his touch never leaves her. Will and Sean make a pact to share the woman they love and find new desires arising in the arms of each other.

Adult Excerpt: RUNES--a paranormal ménage a trois available from Red Sage Publishing.

~Two men learn to satisfy their lusts for one woman, and eventually each other~

When Will Cochran straightened away from the woman on the bathroom floor, they were both bleeding. She was not fully conscious, but he had to escape before she recognized him. He grabbed a hand towel from the sink, clutched it to his bleeding forearm and swung toward the door.
She would be all right. It might take a few hours for the drugs to wear off, but eventually she would awaken to a new existence. Before he disappeared through the doorway and from her life, he allowed himself a final glance.
Sprawled on the white floor tile, she looked waifish and vulnerable. She wore dark clothing—a black off-the-shoulder top and dark violet miniskirt that matched the purple streak at the front of her pixie-short black hair. The blood had ceased to flow from the wound on her neck, and as he watched, the blue-black lines of runes and dainty stars climbed the bare flesh of her shoulder, up her throat, to curl around her ear and end in a spattering of stars across her temple—the immortal tattoo.

buy link: http://www.eredsage.com/store/Runes_Em_Petrova.html
http://www.empetrova.com
http://twitter.com/empetrova
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/profile.php?id=100001140802024
watch the Runes book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxjwNTSYBSk