Merry Christmas

First, of course, I want to wish a sincere and heartfelt Merry Christmas to everyone that has taken time out of their day to stop by my blog and pay attention to my rantings. It's been great. I've been working on this blog since September and, somehow, I've managed to post every single day. That's an amazing accomplishment for me, and I wrote a 140k word novel.

Seriously though, I have issues maintaining good habits, so I've very stoked to have been going this long and I'm thrilled that people are actually stopping by to check out the blog. On that note though, I want to reflect a little bit on Christmas.

This is now the second Christmas I've had without a home to go back to. My mother died back in 2011 and my father just a couple years ago. While I was living in Vegas, I saved up a lot of money and am going full time at this writer thing, so when we couldn't find an apartment, a wonderful woman took us in to her home. I have no complaints, but waking up Christmas morning in someone else's house, knowing I'll never have the Christmases I had as a child is... sobering. 

So... I wonder, what is Christmas like for the Paladins of my novel? Now, I made a conscious effort to avoid holidays in the novel, but I may have to address them in the future. I wonder... do the parishes have a little Christmas tree? The Order is supposed to be a Catholic organization, but members aren't all necessarily from the faithful. How many varied takes on Christmas will a group of demon fighters and monster hunters have? Do they have strange traditions because they're Paladins / exposed to the monster world?

I myself have a jack-o-lantern with a Christmas tree carved in it sitting just outside my door. It's strange, I grant. I gotta wonder if a Paladin might do something a little off to the common man as well. What about hunters like Simon? He's loaded, so it's not unthinkable that his parlor has a giant tree in it, but what kind of gifts do you get the hunter who has everything? A dagger made from the melted down silver cross of church in Europe, blessed by the Pope? 

Do Paladins get time off to see their family? What about Paladins who's family isn't "in the know?" Let's say Jonathan, my protagonist, had a family to visit during the holidays and was given time off. What does he tell them? 

I have to admit, at the moment, I don't have an answer, but perhaps I will address that in a new story. Maybe I can put out a nice little short story centered around the holidays? I wonder if Christmas  / December has any monsters associated with it? Ooo... time for research!

Merry Christmas! Be Excellent to Each Other!