Traveling, Christmas, and a Give Away!

by

Hello, P&P readers. Lacy Williams with you today asking a couple of questions: How far would you travel to be with your loved ones at Christmas? What are you willing to go through to get there?

During my freshman year of college, we had a massive, unusual-for-us snowstorm here in Oklahoma. It delivered a massive twelve inches of snow and the (few) snowplows couldn’t keep up. I was living on campus, and even though I was only ten miles away from home, I can still remember the adrenaline rush and my white knuckles as I drove home for Christmas break with my laundry basket of belongings in the back of my small car.

Probably the worst experience I’ve had traveling home at Christmas was flying cross-country to visit my in-laws for the holiday. This was before we had kids, and between my husband and I one of us is the kind of person who likes to have a list and be packed and double-check the night before. The other one likes to throw things in a bag just before we walk out the door. I will let you try to figure out which is which.

Hubby and I arrived at the airport with what we thought was enough time to check our bags and get through security, but it turned out we were wrong. The airline wouldn’t let us check our bags because it was too close to the flight time and it was possible they might not get on board the plane. We had gifts for his family packed in our luggage and we couldn’t leave them behind or combine them into our carry-on luggage, so basically we missed our flight because of our luggage.

It was devastating for two broke college kids (we were paying our way through night school at the time) to think we had missed our chance to be with our family. Luckily, we were able to get on another flight a few hours later. It could’ve turned out much worse than the couple hundred dollars it cost us.

(Am I wrong or does Hallmark have a sub-genre of their Christmas movies like this? Films about travel gone awry where either the hero or heroine gets stranded in a small town and falls in love while they are trying to get through all the obstacles it takes to get home.)

Fighting to get home for Christmas is the premise of my new release, Christmas Homecoming. Set in 1914, my hero Walt is on a train ready to take the wanted criminal in his custody to a judge where he will face justice. Surprise! His younger sister and her beautiful friend hop on the train mid-journey and suddenly Walt is getting lectures about why he should come home for Christmas when he hasn’t been home in years due to a broken relationship with his father and brother. Before he can blink, the train is part of a hold-up and Walt finds himself in a heap of trouble. It’s gonna take a lot more than he thought to get home for Christmas and to rescue the woman he’s falling for from the bad guys.

This new book is an adventurous romance. Tell me about your most disastrous trip home for the holidays. If you don’t have a story like that, tell me your favorite holiday food.

I would love to give away a paperback copy plus a $10 gift card to one of the readers who makes a comment today.

Thanks for chatting with me today!


About the book:
All traveling nurse Libby wanted was a quiet Christmas to grieve losing her younger brother. She’s on a westbound train heading home when she and a friend find themselves in the middle of a hijacking and then taken hostage by a gang of outlaws.

Walt White is a U.S. Marshal who has been chasing down the Seymour gang for years. But he’s kidnapped along with two innocent women, he must figure out how to keep them alive—and it doesn’t help that he’s completely distracted by the beautiful Libby. He’ll need his wits about him if he hopes to save them.

As they work to engineer an escape, Walt realizes that Libby is resilient and cunning—and vulnerable, though she hides it well. He must give his all to protect her heart and bring her home in time for Christmas.


Find it on Amazon    
Available soon on OverDrive!


Author bio:
Lacy Williams wishes her writing career was more like what you see on Hallmark movies: dreamy brainstorming from a French chateau or a few minutes at the computer in a million-dollar New York City penthouse. In reality, she’s up before the sun, putting words on the page before her kids wake up for the day. Those early-morning and late-night writing sessions add up, and Lacy has published fifty books in almost a decade, first with a big five publisher and then as an indie author. When she needs to refill the well, you can find Lacy birdwatching, gardening, biking with the kiddos, or walking the dog. Find tons of bonus scenes and reader extras by becoming a VIP reader at http://www.lacywilliams.net/vip .

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58 thoughts on “Traveling, Christmas, and a Give Away!”

  1. Although I’m a traveler, and have sometimes been far from home, I’ve never missed being home for Christmas. When my husband and I were serving as missionaries in Oaxaca (deep, Southern Mexico), we still managed to fly home for Christmas. I can’t remember a real disaster, but on the return flight, we did have a luggage problem. We didn’t know that, because of the holidays, the airline had reduced the weight limit of the baggage, and we wanted to take some extra things back to Oaxaca. We ended up having to buy a lightweight, canvas bag from the airline.

      • I have learned through the years that it is important to be at home for the holidays. We have driven 6 hours and had flat tires along the way. There is no place like home!

  2. We came home once in a massive snow storm. We were the last plane to land before the airport closed. The landing was a bit a slippery but nothing compared to driving home.

    • Oooh, I hate driving in ice. I once did a 360 when I was about sixteen and have never liked driving on ice since. (I was fine, car was fine; just scary).

  3. Welcome to P & P, Lacy- well it wasn’t going home to be with my family, it was our return. We left Stephenville, TX on our way back to our home in Hugoton, KS after a week with my parents for Christmas. We woke to ice in TX and thought it was just in that area. So we will drive out if it, surely, Right??
    It took us 4 hours to drive 140 miles. As we continued on, cars and semi’s wrecked everywhere on HWY 287, we finally made it to our 1/2 way mark (Childress, TX) on a normal trip, about the time we should of been unloading our truck at home in Hugoton, KS. Well long story short, we arrived home at 11:00 PM and had left mom & dad’s at 7.00 AM. We drove 35 mph the entire trip. We promised ourselves we will never leave out with ice on roads again. But we still laugh about the trip and chalk it up to a well learned lesson and the slow trip we had, where we really saw everything in slow motion.
    Thanks for visiting with us here and your book sounds amazing.

  4. We’ve always been a roadtrip family, traveling by auto, and that’s how I grew up. I don’t have a worst ever trip at Christmas, even though I grew up traveling 500 miles each way at Christmas.

    Worst trip ever was a roadtrip to/from Baton Rouge to visit my husband’s grandparents. On the way down, after a stopover at my grandpa’s, the younger (only had two of my three boys then) started feeling poorly. Then the older one was sick at the grandparents’ home. The grandparents complained about the kids only wanting to watch TV, um… hello, they were sick. We went to urgent care and each boy had an ear infection. On the way home, younger seemed worse, so we stopped at an ER in Alabama. Pneumonia. By then, I wasn’t feeling great–stressful trip. ER doctor said something, but I played it off as nothing. After we were home two days later, my husband and I went to urgent care. I had pneumonia and my husband had bronchitis. ~1800 miles, roundtrip, of misery.

  5. I am such a fan of Lacy Williams. ‘Hometown Sweethearts’ and ‘Cowboy Fairytales’ are a couple of my favorite book series.

  6. I don’t travel. I wouldn’t travel at Christmas. I won’t go out in any kind of bad weather. I sound like a party pooper. I don’t always worry about mecdriving . I worry about the others out there.

  8. When I was about 4 years old, my dad had been away several months working in Michigan. We lived in Arkansas. My mother assured us that Daddy would be coming home Christmas Eve and all of us children were eagerly awaiting his arrival. However there had been a winter storm earlier in the week and we had (rare for Arkansas) snow for Christmas. In fact, we had several inches and apparently there was snow all the way from Michigan to Arkansas. Daddy was driving so he was delayed a good bit and Mama finally put five very disappointed children to bed. She told us that if we didn’t go to sleep, Santa wouldn’t come but I was determined to stay awake until my daddy got home. Just as I was beginning to doze off, I heard terrible racket on the roof and of course shut my eyes tightly just in case it was Santa. I didn’t open them again until the next morning and sure enough, my daddy was there! I had to tell him about hearing Santa land on the roof and he said we should go outside and check it out. We all bundled up and headed outside and sure enough there was a big bare spot on the roof while the rest was covered in snow. I was quite a few years older before I realized that it had warmed up enough during the day to start melting the snow on the roof and a big chunck had just slid off. Best Christmas ever!

  12. As a child of about 6 years old, our family got stranded in an Iowa blizzard. Semi drivers shared a few snacks and we were covered in blankets to keep warm. When the highway was opened up again people living closer invited strangers in for a meal before traveling on. It is still vivid in my memory.

    Thank you for coming to blog today. Your new book sounds very good.

  13. Good morning! Welcome to P&P! The worst trip I ever had was when my husband, my toddler, & I were driving from our Feedlot in Dublin, Texas to take my nephew home to Marion, Kentucky after he had spend weeks in Texas with us. I had just gotten by daughter potty trained & my husband had a lot of health issues. It was a miserable trip because my toddler soon learned that if she said, “I’ve got to potty”, we would stop and be able to get out of the car. What should have been a 12 hour trip took about 18 between potty breaks, wrecks & road construction. My husband was miserable & wished he hadn’t even made the trip with us. We only stayed 1 day & had to do the trip home.

    A giveaway is an awesome way to find a new author to add to my go to authors list. I’d love to read your book.

    • I’ve been there, traveling with a newly trained kid. That’s kind of adorable that she figured out how to get you to stop. Smart girl!

  14. Travelling to see my family the last few years is more about how much time it takes me to get ready, and then buses and trains I have to organize. I have stayed home a number of Christmas because the effort is just too much. Not this past Christmas, I spent it with family and I am glad I did.

  16. Looking forward to reading your new book! My traveling days are over, but if I would certainly travel if it meant meeting my family again for Christmas.

  17. Many years ago as a newly wed, I had never been away from home at Christmas. We had Christmas morning and lunch at his parents and then jumped in the car to get to mine. We did that after year until my parents started coming our way.

    • Melanie, it’s hard to juggle all the in-laws, isn’t it? We usually have a mutliple-day celebration now to make sure we get time to visit with all the grands, great-grands, and family. Thanks for commenting!

  18. I went to TX for Christmas last year, the first time I’ve ever flown totally by myself! The first time I flew, I flew with the docs I worked for and most of my co-workers. The first time, we had a direct flight, this time, I had to change flights! I like to travel, though most of the time it’s just by car!

  19. As I will be 70 in a few days, I would only be willing to drive a couple of miles for Christmas. We go to my oldest daughter for dinner and to my house for desserts and gifts.

  20. A great post today. I dont have a story like that. Lived at home until I got married. We all live close by each other. But my favorite holiday food is Sweet Potato Casserole. quilting dash lady at comcast dot net

  21. Thank you for the fabulous post! My favorite holiday food is Sweet Potato casserole with caramelized pecan topping.

  25. I can’t think of any of the disastrous travel stories at the moment. When we were young we lived in Michigan and would head to South Carolina to see my grandparents at Christmas. I remember once it being 75° on Christmas day!

    I live Turkey with gravy and stuffing at the holidays.

  26. Welcome back, Lacy! We’re happy to have you. Since I’ve gotten older, I don’t travel as much and the weather definitely plays a part in making a decision. I sort of like to stay home anyway. I love the cover of your book! It’s so pretty. I really love the woman. She’s quite lovely. Blue goes with Christmas and is a nice change from the reds and greens.

  27. We have traveled for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas hoping for better weather. The worst trip I had was when our girls were 7 and 8 and we were coming home. When we left the Albany, NY, airport it was just starting to snow. We had to make an unscheduled stop in Buffalo and wait until fewer planes were backed up over
    Chicago. Finally got to Chicago and the flight to Minneapolis was cancelled and they put us on a different flight from a different gate on the other side of O’Hare. Ended up in Minneapolis earlier than our original schedule and then waited for our flight to
    Spokane. From Spokane the normally 11/2 hour drive took 3 hours to home. Part of that drive was on ice. While at my mom’s I had made the girls do their school work so they wouldn’t be behind. On Monday at school instead of being behind they were ahead most of the week. There had been a blizzard while we were gone and no school!

  31. When our 2 now grown adult children with families of their own were very young, we would always go visit (my parents and my in laws for Christmas) thank goodness they lived in the same state and maybe like half an hour away from each other. One year a day before we were supposed to go(we traveled by car, they only lived like 5 hours away from us) our son who was 3 at the time got real sick, we took him to the Dr. and our son had a very bad cold , so we just stayed home. My favorite dish is stuffing. Have a great weekend and stay safe.

  32. I do not have an adventure story of going home. My favorite holiday food is seven layer cookies. Thank you for sharing. God bless you.

  34. We have had many storm related trips over the years. The first was the worst was for Thanksgiving right after we got engaged. We were in Northern NY with my family a a big storm hit Thanksgiving Day. We left the next morning to spend a belated Thanksgiving with his family. There had been over 2 feet of snow and the roads were tricky, especially the back roads we took initially. I only had my driving permit (I never got my license because I was overseas) and insisted on driving while we were still in NY. I made it fine through all the back roads, some which had not been plowed. We got to the interstate which had been cleared but still had patches of ice. The day was sunny and what was on the road was melting fast. I never went very fast, but hit a small patch of ice and crashed into a guardrail. By the time the trooper got there, the ice had melted. It was obvious I hadn’t been going very fast, but the car still needed to be towed. Luckily my uncle was able to get us and arrange for the car to be towed. We ended up flying to Orlando to meet his family. Nothing like meeting your future in-laws after wrecking their son’s car. To top it off, I wore a long peasant dress on the flight and the hippy vibe didn’t go over well. It was 1971. She wasn’t very happy with his choice for wife. We had a subdued 2nd Thanksgiving and flew back north a week later. He shipped out to Vietnam a month later. I got to know each other much better and she wasn’t as concerned about his choice. It did take a while.
    The cover for Christmas Homecoming is lovely and it is the type of story I really enjoy.

  35. We have never had to travel out of town or state, our family is all together in the same area. Last years snow/ice storm here in Texas was a complete surprise. No family gatherings. Did have to go pick up my daughter and son in law from our rent house just 4 miles outside of our town. Phones weren’t working in that area and everyone was worried about them. They stayed with us in town for several days along with their two dogs. My favorite holiday dish is turkey and dressing with lots of cranberry sauce.

  36. When my daughter was a Sophomore in college in Madison, WI she wanted to visit us in SE Florida for her Christmas break. She had never flown before or traveled on her own.
    Her flight from Madison to O’Hare airport was delayed due to bad weather. She missed her flight to West Palm Beach. She called us in tears asking us what to do. You really feel helpless when you are over 1000 miles away. We wanted her to go to a hotel.but she was too afraid to venture out of the airport in bad weather on her own. She ended up in an uncomfortable chair. She was afraid someone would steal her suitcase and backpack if she fell asleep. On top of all that there wasn’t an opening on any of her airline’s flights coming down to WPB the next day! Luckily at 6 am tbe next morning the person at her airlines check in desk was sympathetic and called other airlines which also flew to WPB and she was able to get a flight down that evening. A happy ending but so stressful!

  37. would depend if i could travel in a way that didn’t ramp up my anxiety. I have to factor thiat in. Right now I’m a wimp. My mom and step dad moved away 4-5 years ago and it’s been that long since I saw them 🙁 So if that’s any indication of me and travel there ya go.

  38. My trip that really started in disaster was when my family and I went on vacation. Things started out in disaster too. You see we had this car that had stopped working but when we took it some place to be looked at, we told them what we thought it was and they checked and couldn’t find anything and said you should be good to go on your vacation. So we went on our vacation and we got right inside the gate to where what happens, the car breaks down. We waited a while and the car started again and the next day we took the car to Johnson’s Motors up in Dubois, PA and we told them our thought on what it might be and they checked and they said sure enough it was computer in the car like we thought so they fixed it for us. Although all turned out in a happy ending, we weren’t so sure in the beginning because of all the disasters in the beginning. OH the anxiety…

  39. To get to my home for Christmas which we do on Christmas Eve and we are about 50 miles away and a lot of country roads to get there. Several years ago a snow storm hit while we were there and it was a nightmare just trying to get home that night. A year of so ago a snowstorm was hitting on Christmas Eve and I decided not to go home for Christmas because of the snow, even my younger sister had to get someone to bring her home because it got so rough that night so I was glad I didn’t go.

  41. I don’t travel but my favorite holiday food is the homemade stuffing with the turkey ! Love the cover of the book!

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