"One Imperfect Christmas" by Myra Johnson

One Imperfect Christmas

By Myra Johnson

Only Love Makes a Christmas Perfect.

Graphic designer Natalie Pearce faces the most difficult Christmas of her life. For almost a year, her mother has lain in a nursing home, the victim of a massive stroke, and Natalie blames herself for not being there when it happened. Worse, she’s allowed the monstrous load of guilt to drive a wedge between her and everyone she loves—most of all her husband Daniel. Her marriage is on the verge of dissolving, her prayer life is suffering, and she’s one Christmas away from hitting rock bottom.

Junior-high basketball coach Daniel Pearce is at his wit’s end. Nothing he’s done has been able to break through the wall Natalie has erected between them. And their daughter Lissa’s adolescent rebellion isn’t helping matters. As Daniel’s hope reaches its lowest ebb, he wonders if this Christmas will spell the end of his marriage and the loss of everything he holds dear. 

To read an excerpt go here   http://bit.ly/1g2WZGk

Interview Questions:

1.       Will you tell us your favorite Christmas traditions?

Every December, my husband and I choose an evening to snuggle on the double recliner and watch our DVD of White Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we’ll attend worship service, where we sing with the traditional choir. Afterward, we drive around for a while to admire the neighborhood holiday decorations. Then it’s home to cookies and eggnog, and if the grandkids are visiting, we send them to bed before we and their parents get busy filling stockings and bringing out last-minute gifts to place under the tree.

2.        What is your favorite Christmas memory?

Wow, I don’t think I can choose just one! A very special memory is the first Christmas my husband and I shared as parents. Our new baby girl was just four months old, and I made her a red velvet dress and bonnet with white lace trim. She’s all grown up now, married with three strapping sons. We look forward to having them here this Christmas, along with our other daughter and her family, missionaries coming home on furlough from Ethiopia. They also have three children, plus a baby due in February!

3.        What is your least favorite memory of a certain Christmas?

The most depressing Christmas I can remember is the first time neither of our daughters came home for the holidays. Our recently married daughter was spending Christmas with her husband’s family, and our daughter at college decided to spend Christmas with her best friend’s family near campus. At least that year we had other family members nearby to spend part of the day with, but Christmas just isn’t as joyful for me without our children and grandchildren to share it with.

Debbie, I so appreciate the chance to visit with you today. It’s been a pleasure!

   One Imperfect Christmas is a five star book times 3. This book teaches that love is the perfect gift and that sometime having everything “Perfect” isn’t always the best.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this story, it started out being after Christmas and Natalie was not feeling the Christmas Spirit. Then she gets a call from her mother to help take down the Christmas decorations and Natalie tells her she is to busy to help! From then on the story captured me and I couldn’t put the book down till I had finished the last page.

When Natalie gets a call to go to the hospital and finds out that her mother has had a stroke, she blames herself and then the troubles starts between her and her husband and their teenage daughter.

While reading this novel I found myself  feeling the emotions of all the characters and I wanted to tell them, look at what you are doing to each other. This is a story filled with sorrow, hope and forgiveness and love. 

There are tender moments as well as funny scenes. Lissa, the teenage daughter is quite the schemer.

This book is about Christmas, a year later after the beginning of the story, which makes the title “One Imperfect Christmas” the right title for this book.

I found myself having the same wish the family did for the “star” and hoping that Natalie’s parents could keep their promise to have fifty Christmases together!

There are references to God and church attendance and you can tell this is Christian fiction but I believe anyone that has a family and has medical and financial problems and loves Christmas stories, they would love this story. “One Imperfect Christmas” leaves you feeling that even through you have troubles and every thing isn’t perfect, “It is a pretty good life”.

I was given a free ebook copy of this book by Abingdon Press Fiction for my honest review to be in the 2013 Christmas Blog Tour!