For the last few years, I’ve had to be much more creative with my gift-giving, because funds have been exceptionally tight. This means, I’ve been focusing on experiences and spending time instead of money.

This year, in keeping with that spirit, I decided that for Christmas I was going to write my nephews a story, and not only make then the heroes of the piece, but, make it a whole adventure: a self-contained experience that, with any luck, they would remember, and would have a touch of magic for them.

I had no idea what to write.

Finally, one night, in the bathtub, I was realizing that the story needed pictures, and I remembered that I had a picture of my oldest nephew and a gray kitten that had wandered across our path when we were walking around in a cemetery in Iowa. And then I knew what to write.

I turned that photo into the beginning of a quest. The kitten would lead the boys to a castle in another world, where they would get a treasure map, and a mission from the King to reclaim the treasure, and break the curse put on this land by a witch. The boys would need to find it, and then disguise and protect it. As their reward, they could keep the treasure.

At work, I made the treasure map, complete with burned spots and aging. I got a small treasure box at Hobby Lobby, filled it with “gems” and sparkly plastic necklaces I had in my costume closet, took some pictures of these, and mailed them to my sister, who would arrange the hiding of the treasure.

I put the story into a book, and printed it from one of the print-on-demand sites, with extra pages in the back for the boys to draw and color the details of how the story ended.

The boys had a blast. They took their swords with them to hunt for the treasure, and they looked under every tree they saw. They took the bequest for “disguising” the treasure very seriously, and were certain that there was no way that evil witch would recognize the stolen treasure.

My sister recorded the whole adventure on video, and I admit, it was pretty cool to watch them get excited about the adventure as my sister read the story. Their imaginations went crazy, inventing a path and bridges on the map that weren’t there. They saw “naughty guys” hiding behind bushes and were amazed that they were reading a book with their pictures in it.

According to my sister, they’re still hiding the treasure all over the house, so that they can go find it again. They excitedly showed me their efforts of painting the box.

My sister and brother-in-law figure that I should create customized story kits, for families to have their own adventures, where the kids are the heroes, and the parents are involved in orchestrating the magic for their kids.

So, I’m going to give it a try. I’m working on the logistics, pricing and creating three story templates to see what happens. My brain has constructed a “dig for dinosaur bones” story, a pirate story, and a lost princess tiara story, and I’ll put each of them up for sale in two formats. One will be customized story only, with instructions for how to collect the other parts they need. The other will be a full kit, with the treasure/dinosaur bones/tiara all packaged together with the customized book. For this version, I’ll have the parents send a few specific pictures of their kids to mix in with the text.

What I’ve noticed is that I’ve been feeling particularly inspired by pursuing this idea, and I’ve really been generating a bunch of ideas around this concept, and how to make it go, and it’s feeling exciting to me in ways that some of my other projects of late haven’t felt. It has also started to solidify more of a direction for me in terms of what my goals are and what direction I want to take, which is feeling more “right” to me than almost all the other directions I’ve contemplated.

I don’t exactly know where this will lead, but, it seems worth trying. I will keep you posted.

One of the things that is both a challenge and a joy for me every Christmas is the annual Santa letters. By this I don’t mean a holiday letter to my family, or a letter I send to the dead-letter bin at the Post Office, but rather, the letter I write from Santa to some of the special kids in my life.

I’ve been doing this for nine years now, and I think about them for months before I sit down and write them. I try and think of new adventures for Santa, and for the cadre of characters I’ve invented over the years. I try not to do too much duplication, and tried not to make them too scary.

I goofed one year, and one of the kids was really scared by the story, and, even though Santa triumphed in the end, it was scary for that kiddo in particular. Some of the younger kids weren’t bothered by the same story, it just happened to hit on specific fears he had, and I felt really horrible about it, not just for misjudging it, but, for not knowing my audience well enough to anticipate that.

I write the story first, either on the computer or long hand, then transcribe it onto Christmas paper in script. This serves two purposes, first, Santa would never print. He’s old school. Second, I always print, and no one would guess, from comparing my script to my print that they came from the same person.

I personalize it as much as possible, and try to refer to the things the kids are getting from Santa. I also try to mention things that “only Santa would know.” It takes at least an hour to transcribe the letter into script, and if I make enough mistakes, I start the page all over again.

The stories have had real white elephants, and black polar bears, and a whole mythology about the North Pole. Looking back on them year after year, they make me smile, and I try and imagine hearing them for the first time as a child on Christmas morning.

The hardest part for me is that I rarely get to see the kids’ reactions to the letters. Only twice have I been present on Christmas morning, when my sister read the letter for my nephews. I’ve missed seeing the faces of my namesake and my goddaughter hearing the stories for the first time, and I’m secretly wondered if they even liked them. I’d hear a few things from their parents, but, it’s not the same thing. And, I couldn’t very well ask the children about them.

I won’t wonder about that so much after this year. The letters seem to have a cumulative effect. First, the oldest child for whom I’ve written them (who just turned 12), still believes in Santa, which is later than I myself did, and I suspect that a good part of this is due to the fact that he’s gotten personal letters from Santa since he was three.

This year, when his family was putting up the tree, he collected all the letters from the past years, and took them to his room to study them. He analyzed the handwriting looking for secret codes, or a clue to Santa’s identity. He wanted to volunteer to go to the North Pole and help Santa fight the Nightmares. (The Nightmares are the very thing that frightened him six years ago.)

So, I guess, they had an impact.

Santa told him that while there wasn’t any coded message in the previous letters, it was a fun idea, and maybe next year he’d do that. I’ll work on it. Santa also told him that his sister needed him more than he did, but, that his offer was appreciated.

What I wanted to give these kids was a touch of magic, something that they would remember for their whole lives, even after they no longer believed in Santa. I would’ve done this with my own kids, but, as it’s increasingly unlikely that I will ever have kids of my own, I would just have to do it for other kids I love.

I don’t know how long it will last, and I suspect I will miss doing it for them when they’ve moved on. But, for now, I’ll enjoy that little touch of magic, and look forward to talking with the kids about the stories when they’ve grown. Maybe, they’ll let me write them for their kids one day.

As pretty much everyone knows, I’m a big fan of graveyards.  I’m quite fond of Mr. Gaiman, too, and so, it was time to check out this novel. From the library, ’cause, well, who doesn’t love the library?

I started this book last weekend, and have been reading it in spare moments. I finished it tonight, and am not at all ashamed to admit, I found myself  fighting tears in those last pages.

The Graveyard Book is the story of a young man who finds shelter as a toddler in an old graveyard. He’s protected by the ghosts from the man called Jack, who killed his family, and means to kill the boy.

The boy, who comes to be called “Bod,” short for “Nobody,”  is raised by the dead, who give him an education in more than just reading, writing and ‘rithmatic. He learns the history you can’t get in a text book, plus handy tips on how to stay hidden from the killer lurking just outside the gates of the cemetery.

Like most of Gaiman’s stories, there’s magic and myth woven together in the framework of the contemporary world.  The ancient cemetery, which holds many secrets and things beyond the experiences of the living, is an evocative backdrop for the tale as the lad grows up and has adventures in the land of the dead that he calls home.

I admit, part of me is jealous of a boy raised in one of those ancient burial grounds that traces its origins through millennia.  The sense of a place that reaches across great swats of time, binding past, present and future in that common human experience of life and death,  is magic in itself, even without the touch of the “fairy magic” in the tale.   How wonderful it would be to speak to the people whose names are etched on the stones, and learn about what they saw and learned, and find out what inspired their maddeningly tantalizing and vague epitaphs.

I will also admit, that I have, after spending time transcribing and photographing a cemetery, felt like I had a connection to the people that rest there. This probably sounds ridiculous, yet, still, it’s there.

I’ve come to notice that each cemetery has its own personality. This personality is a weird blend of those buried there, who “express” themselves through their markers, both in the art, and in the words they leave inscribed on the stone.

I always have had a good memory, and it seems to have an especial facility with cemeteries. I can always find, within a few feet, where a specific marker is, months or even years after I’ve completed the block. You say a name, and I can see the stone, and its surroundings. I can usually even recall the material it’s made of and the general look of it, each as unique to me as faces in a crowd.

The idea of knowing a cemetery as Bod does, every marker and tree root,  is, perhaps strangely, comforting to me. He had the additional bonus of knowing what the “residents” looked like, how the talked, and their own unique speech patterns, inextricably linked to a time long ago.

The graveyard that is Bod’s home had that same sense of place to me, and felt as authentic a cemetery as the ones I’ve visited. Through the book, I got to  know this place. It was hard to know that one day, the living boy would have to leave his home.  I could not help but feel that loss along with Bod, and there’s something beautiful in a story that can take the reader along the same paths as the main character.