Thanks to everyone who stopped by to play Two Truths and a Lie with us this week – I hope you had as much fun with it as we did!

And, without further ado, here are the Answers:

#1. We once owned an antique wooden horse-drawn sleigh and dragged it out of storage every year.
TRUE
#2. When my children were young, they played characters in the church Christmas pageant, along with our donkey.
TRUE
#3. My husband was recruited as a last-minute substitute Santa Claus at the senior living facility where my late mother resided.
FALSE      My husband has never played Santa Claus

#1.When my daughter was nine, I ice skated with her in a Christmas Around the World performance put on by our local ice rink.
FALSE      I made her costume for that performance, but I am not daring enough to get out on the ice and bust my rear end every time I take a step. LOL She skated as a kid and then went back to it a couple of years ago in her mid-thirties. She is a competitive skater now, and works part time at the ice rink where she skates!

#2. I met Dale Robertson before a Christmas event at The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum when I worked there.
TRUE

#3. I have two relatives who were born on Christmas Day.
TRUE

#1 – I visited Santa’s House in North Pole Alaska.
TRUE I was seventeen and traveling with my mom and brother to the Arctic where my dad was working. There really is a North Pole, Alaska near Fairbanks. I later worked with a fellow teacher who grew up there.

#2 – I once got a horse for Christmas.
FALSE

#3 – My family owned a herd of reindeer.
TRUE  It was a lot different than having cows. I still have several sets of shed reindeer antlers. 

1.    The last year I taught PreK, the teacher scheduled to play Mrs. Santa Claus for the annual PTO Breakfast with Santa fundraiser fell ill a few days before the event. Maybe it was my grey hair, my short stature, or my rimless glasses, but I played Mrs. Santa Claus at a children’s Christmas Party!
FALSE  While most of this is true, the teacher who was originally slated to portray Mrs. Santa Claus did recover in time. I was assigned to the hot chocolate station!

1. Christmas movies in July?…love them all as I sip on my iced tea…Come October, November, December, I toggle between both Hallmark networks, Up Television, and Great American Country but…I’ve never seen the movie, Elf.
   TRUE
2. I love wrapping presents! Not just at Christmas but for birthdays, Easter, whatever! However, my family always knows which presents are mine because they are so difficult to remove the bows, ribbons, and decorations. I get teased about it every time!
   TRUE

#1.    I once unwrapped a toilet seat as a Christmas gift.
TRUE  Yes, my husband really did wrap up a toilet seat and put it under the tree for me one year early in our marriage. He even had the audacity to say it was from our infant daughter. Once the disappointment wore off, we got a good laugh, and I have never forgotten it.

#2 My husband has bought me something cowboy-related every year for Christmas since I published my first western romance in 2010.
FALSE My hubby has given me many wonderful cowboy-themed gifts over the years, but they don’t come every year.

#3. The Christmas gift that made the biggest Witemeyer family splash was when I gave my high school daughter a copy of the MLA Handbook.
TRUE  My daughter actually asked for the MLA Handbook, and we just happened to have my husband’s uncle visiting that year for Christmas. He was an English professor, and he couldn’t get over how thrilled and excited Bethany was when she unwrapped that handbook. He had never seen the like, and it made his English-loving heart swoon.

#1.    I had a lovely apartment in New York for four years. Christmas in the big apple is the best!
TRUE 
#2. One of my family’s kooky Christmas traditions is re-wrapping and re-giving the same CD of the worst music ever, to another family member, who then must do the same the following year.
TRUE 
#3. My six kids are spread around the country, which makes getting them together for Christmas hard, but this also means I get to travel sometimes for Christmas, which is fun!
FALSE While most of this is true, I have only three kids, not six!

#1.  I published my first book when I was 52 years old
TRUE 
#2. I studied abroad for a year out of high school.
FALSE
#3. My sister is also a published writer and we had a sister who painted pictures.
TRUE 

#1.   I’m one of eight children. The only author
TRUE
#2.  My most recent release is book #75
TRUE
#3.  I got my first book published the same year my youngest daughter went to Kindergarten
FALSE  I started writing when she went to Kindergarten and had my first book release the year she graduated from high school.

#1.   I once celebrated Christmas with my family in a bike shop.
TRUE It was during the height of Covid, and my son-in-law managed a bike/coffee shop that had a showroom big enough for all of us to spread out at our own tables. I ordered sandwiches the day before (alas, they were a bit soggy), and to this day, I’m bummed our Christmas dinner was a dud. But at least, we were together, and we still had fun.

#2.  A couple of years ago, we made 18 pans of the Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls as gifts, and none of them raised.
TRUE  Again, during Covid. Since we weren’t having our usual big family get-togethers, my sisters and I got together (wearing masks) and made the cinnamon rolls. Everything promised to be perfect and delicious until the rolls started to raise. Even though we froze them as quickly as we could, I was told by a professional baker that when we froze the raising yeast, we effectively killed it, which prevented the rolls from raising after being thawed.

#3.  My Christmas dinner was once delayed for several hours because the fresh turkey just wouldn’t get done.
FALSE  I’ve never roasted a fresh turkey, so this wasn’t me but instead my aunt, who was absolutely mortified that everyone was waiting around and hungry!

#1.  I listen to Christmas music all year long.
FALSE While I love Christmas music, I try to not start listening until after Halloween. But once November rolls around, I’m all about the holiday tunes!

#2.  I love to bake with eggnog.
TRUE I am not a fan of just straight eggnog, and neither is my husband, Captain Cavedweller. But baking with it? Oh, man! There are so many delicious ways to use eggnog. I make eggnog custard, eggnog bread, eggnog Snickerdoodles (probably my favorite), eggnog Bundt cake, and CC’s favorite – eggnog doughnuts. I have recipes for most of these on my website.

#3.  I once received a bag of dog food for Christmas.
TRUE  Although I wish this one was false, it is true. When I was in high school, my family decided it would be great if we drew names and did a gift exchange instead of having to shop for everyone. It never failed that one of my brother’s step kids would draw my name, forget they were supposed to give a gift, and show up with something they grabbed on the way out the door. My “gifts” over the years included an opened bag of marshmallows with a few packets of Swiss Miss hot chocolate thrown in, a partially used bottle of hair mousse, but the “best” of all was a bag of dog food. The following year, I  bowed out of the gift exchange. 

#1. I LOVE Christmas decorations and must have hundreds of tree ornaments alone. In fact I have a walk in closet dedicated just to the storage of my Christmas stuff. Because it became impossible to use all of my decorations on the tree at one time, several years back I began doing themed trees, which allows me to rotate them in and out. Some of the themes I’ve done over the years include angels, bells, stars, snowmen, and even a fairytale theme – but my favorite was the year I did a nativity themed tree.
FALSE  While it is true that I have literally hundreds of ornaments (and still growing!) I don’t try to do a themed tree – in fact it is very eclectic. My kids all have their favorites which MUST go on the tree every year and once those are up I just pick others as the mood suits me, not for how they may or may not match.  I do however have a collection of booklover ornaments and one of tea lover ornaments and I use those as tabletop displays.

#2. When my children were very young I started a tradition of buying them one ornament of their very own each year so that when they grew up and moved away they would have a ‘starter set’ of ornaments of their very own. My plans, however, met with mixed success. Two of my kids took theirs when they established their own homes, two of them still have their collections boxed up and stored in their former closets here at my house with the intention (or so they say) of taking them ‘someday’.
TRUE  The youngest is 37 – here’s hoping ‘someday’ comes soon!

#3. My siblings and I are all big on Christmas candy and treats and when we have our extended family gathering, which usually includes over 45 people, we all try to outdo each other. In fact there are usually more sweets than ‘regular’ food. My personal specialties are peanut butter fudge and a rice krispie based candy – and I like to experiment with at least one new item each year. As for the scrumdiddlyumptious candy my mom used to make, while my other relatives vied for her pecan pralines, I’d pass those up and go straight for her coconut pralines!
TRUE  I remember as a little girl grating fresh coconut for momma to use in her coconut pralines and nothing tops Christmas candy for me like these sweet treats and the memories they engender.

And there you have it – some personal glimpses as well as some playful lies from your friends here at the junction. How many did you get right? How many really surprised you?

Stay tuned – winner post is coming soon!