The Chicks are so happy to welcome Liz Ireland, author of the delightful Mrs. Claus Mysteries, to the blog today. Take it away, Liz!
A Cake Walk
Thank you, Ellen, and to all you Chicks for having me as your guest today!
Growing up, November was my favorite month. I loved that it fit snugly in the middle of Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas time. Also, four out of six people in my immediate family were born in November, which meant four distinct cake opportunities.
I’ve always been a fan of cake. How big? The tiny rural town where I grew up didn’t much going on most of the year, but we did have an annual Autumn festival, complete with a big carnival held in the school gymnasium. Parents and teachers would run various games and concessions. Highlights were all sorts of snacks, the traditional apple bobbing, a haunted house, and carnival games, including a cake walk.
In the context of the carnival, the cake walk had nothing to do with the African American dance of the same name. It was musical chairs, basically, without chairs. For one ticket you walked in a circle marked with numbers on the floor while music played, and when the music stopped, if you were standing on the number picked and called out by the game leader, you would win a cake one of the mothers had baked and donated.
When I was five, my mother baked a strawberry cake for the festival’s cake walk. Strawberry cake—made with frozen canned strawberries, cake mix, and a box of strawberry Jello-O—was my one of my favorites, and the idea of this treasure being given away at random outraged every fiber of my pre-school being. After my mom handed me a string of carnival tickets and told me to entertain myself (this was the 70s) while she ran the Frito Pie concession (this was Texas), I spent the following hour walking in circles to win back the family cake. Which I did—and then I kept going. I won four cakes before some Good Samaritan informed my mom that her child had come unhinged and she dragged me away from the cake walk. Worse, she made me give back three cakes, including the strawberry. I’d also won a coconut cake—which, let’s face it, even a five-year-old knows is better than strawberry.
I’ve moved around a lot since I left my small town, and I always enjoy the different traditions associated with autumn in different regions. I relocated to Canada over a decade ago, so now I get to celebrate two Thanksgivings. When it came to writing Mrs. Claus and the Halloween Homicide, the second in my Mrs. Claus cozy mystery series, it was fun to bring a new holiday to Christmastown and see how Santalanders would adapt. It turns out that elves have their own ideas about what’s spooky, and their own traditional scary stories that they adapt for costumes. Imagine, if you will, Christmastown filled with elf tots dressed as abominable snow monsters. But of course, all Santalanders aren’t down with change, and conflicts over carved pumpkins and trick-or-treating lead to serious mayhem.
I hope readers will want to see what happens when the North Pole tries to adapt itself to more than just Christmas in Mrs. Claus and the Halloween Homicide. Did you come from a small town with its own weird festivals? Have you ever moved to a different country and adopted its holidays on your own?
SYNOPSIS: For the first time ever, Christmastown is celebrating a strange new tradition—Halloween. But not everyone wants their winter wonderland to be overrun by carved pumpkins and costume parties. As a spooky crimewave hits Santaland, Mrs. Claus realizes having a role in the festivities could cost her family, friends—even her own life.
BIO: Elizabeth Bass writes the Mrs. Claus cozy mystery series for Kensington under her pen name Liz Ireland. Her next book, A Letter to Three Witches, a paranormal rom-com written under her own name, will be released in January 2022.
You can find Liz at her website https://lizireland.wordpress.com, or follow her on Twitter: @writes_liz.
Chicks on the Case 
Congrats on the book! I’ve never adopted any traditions, but I loved being in the Caribbean for Christmas/New Years/Three Kings Day and seeing all the festivities.
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Traveling internationally during the holidays always appeals to me. Seeing how they celebrate in the Caribbean would be fantastic–and warm!
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How can anyone not love cake? I have only done a cake walk once. Sadly, I didn’t win anything, but I also wasn’t as dedicated as you and gave up after a few rounds. Congrats on your latest book!
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Thank you, Marla! It was probably the first and only time I displayed competitive spirit!
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Sounds like a fun book. Question, why the name change to Chicks in the Case? Eileen
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Good question. Weird. I seem to have fixed it…
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Thank you, Jen, for being ON the case! So, so bizarre.
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Thank you, Eileen! It’s been a fun series to write.
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Thanks for letting us know, Eileen! You have sharp eyes–we hadn’t even noticed the change. Every once in a while WordPress comes up with some new quirk for us to solve. Always fun. Arrgh!
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Congrats on the book!
I grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey. As for weird rituals, think The Sopranos (they lived next door!).
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Thank you, Tom! Growing up in Soprano-land would have been a trip.
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My church does a harvest festival every year on Oct. 31st, and one of the activities is a cake walk. I never participate since I don’t need an entire cake sitting around the condo for just me to eat.
If you haven’t read these books yet, you need to fix that today!
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Thanks so much, Mark! When I make a cake these days, I usually slice it up and freeze most of it. I can resist cake sitting in my freezer better than a cake on the counter.
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Thanks for visiting us, Liz! Like Marla, I’ve only done a cake walk once. Sadly, I didn’t win. It was a lot of fun, though!
I grew up in Central California, and one informal ritual was visiting the raisin factory–and getting free snacks afterward.
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A raisin factory would have been so cool to visit! Anything where they handed out free samples was always great fun.
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Liz, thank you so much for guesting! And now I want cake. (We used to have that game at our kid’s elementary school. I was always so jealous when someone won something great!)
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Thanks for inviting me, Ellen! I usually do want cake–I’ve never had a piece of cake that wasn’t better than not having a piece of cake.
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We used to play Musical Chairs when I was a kid, but the prizes were no way as good as a cake! (I think it might have been a candy bar.) I so love your story of winning four cakes as a kid–ha!
Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks today, and congrats on the new book!
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Not sure what it says about my luck that my four-cake win stands out as one of my luckiest days, LOL. Thank you for having me visit today, Leslie!
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Liz, your latest Mrs. Claus Mystery sounds great! And I really enjoyed that Cake Walk story, too. I’m not sure I could have handled the stress of trying to win cake. Straight-up Musical Chairs was always terrifying for me. But in my NH town we have a Cookie Walk each first Saturday in Dec. Everyone a winner! Basically, you go to the church on Main St., go down to the basement, and nice ladies in Santa hats load up a paper plate (or several) of homemade cookies, sold by the pound. Each lady has a special recipe variation and decorative strategy. No stress (as long as you get there early, or all the choclate peanut butter balls and sprinkled-sugar wreaths will be gone). It’s over by 11 am. My husband leaves the car running.
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Thank you, Lisa! A cookie walk? What a great idea! I would definitely have to get there early for the peanut butter balls.
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Whoa, Lisa, I’d never heard of a cookies by the pound game — count me in!Liz, I have played, but never won the cake walk — which is sometimes called an elephant walk in the south, for reasons unknown to me!
Congrats on the new book, which sounds like a lot of fun!
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Thank you, Vickie. I’ve never heard it called an elephant walk–although it actually sounds apt, given that it’s a lot of slow walking in a circle, like circus elephants. I always enjoy hearing regions have different names for things. The South is usually colorful that way!
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Ohmygosh, Liz! I haven’t thought about cake walks in years! I used to love them. But such a Sophie’s Choice when I won … I had trouble deciding, but I would totally have gone for the coconut one.
Your books sound absolutely charming. Adding to my list right now. Thanks for visiting us here today!
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Thank you so much. Becky! It’s a real nostalgia trip to think about them. As I recall, they held up the designated cake before the game started–but I’ve never met a cake I didn’t like.
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Same. Maybe the “T” in our PTA stood for “torture.”
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Welcome, Liz, and congrats on the book! It sounds absolutely delightful.
I grew up in a small town (which is now not-so-small), and cake walks were big here, too! I spent many a time walking in circles in the grade school cafetorium.
I haven’t moved to a different country, but I’m up for it (someday)!
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Thank you, Kathleen!
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