This is the time of year when it seems like everything on TV has a holiday spin to it—whether it’s the Thanksgiving cooking challenge on Top Chef (which you know they filmed months before it was actually time for the holiday) or the Christmas movies that have been on TV every year since before TV was invented.

There are lots of books that are written specifically around the holidays (Christmas especially), and it made me start thinking about how the authors choose the traditions and customs that the characters in the books observe. Are they regional? Ethnic? Something from the author’s personal traditions?

I was going to say that I haven’t really incorporated holidays in my stories, but then I realized—I have! In my first complete manuscript, What Matters Most, I detail Thanksgiving and Christmas with the enormous d’Arcement family. The events surrounding the Thanksgiving meal were made up, based on the family and how they interact with each other, but the Christmas morning happenings were closely based on my own extended family’s traditions—which both my mom and grandmother commented on when they read it. Before writing this manuscript, I’d already set up the idea of a New Year’s Eve masquerade/masked ball in Bonneterre in another manuscript, which is also shown in WMM—and based off of the Christmas party the newspaper I worked for used to host each year (which ended in the late 1990s).

In Stand-In Groom, we get to see the Guidry family’s customary Fourth of July celebration in the city park. My family has never had a tradition for celebrating Independence Day, but when writing this manuscript, I imagined the kind of gathering I’d enjoy taking part of—a cookout in the park followed by watching the city’s fireworks.

Menu for Romance opens on New Year’s Eve, right at the stroke of midnight. Because the main characters are working, It’s really almost more of an outsider’s view of one of the biggest social events of the year in Bonneterre. But then Meredith’s family celebrates New Years by gathering together in the evening of New Year’s Day and, while eating leftovers from their parents’ open house, going around the room and sharing their New Year’s resolutions.

Many years ago, I participated in a challenge to write a scene centered around a holiday (I think it may have been back when ACFW was ACRW, because it had to incorporate romance as well), which I’ll be sharing on Friday. But it made me think about offering a challenge for the holiday season.

The Challenge:
In 3,000 words or less, share a fiction scene (or a short story) incorporating one of the following scenarios:

–A holiday custom or tradition that your family usually observes. Can be an ethnic tradition, a meal tradition, or a tradition for exchanging gifts—but it must relate to the story being told.

–An emergency situation that arises at a holiday celebration. Could be medical, criminal, or anything surprising/shocking.

–A breakup that happens at a holiday celebration.

–A holiday homecoming. The return of a prodigal, a soldier’s return, an estranged family coming back together, etc.

–A surprise holiday. Someone/a family who thinks they won’t be able to celebrate a holiday is surprised by a good Samaritan/community with a celebration.

–First holiday. This is the holiday as seen by an outsider’s point of view—it’s their first time to celebrate the holiday in question.

Deadline and Prizes:
The deadline to enter the contest is December 15, 2008 at midnight Central time. E-mail your entry to kaye (at) kayedacus (dot) com with “WPWT Holiday Contest Entry” as the subject.

The contest winner (chosen by me) will receive a Christmas with Dino CD and a signed copy of Stand-In Groom.

The winner’s story will be posted here on Friday, December 19.