‘Once Upon a Christmastime with the Oprah Show’ and how it inspired CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN… by Jina Bacarr
December 11, 2019 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as books, Christmas, holiday, piano, tradition, treeOnce upon a Christmastime, I had a fun experience with the Oprah Show that has remained a fond memory… even if it took a different path than the show planned…
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‘Ring… ring… ’
I was halfway out the door when the telephone rang. I slammed to a halt, clutching my car keys, my purse slung over my shoulder. Who could be calling me this early in the morning?
It was 8 a.m.
I was running late for a meeting and the last thing I needed was another telemarketer trying to sell me carpet cleaning for Christmas.
Then it hit me. I remembered the Christmas tradition story I wrote about my mom and her old piano and sent to the Oprah Show.
I swallowed hard. It was 10 a.m. in Chicago. Oprah Time.
I grabbed the phone and mumbled a breathless, ‘Hello… ’
‘Hi, this is the Oprah Show calling.’
‘Did you say Oprah?’ I gulped, my heart pounding like a million elves working overtime.
“Do you have time to talk?” the producer asked, hopeful.
I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, sure… no problem.’
Wait till I tell my boss why I’m late today.
‘Awesome. We received your story about your Christmas tradition… ’
I tossed my purse and car keys onto a chair, my pulse racing out of control. ‘Yes?’
‘We’d like to use it for a segment on our holiday show.’
‘You do?’ I said, my voice squeaking like a little kid seeing Santa Claus.
The producer chuckled. ‘Yes… now here’s what we need from you.’
Knees wobbly, I fumbled in my purse for a pencil while the producer give me instructions on what happened next. Tears misted in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. My Christmas tradition was going to be on Oprah.
I let out a deep sigh. If only my mom could see this, praying somehow she did know.
My mother loved to play the piano, especially at Christmastime. She knew every holiday carol by heart and every year, she’d sit down at our old studio upright piano and take us on a musical trip to Bethlehem or a journey with the Three Wise Men or rock ‘n roll with Jingle Bell Rock.
We lived in the Pennsylvania woods when I was a kid and one Christmas we were snowed in and couldn’t get into town to buy a tree. So my mom decorated our old piano with shiny, silver tinsel and red and blue and green balls with a gold star on top.
After all, a piano is made out of wood, and that wood was once a tree.
So why not a Christmas Piano Tree?
My mother passed away a few days before Christmas many years ago. I didn’t have the heart to trim a tree that year. Then I remembered her Christmas piano tree. I decorated that same old, wonderful studio upright with Christmas ornaments that year and I do so every Christmas since then as a tribute to my mom.
It was an exciting time after the Oprah Show producer called. They asked for photos of my Christmas piano tree, then we taped the segment for my holiday tradition with me reading what I wrote about my mom. The sound crew added holiday music and I got all ready to watch the show when it aired…
But the show ran overtime, so my segment didn’t make the national broadcast. I was devastated, but the Oprah producer promised she’d do something for me.
She did. The next year the Oprah Show ran my old home Christmas movies and used them as part of their promo for their holiday show.
So here’s my pretty young mom at Christmastime hanging up Christmas stockings.
Awesome…
When I wanted to write a Christmas time travel story, I thought about how much I missed my mom every year and those wonderful holidays when I was a kid in Pennsylvania. If only I could go back in time and see her again and tell her how much I loved her…
I dedicated CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN to my mom. It’s the story of the Arden Family during World War 2 on the home front with Kate, the older daughter, as the heroine sending the man she loves off to war in 1943… she never sees him again.
Then years later she has the chance to go back in time and warn him about a secret mission gone wrong in France. Will he believe her?
All she wants for Christmas is to save the man she loves…
Christmas Once Again is available at e-tailers everywhere, print, and audio book, too!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Jina
PS – some of my favorite scenes in Christmas Once Again are when Kate reconnects with Ma…and their wonderful moments together.
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CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN is on sale for 99 cents for a limited time!
US Amazon https://amzn.to/2pcz2eN
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Audio US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL6KG3W
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2 0 Read moreVeterans Day: a soldier with PTSD finds his way home by way of a Christmas Piano Tree
November 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Army, Christmas, holidays, military romance, PTSD, soldier, tree, veteran, Veterans Day
Veterans Day is for healing…let’s not forget our wounded warriors who suffer not only the physical pains of war, but the mental as well.
PTSD was first talked about during the Civil War by physicians who described it as nostalgia, while others believed it was a disturbance of a soldier’s mental capabilities caused by severe trauma to the brain.
After World War II, John Huston directed a documentary called Let There Be Light, about the care of soldiers with mental disturbances suffered during wartime.
These are wounds you don’t see.
But they are very real to the soldier with PTSD.
In my holiday romance, “The Christmas Piano Tree,” the hero, Sgt. Jared Milano, is a wounded warrior suffering from PTSD from his last mission in Afghanistan:
“His brain went into freefall and he couldn’t stop it. No matter how hard he tried, how much he squeezed his mind, the memory stayed lost in a thick, suffocating fog swirling around in his head.
Lost.
Dead and forgotten.
Angry, frustrated, he tried to reach out and grab it, but whatever his buddy said to him before he died remained silent and still in his mind.
When would he remember? When?”
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“The Christmas Piano Tree” is the story of a pretty young war widow who re-discovers the magic of the holiday season with the help of a homeless vet and an old piano.
I’ll never forget the Christmas I spent stationed overseas in a small town in Italy. The hot chocolate and cookies I baked and gave to the soldiers who signed up for my Christmas Eve Midnight Mass tour. Off we went on that wintry night in an old military school bus…
We were a motley group of military and Special Services personnel attending the service in a medieval cathedral that was cold and damp, but filled with song and hope for a better future.
Many of those men had seen the horrors of combat and suffered from PTSD (what we called DSS–delayed-stress syndrome–back then). Their stories as they told them to me have stayed with me always…
Thank you for spending part of your Veterans Day here with me. We thank all those who have served for their courage and bravery in keeping us and our families safe. God bless you.
~Jina
The Christmas Piano Tree is available on Kindle and KindleUnlimited.
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0 0 Read moreVeterans Day with “The Christmas Piano Tree” by Jina Bacarr
November 11, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Christmas, Christmas eve, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, military, piano, PTSD, romance, second chance, soldier, sweet romance, tree, veterans, Veterans Day, wounded warrior
The gate is the entrance to the Mary Huber School for Girls where my heroine, Kristen Delaney, works…she’s been feeding homeless vets with leftover food as a way of keeping her husband’s memory alive (he was killed in Afghanistan)–this is a very difficult Christmas Eve for her and her little girl Rachel…until this soldier shows up!!
Here’s a short scene where we first meet him. Kristen gets a funny feeling when she sees a tall man walking toward her…
“She pulled her steering wheel hard to the right to avoid colliding with the tall man bundled up in a black field jacket and khaki pants, a duffel bag strapped on his back, his broad shoulders dusted with falling snow.
“She stuck her head out of the window to give him a piece of her mind and then stopped.
“Something about him made her stare at him. He had that swagger she knew so well. Military. Seeing him touched a nerve. Another homeless vet. Kristen shook her head, understanding. He was the third one this week looking for a hot meal.
“Not surprising on Christmas Eve.â€
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Who is the handsome soldier? And how is he tied to Kristen’s past?
Lost.
Dead and forgotten.
Angry, frustrated, he tried to reach out and grab it, but whatever his buddy said to him before he died remained silent and still in his mind.
When would he remember? When?”
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PS — just wanted to add that my Christmas Novella A Soldier’s Italian Christmas won the Novella category in the I Heart Indie contest!
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My Christmas Piano Tree is on the Great Christmas Tree Tour by Jina Bacarr
December 11, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Christmas, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, piano, tree
It’s a piano.
Yes, a piano. Decorated and all lit up like a…you guessed it, a Christmas Tree! So you see, I wasn’t sure if my Christmas Piano Tree was going to make the cut for the Great Christmas Tree Tour–a fabulous Holiday blog put together by fellow Harlequin romance author, Cheryl St. John.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!
Best, Jina
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