What could be better than a heartwarming Christmas story that you can devour in one sitting? How about twelve of them?
Skipping Christmas is my 2025 Christmas short story, included in the wonderful romance anthology “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Romance.”
The anthology features twelve sweet, Christmas romance stories from twelve different authors. All of the stories are fewer than 30-ish pages, which means you can read one story each night before bed!
Even better- the anthology is completely FREE when you join my newsletter, which you can do by clicking here.
Skipping Christmas Blurb
Noelle is determined to win the neighborhood Christmas lights competition. When her new grinchy neighbor, Oliver, announces that his plans to skip Christmas, but the rules clearly state that every house on the block must participate in order to qualitfy. Will she be able to convince Oliver to have a change of heart in time? And what happens when the Grinch’s heart starts to grow and Noelle realizes there’s more to him than meets the eye?
Sneak Peak of Skipping Christmas
Okay, I can’t give away too much, but here’s the first part of my story as a little teaser:
The key to decorating for maximum Christmas cheer is patience. Every piece must be displayed in just the right place, and it’s always worth the painstaking effort to locate all decor each season. Or at least, that’s what Noelle tried to remember as she fought through the mass of spider webs that had accumulated in her garage.
Noelle continued to rummage through the old boxes, battling a colony of spiders until finally, she found what she’d been looking for.
“There you are.” She smiled as she opened the box, revealing her favorite piece of Christmas lawn decor, a dancing Christmas elf dressed as Elvis.
Ever since she was a little girl, Noelle had always loved driving down Maple Hills Drive, which transformed into the magical Candy Cane Lane every December. Some of her favorite Christmas memories with her parents and great aunt had been sipping on hot chocolate while slowly driving down the Lane, ooohing and aaahing at the unique Christmas display at each house.
And when a house on Maple Hill Drive came on the market earlier that year, she’d stretched her budget and pinched her pennies to make it work. Now, she would get to create one of the magical houses on Candy Cane Lane.
And Elf-is would be the shining star of what she’d hoped would be the most festive house on the block.
She stacked her newly retrieved box on top of three others and lifted the stack, careful not to tip or drop anything. She teetered down the driveway, creating a sort of zig zag pattern to avoid the icy patches she’d yet to clear, when her foot slipped. She wobbled under the weight of the boxes and braced for the impact of her backside against hard, icy pavement when she felt strong arms steady her.
“Thank you,” she said as her rescuer relieved her of the boxes which he placed on the tarp she’d laid out for that purpose, then turned to face her.
Oliver’s broad shoulders and handsome bearded face were enough to make any woman swoon. And had it not been for the scowl on his lips, Noelle might have done just that.
Read the rest of the story here.
Inspiration for my Christmas short story
If you’ve never seen the Christmas movie Christmas with the Kranks, stop what you’re doing right now and go watch it!
It’s one of my favorite Christmas movies ever, it’s so funny my sides usually hurt from laughing. The movie is based on a book called Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham. Yes, that John Grisham. I bet you would have never guessed that not only did he write a Christmas book, but it’s funny!
Anyway, the story follows a man, Luther Krank, who wants to skip Christmas in favor of a holiday cruise. The only problem? His holiday-obsessed neighbors can’t even begin to fathom this and put in place a plan to change his mind.
Comedy and hijinks ensue.
My story, Skipping Christmas, asks the same question: What happens when one man wants to skip Christmas and his holiday-loving neighbors won’t let him? But because I’m nothing if not a hopeless romantic, I had to add a second question: What happens when the grump of a man, fall for the beautiful woman next door?
Find out in my holiday short story – Skipping Christmas, you can get your copy here.