Christmas is a time for new beginnings and joyful celebrations – and Three Valleys Assembly Church is known across the county for its annual Christmas production. But this year, their annual extraordinary Christmas production is in danger. Why? A choreographed Christmas tree gone haywire!
Strong-willed single mother Adelyn steps up to save the show and preserve her late husband’s cherished holiday for her sons, with help from trusty tree technician Keith Grady – a real-life Scrooge with a heart in dire need of saving.
With a lot of heart and a little Christmas magic, Adelyn and Keith embark on a journey that will test their resilience, challenge their beliefs, and open doors for a second chance at happily ever after. But can two individuals, burdened by their own losses, learn to open up, trust, and even love one another.
One thing’s for sure. When curtains close on opening night, Christmas will never be the same.
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Characters
- Adelyn Sanderson is a mother, a widow, a teacher, a volunteer choir director, and the main character of Love Under Christmas Lights. Often called 'super-mom,' and frequent recipient of 'Best Teacher Ever' mugs, Adelyn is calm, confident, and patient under pressure while she grapples with the challenges of being a single mother to rambunctious twin boys and grieving the future she'd always dreamed of with her high school sweetheart.
- Keith Grady is a former electrical engineering turned lighting technician with a (hidden) heart of gold. This real-life Scrooge is surly and unreasonable when Adelyn and her boys first encounter him but, when given the chance, might prove to be just what the Sandersons need to bring the magic of Christmas back into their lives.
- Chance and Chase Sanderson might just be the most rambunctious pair of ten-year-olds you'll ever meet. Quick with a joke, and always on the move, Chance and Chase enjoy bringing a splash of color to the lives of everyone they meet to cope with the pain of grief and fear of moving on at such a young age.
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The Story Behind Love Under Christmas Lights
Love Under Christmas Lights started out as a gift for my mom, Andrea, in 2016. She'd had this thought while watching one of her Hallmark Christmas movies (one of, to mean, that she's probably watched all of them at some point) about a choir director who falls in love with the man in charge of the music at her church. I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes the first time she told me this idea, and I probably rolled them a second time when she sent me a link to Hallmark's open submissions page. I knew I wanted to be a writer and what kind of books I wanted to write; contemporary Christmas romance wasn't on the list, so I put the idea on a shelf and left it alone.
Then, I hit my writing slump and couldn't get any of the ideas I was once really excited about on the page...except for this one. This idea my mom had teased me about a dozen times since she'd mentioned it the first time. So, I dusted off the idea, opened my notebook, and got to work. I changed parts of it, expanded others, and reworked it until I finally said, "okay, I can do this," for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) 2022.
But it still wasn't my passion project. I was doing it to make my mom happy and (hopefully) jump-start the part of me that loved to write so I could work on stories that mattered to me. It wasn't until halfway through Nanowrimo (November 19, 2022, actually) that I realized this book I hadn't wanted to write was starting to mean something to me. I was pouring so much of myself, and my life, and my parents' love into it that it wasn't just a gift for my mom anymore. It was a way for me to process through my grief over losing my dad at 17, and overcome pain I didn't realize I was still carrying.
It was hard when I finished the first draft, because I had given so much of myself to finish it, but it was also empowering. I had found my voice again and rekindled a passion for storytelling I'd worried had burned out and opened new doors to new stories I'd never considered. And that's all thanks to Love Under Christmas Lights.
