Thanksgiving has whizzed past and Christmas looms ahead. If you’re anything like me, you make this super stupid promise to yourself roughly December 24th that you will buy gifts throughout the year, so you aren’t pressed and stressed and ready to stand on a roof with a shotgun holding the entire dish of rum balls hostage…and ALL the rum. No, this year will be different. I will be PREPARED.

*clutches sides laughing*

Yeah….

Sort of reminds me of finals back in college. Next time I am going to read all my chapters AHEAD of time.

Christmas is a magical time of year, but all of us handle the season differently. So what is your Holiday Style? Here’s a helpful little quiz:

1) When cleaning before the holidays, you:

a) Might give the mantel a light dusting just so you don’t look like a show-off. The gleam from your spotless fixtures could cause retinal damage. Eloise is a rank amateur next to you.

b) Make a plan to go room by room and whip your house into shape. Once this baby is clean, you KNOW it will stay that way for good. In fact, you’ve vowed to stab your husband in the face if he leaves his towel on the bathroom floor, and have threatened your children with a tell-all e-mail to Santa if they don’t put their clean clothes away properly.

c) Get a little excited because you haven’t seen your floors, counters or pretty much any of your home’s flat surfaces since the party last New Years. In fact, you are pretty sure the Christmas tree is still up under one of the piles of laundry and unopened mail. Hey, why take down decorations you know you will need every year?

Yes, this is um…ME *hangs head*

2) When it comes to holiday shopping, you:

a) Are already finished. You made a long, detailed list last January and have spent the year buying the perfect gift for all your loved ones. All that’s left is to enjoy the season while those ill-prepared dopes fight over the last Holiday Barbie.

b) Wait until Black Friday. Technically, you start three days before Black Friday. What better way to use all that camping equipment you got last year for Christmas, than to stake out the front of Apple, Ikea or Best Buy?

c) Dig through your closet for all the unopened crappy gifts you got at the office Secret Santa party last year and then re-gift them to your distant relatives. Sure, Aunt Edna doesn’t know who Justin Bieber is, but who wouldn’t want a singing toothbrush?

Well, other than you, of course.

Tomorrow, I will do the wrapping….

3) When it comes to gifts, you:

a) Spare no expense. The holiday season is a season of generosity. All your gifts are thoughtful, beautiful, lavish, and better than everyone else’s.

b) Believe it’s the thought that counts, and most people will think you are cheap if they see the Clearance sticker on their present, which is why you LOVE black Sharpies. They can be counted on to fully black out the $4.99 on the bottom of that seashell vase from Anthropologie. Hey, we don’t have to pay retail to still give an awesome gift. You just make sure the gift recipient can see part of the original price of $89 so they feel like you “shelled” out a lot of cash.

c)  Make one trip. Dollar General has everything you need for Christmas gifts. What could be a better Christmas gift than cans of Lite Vienna Sausages (Now Made with REAL Meat!) or Low-Sodium Spam?

4) When it comes to holiday memories, you:

a) Love capturing every moment on video, then editing the clips to music using your MacBook Pro. Then, of course you order prints from SnapFish so you can scrapbook together all the holiday magic. You have the cutest little snowman stickers that will add the perfect touch to the family newsletter you send out early morning December 26th.

b) Have them all in a big box that you will organize one day…once you locate the box.

c) Just get drunk on Jack and Coke then watch Jerry Springer reruns. The effect is pretty much the same.

5) Of all the Christmas carols, you:

a) Know Handel’s Messiah is your all-time favorite, and you know all the words. Why wouldn’t you? You sing in the choir every year.

b) Can’t get enough Silver and Gold, sung by Burl Ives. It reminds you of being a kid and waiting all year to see Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

c) Think Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is the funniest carol EVER, next to the Three Kings who tried to smoke a rubber cigar. In fact, you can’t even sing Deck the Walls with the correct lyrics.

6) As far as wrapping Christmas presents, you:

a) Use the tips you saved out of Martha Stewart Magazine. You bought the heavy duty paper and lavish bows last year at the Container Store After Christmas Sale and expensive ornaments 85% off at the Dillard’s After Christmas Sale. All your gifts look so beautiful, they might as well be considered Christmas decorations. No one ever wants to open your gifts until they’ve taken a picture of the wrapping.

b) Thought you were saving money when you bought the wrapping paper from Wal Mart. Of course, you didn’t foresee that it was as thin as rice-paper on a crash diet. After tearing the corners on every box you wrapped, you had to wrap everything AGAIN. This means ten gifts took 42 rolls of paper. You lost the tape, only to later find it stuck to your butt. The dog ate all the ribbon and is now pooping tinsel, and your husband has found it HYSTERICAL to put tape on all the cat’s paws instead of helping.

You make a note to buy big bottle of Maker’s Mark for next year’s wrapping.

c) The gifts you bought came pre-wrapped. It’s called a Dollar Store bag. DUH. You love the environment, so why cut down more trees when THIS Christmas wrapping paper can later be used to pick up the tinsely dog poop?

7) When it comes to dressing for holiday parties you:

a) Buy smashing outfit ahead of time so you have time to find the perfect accessories and shoes to match. Then you make sure to get an appointment with a hairdresser and makeup artist in October before the slots fill. Why trust those holiday pictures to anyone but a professional?

b) Buy an outfit ahead of time, but completely forget about shoes and earrings…and eating less. You bought the dress even though it was too small, because it was supposed to make you be “good” this year and not overeat. Ah, but that was until the dog started pooping tape and Christmas ribbon and you leveled the fudge like a Biblical plague (Baby Jesus would have been duly impressed).

So Christmas Eve you find yourself wandering the mall searching for the last pair of Spanks in the free world. Speaking of tinsel, you can’t help but wonder what the tinsel-strength of spandex is. In your mind, you imagine a Catastrophic Spanx Failure that takes out three innocent bystanders.

And is it considered an act of domestic terrorism if you survive?

c) Just wear yoga pants and a maternity top for the extra “give.”

8) As far as decorating for the holidays, you:

a) Hire professionals. Can’t be Yard of the Month without a little help. Your Christmas lights can be seen from space. The folks at NASA and the Soviet Space Station are your biggest fans.

b) Were going to avoid it altogether until it became evident that you were the ONLY house on the block without lights, and now you have been shamed into putting out some last-minute effort. Of course, everything was sold out, so you were forced to decorate with the Halloween lights.

Orange works, right? Hell, just put Santa hats on all the skulls. Make it a Goth Christmas.

c) Just plug them in. You left them up all year :D.

9) When it comes to your children and Santa, you:

a) Bake cookies for Santa with the kids, and Christmas Eve you take the little ones out into the yard and spread some “Reindeer Food.” Your husband dresses in a Santa costume and you “sneak” some iPhone footage of Santa at work in your living room to show the kids the next morning. Childhood is a magical time and you want to fuel your children’s imaginations.

b) Take them to Cabela’s. Free photos with Santa, fishing gear is 50% off, and they FINALLY have your ammo in stock.

c) Let your neighbor take your kids to Cabela’s. You still have to find the Christmas tree…after you level up on Halo 6.

10) When your kids question how Santa can make it to all the boys’ and girls’ houses in all the world in one night, you:

a) Tell them that Santa is the spirit of generosity and love, and that spirits have powers we mortals cannot comprehend.

b) Point the pizza kiosk in the mall and yell, “I’m buying!”

c) Inform your kids that Santa has been cloned, and reference the Star Wars Clone Wars.

11) When sending out holiday cards, you:

a) Buy cards for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukah, and just general holiday cards and then send them to the appropriate recipients.

b) Buy generic reindeer cards, then write it “Happy Holi-Chrisma-Kwanzaa-kuh.” Your friends all know you’re weird anyway. Frankly, they are all shocked you got the cards sent at all.

c) Holiday Cards? *laughs hysterically until can’t breathe*

12) When someone gives you a dreadful gift, you:

a) Know they meant well, so you make sure they see you wearing that horrendous purple mohair vest at the church bake sale. You would never want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

b) Send a nice thank you note then return the gift for something you prefer.

c) Stockpile the crappy gifts away for next year, so you don’t have to do as much Christmas shopping. Hey, waste not want not.

Tally Your Scores!!!

Amazing Alice/Awesome Alan

If you answered mostly As, you get an A+++++ in Christmas. You, Amazing Alice/Alan, are the star of the show with the prettiest EVERTYHING, the one who has everything in order and who pulls out all the stops…which is probably why most of us secretly hate you and want to stab YOU in the face.

Normal Nancy/Typical Ted

If you answered mostly Bs, relax. You’re normal. While you probably could try a little harder, why bother? Amazing Alice and Awesome Alan are going to outdo you anyway.

Slacker Sarah/Lazy Larry

Hey, life is too short to be organized. There are video games to play.

I hate to say it but I am almost an even mix of Normal Nancy and Slacker Sarah. Every year I promise to try harder. ONE DAY I will be an Amazing Alice…yeah, no. My brother and sister-in-law are Amazing Alice and Awesome Alan so they enable my underachieving. Even why I TRY to make my Christmas packages look all awesome and professionally wrapped…they just look more like a roll of wrapping paper and Scotch tape had a drunken one-night-stand.

Sigh.

What is the worst Christmas gift you’ve ever gotten? My Aunt Iris once bought me a bright purple sweater that was so small, I think it was made for a Barbie, a child or a circus midget…then loudly commented on how fat I’d gotten when I couldn’t “try it on.”

So what about you guys?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of DECEMBER, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post Test Your Holiday Style—Tiffany Crystal or Pre-Paid Bail Money? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Ever get kind of a cool injury, but the story is so lame you can barely stand it the first time, let alone the 20th? I’ve always had a thing with coffee tables. Several have tried to kill me. My theory? There exists a dark underground network of low furniture, baby toys, and steps-of-odd-height seeking my destruction. Seriously. To this day I refuse to have a coffee table, namely for all the lame injuries I had to explain; the broken toes, sprained ankles and twisted knees.

Now, in my youth, let’s just say I burned the candle at both ends. Was there any lane OTHER than the FAST lane?

I was wild. I was known to go up “down”-escalators, tear tags OFF the mattress, and even only shampoo ONCE, people! Oh, I know danger. I’ve looked it in the eye. I have even…run with scissors, and do you think I EVER got injured doing ANYTHING remotely cool? Nope.

Fell over the coffee table.

Tripped over the cat.

Ran into the door.

Stumbled into a nest of Leggos.

Was ambushed by the garden hose.

What really stinks is when you get an injury that kind of cripples you, even a little—a bandaged ankle, a bandaged foot, a set of crutches—then you not only have to hobble around, but every person you meet wants to know. “What happened?” Because you didn’t feel like near big enough of a dumb@$$ when you went running for your cell phone, fell over the Tickle-Me-Elmo, then tumbled down the stairs and nearly strangled in your own shoelaces.

Uncool. Now my story.

So it was the 4th of July. When I awoke that morning, I felt an eerie sense that there might be trouble brewing, namely because Hubby was home and not at work. Being the AWESOME wife I am, I went to the store to pick up some treats for the holiday, namely Hubby’s favorite fancy vanilla soda made with cane sugar. On my way back, I selflessly fed some orphans and rescued a couple puppies and kittens, unaware of the dangers ahead.

I asked Hubby to put away the groceries while I tidied the kitchen. I’d been making from scratch homemade gluten-free pasta salad. Hubby “innocently” sits down in the living room and, I can only assume, waits for the scream. As I was putting away the pasta to cool, I opened the door. My hands were full and all I could do was watch the glass bottle spiral down in slow-motion and then BOOM!

…the bottle exploded and my foot was hit by Hank’s Gourmet Vanilla Soda shrapnel.

The super yummy weapon forged against me….

See my problem here?

NO WAY I TELL THIS STORY IS REMOTELY COOL!

We have blood spatter….

The bottle explodes and cuts my foot. I have to remove said vanilla gourmet soda shrapnel from my own flesh, wrap my foot in what I can find to stem the bleeding (a dried-out baby wipe), and start cleaning the floor like the good Scandinavian woman I am. I bled as I mopped just like my Viking foremothers….

I know, you’re like “How did she mop with THAT injury?”

ACTUAL CONVERSATION WITH HUBBY:

HUBBY: What is all this blood?

ME: I CUT myself on YOUR cream soda booby trap!

HUBBY: My what?

ME: If you are going to try and kill me, could you use the cheap soda, please?

HUBBY: I wasn’t trying to kill you and why are you mopping?

ME: Oh, so not KILL me just MAIM me. Did you have to break cream soda all over the clean floor? Why can’t you booby-trap the fridge before I mop?

HUBBY: I didn’t booby-trap the fridge and YOU ARE GETTING BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE.

ME: I have to get the floor clean!

HUBBY: No, you need to go bandage your foot.

ME: But you don’t mop the floor properly!

HUBBY: *stern face* Don’t make me burrito you.

Hubby knows the trigger word to pull me out of the crazy-spin. He first used this term “burrito you” when, after 93 hours of labor and no sleep for a week I came home with The Spawn and started cleaning house and doing laundry even though I was so tired I was hallucinating…

This is what Hubby means by the term “burrito you”…

ANYWAY, hobbling in my blood-soaked baby wipe, I CLEANED EVERY LAST BIT OF THAT FLOOR before tending to my own injury. Oma Johanna would be so proud.

Yeah, still sounds really lame which is why, now, when people ask about the 1/8″ scar I just KNOW I am going to get, THIS is the story I am going to tell…

On my way home from buying cream soda and helping orphans, NINJAS came out of nowhere, and I was in a high-speed chase across the Target parking lot and barely made it home. When I was unloading the car, I forgot that nitrate-free, no-preservative hot dogs, while good for your family and more nutritious, are the favorite food of the Chupacabra. And I know what you are thinking.

Aren’t Chupacabras nocturnal?

Yes, they are. Everyone knows that, but I can only assume the fireworks and general nocturnal asshattery that goes with the 4th of July must have kept the beast awake all night…making it especially hungry for nitrate-free hot dogs.

I don’t remember much. The foul creature must have gotten my foot before I pulled the recycling on top of it (because when I am not helping orphans I am saving the planet). Hubby followed the blood until he found me…

Crime Scene Photo of the Chupacabra Attack…..

Doesn’t this picture look WAY cooler in black and white?

ANYWAY, my cut wasn’t that big for all the blood. Sad Face :(. Hubby just told me I was being dramatic…and to buy him some more cream soda since I broke one.

Have you guys ever had a really lame accident and you had to tell the same lame story over and over? What cool story do you wish it could have been? Tell it here! A sprained ankle caused by Sasquatch? Mosquito bites that were really the suction marks from alien probing? Get creative and have fun!

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of July, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

***Changing the contest.

It is a lot of work to pick the winners each week. Not that you guys aren’t totally worth it, but with the launch of WANA International and WANATribe I need to streamline. So I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners will now have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

Winner of TWENTY PAGES OF SLAYING…um, critique is Karen Cunningham! Please send your 5000 word WORD document to kristen@wanaintl.com. You have until the END OF JULY (JULY 31) to submit your pages.

At the end of July I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

The post …And Then I was Attacked by a Chupacabra appeared first on Kristen Lamb.