Write2Ignite

Christmas is NEXT WEEK. It comes every December 25^th and yet, it always sneaks up on me. As much as I try to focus on the meaning, I often get caught up in the commercial prep.

I look for the perfect gift.

I look for the perfect decorations.

I look for the perfect cookie recipes.

Shopping, baking, buying, wrapping … my writing gets pushed to the back burner. And yet, I long to spend time writing without all the “things” on my mind.

Kyle’s post about epilogues got me thinking about a way to use all the Christmas prep to see it all in a fresh way and use that to give my writing a boost.

Ornament Observations

Several years ago, we had a writing exercise during a writers group meeting. The guest speaker asked us to bring in an inexpensive Christmas ornament, but she didn’t say why until we got there. The exercise was to observe our ornament and then write something about it. Then we gave both the ornament and what we wrote to our group leader.

My ornament from the Dollar Store was a simple long, beaded ornament. It was a straight line of green, red and clear beads with the large red ones decorated with gold filigree on top and bottom. I wish I had taken a picture of it. But I saved what I wrote:

Fancy, decorative, a slender line

Of red, green and gold.

What does this gaudy, inexpensive ornament have to do

With the birth of a Savior?

People are hungry, homeless, heartsick and yet

I put up my tree

And adorn it with ornaments such as this.

For what reason?

But when I look at the colors I can see

The green of new life,

A clear, clean heart,

Blood red capped with a gold crown.

My Lord and my God!

Many of us wrote similar things about their ornaments. We were all amazed at how deep some of us got – what we saw – in our simple ornaments.

How many of our ornaments are more in-your-face with the Christmas message? Those are more obvious, aren’t they? 

Writing Challenge ~ A New Tradition?

That writing exercise has stayed with me. I have an idea for a gift book called Ornament Observations where I’d write about the ornaments on my tree. I haven’t done it yet, but I have notes!

My challenge for you is to take just one ornament on your tree and write something about it. It can be a poem or short story or just your observations about it. What comes to your mind first? Include your children or grandchildren. Share what you wrote on Christmas morning, Christmas Eve, or Christmas dinner. Maybe it will become a new tradition! It will, at least, start conversation, and you’ll have been “writerly creative” in the midst of your Christmas prep.

Wishing you all a blessed and happy Christmas! May you get writing ideas as you decorate your tree, bake your cookies, and wrap your presents!

Pam Halter is a former home-schooling mom, has been a children’s book author since 1995, a freelance children’s book editor since 2006, and was the children’s book editor for Fruitbearer Publishing until January 2023. She’s the author of Fairyeater, a YA fantasy, and the Willoughby and Friends picture book series (available on her website.) Pam has also published short stories in Ye Olde Dragon Books , the Whitstead Anthologies and Renewed Christmas Blessings. Her first short story won Readers Choice in Realmscapes.  

Pam lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband, Daryl, special needs adult daughter, Anna, and four cats. When she’s not writing, Pam enjoys spending time with her grands, reading, quilting, gardening, cooking, playing the piano, Bible study, and walking long country roads where she discovers fairy homes, emerging dragons, and trees eating wood gnomes.