Christmas Wishes

Christmas Wishes

Debbie Macomber

384 pages

Rating: 3/5

Christmas Wishes is a combo book, which holds both Christmas Letters and Rainy Day Kisses.

Christmas Letters: Katherine O'Connor (known as K.O.) adores her five-year-old twin nieces— and strongly objects to her sister's plans to dispense with Christmas. Zelda is following the theories of child psychologist Wynn Jeffries, author of The Free Child (and, as it happens, K.O.'s neighbor). K.O. is particularly horrified by his edict to "bury Santa under the sleigh," and she's out to prove that Wynn and his ideas are full of snow. He's not going to ruin her nieces' Christmas! Too bad the guy's so darned attractive.

Rainy Day Kisses: Seventeen years ago Susannah Simmons was a career girl who knew nothing about babies. But after babysitting her infant niece, Michelle, Susannah learned that one determined— and screaming—baby can make the corporate world look like?child's play. Thank goodness for her charming neighbor Nate Townsend. Now he's her charming husband, and Susannah's a mother as well as an aunt. And every Christmas Eve, Michelle tells her cousins how their mom met their dad— a story in which she plays a starring role!

My Thoughts:
I enjoyed reading this Christmas book by Debbie Macomber.  It contains two short novels, both of which were fun.  I read this book for my Holiday Challenge, which is a perfect way for me to start the Christmas season.

Christmas Letters was a fun novel with many different laughs in it.  K.O., the main character, has a small side business writing humorous Christmas letters.  She made me laugh out loud.  Some of those comments truly made me giggle.  However, I found almost all of the characters to be too strong.  The characters could have used more depth, and so I did not understand their actions and they seemed to portray the extremes of their particular characteristics.  It caused me to be annoyed with the novel at times.  However, overall it was a cute story, and one that teaches the lessons of compromise and not judging a person too quickly.

Rainy Day Kisses I found to be quite cute.  The novel is based around Susannah, a corporate career woman, and Nick, her neighbor, as Susannah attempts to take care of her 9-month-old niece Michelle.  It was a typical romance novel.  I enjoyed the characters more than Christmas Letters, though I was annoyed by Susannah's stubborness to judge a person by his cover not the person himself.  Of course, it had a happy ending that tied things up beautifully.  And really it was a cute, quick read without major depth in it.

Ultimately, I gave Christmas Wishes a 3/5 because I enjoyed it, but I probably won't read it again.  I love Christmas, and I read it purely for the Christmas aspect.  I found some things annoying at times, but it is an enjoyable quick read.  I recommend it to anyone who enjoys romance and chick-lit.