Today the Chicks are pleased as Christmas punch to welcome the fabulous Vicki Delany, author of more than 50 (yes, you read that right) books, with a new one coming on Sept. 19th: Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas. Take it away, Vicki!
TOO MUCH CHRISTMAS? NOT IN RUDOLPH, NEW YORK.
Most of us would agree that Christmas can come too soon. We complain (I certainly do) about decorations in the stores and seasonal ads on TV before summer’s even over, never mind before Halloween.
But still, a lot of us do our shopping ahead of time. I know people who buy decorations for next year the week after this year’s Christmas, and who start shopping for gifts around the time they put away the New Years’ Decorations. It’s a wise woman (or man) who starts her baking in plenty of time. A traditional Christmas cake or old-fashioned English pudding, full of rum or brandy, or sometimes both, needs to be started months ahead to be perfect for the big day.
It’s precisely to help out those early birds that the town of Rudolph, New York celebrates Christmas all year round.
Don’t rush to your atlases or Google maps looking for Rudolph because I made it up. It’s the town at the center of my series, The Year-Round Christmas mysteries from Berkley and Crooked Lane.
Rudolph wants to be known as America’s Christmas Town and everything in Rudolph is about celebrating the holidays. All year round. They have a Santa Claus parade twice a year. The usual one the first Saturday in December, and then another for Christmas in July when Santa arrives by boat. (As featured in the third book in the series, Hark the Herald Angels Slay.)
In Rudolph everyone gets into the spirit of the thing. Victoria’s Bake Shoppe is famous for its gingerbread. There’s Candy Cane Sweets, the North Pole Ice Cream Parlour, The Elves Lunchbox, Cranberries Coffee Bar, Touch of Holly Restaurant, The Yuletide Inn, the Carolers Motel. (Looking at this list it seems as though the residents and visitors to Rudolph like to eat a lot.)
mince tarts made by Vicki
The series protagonist is Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Merry’s dad, Noel, is Santa Claus. Yes, Merry knows that he isn’t really Santa, but she does sometimes wonder. He has a way of knowing exactly what someone wants before even they do.
Rudolph, New York, wants to be known as America’s Christmas Town. Here, we celebrate Christmas all year round. In July, the town goes all out to take advantage of its prime location on the shores of Lake Ontario and its Christmas Town theme, when Santa arrives for his summer vacation in a grand boat parade. He sets up his umbrella on the beach to meet visiting children, and high school students dressed as vacationing elves serve as his attendants, as does Alan in his toymaker getup.We might play at Christmas all year, but it’s the beginning of December when everything comes together. The hotels go all out with the decorations and seasonal activities, and the restaurants offer special menus featuring traditional holiday fare. Vicky’s bakery goes heavy on the mince tarts and gingerbread and even old-fashioned fruitcake of the sort that people buy and almost no one ever eats. (Although Vicky’s is fabulous!) The theater group always does a play with a holiday or Christmas theme, and it’s an important part of the town’s annual celebrations. Last year’s production of Miracle on 34th Street had been an enormous flop, or so I’d heard. Mom told me the company was desperate this year to recover from that disaster. They’d never attempted a musical, but encouraged by the new artistic director to be bigger and bolder than ever before, they were taking a chance with A Christmas Carol.
Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas, by Vicki Delany
Of course, it wouldn’t be a mystery novel without strife and conflict. And they find that, in abundance, as the town struggles to put on A Christmas Carol: The Musical.
Tell me, Chicks and friends, would you like to celebrate Christmas all year round? What would be the ideal length of the holiday season for you?
ABOUT THE BOOK: It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.
Tensions come to a head when a member of the group is found dead shortly after a shopping excursion to Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Was someone looking to cut out the competition? Everyone in the cast and crew is a potential suspect, including Aline, Merry’s mother, and Merry’s shop assistant Jackie O’Reilly, who was desperate for a starring role.
It could be curtains for Christmas—and for Merry—unless the killer can be ferreted out of the wings.
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than fifty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).
Vicki is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
Find Vicki at http://www.vickidelany.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor
Instagram: Vicki.Delany
You can sign up to receive Vicki’s quarterly newsletter here.
Chicks on the Case 
My ideal Christmas season would be from the day after Thanksgiving through January 6 (Epiphany/Three Kings Day). I mean, come on–do we really have to start hearing Christmas music before Halloween is even over?
Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks today, Vickie, and congrats on the new book!
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Thanks for having me here, Leslie. I’m with you in terms of timing of the holiday season.
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So fun I cannot wait to read your book.
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Thanks Deborah. I hope you enjoy it.
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I love this series, as you know, Vicki! But to your question… when Eliza was little, there was a video we watched a lot called something like “Christmas Every Day.” I think it was made by Sesame Street. Everyone went from happy to grumpy because it became toooooo much! I love that movie because it answered the question for me: no! No Christmas every day. But I do love Christmas ornaments and wish I could put them up every day. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid and even with a culled collection, I have a dozen boxes. I could decorate an entire tree with only the ones I’ve needlepointed!
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I believe that video may have been based on a story by…William Dean Howells? And I know this because I collect books, videos, and music connected with Christmas. But I still mostly save enjoying them for the period between Buy Nothing Day (which I celebrate instead of Black Friday) and either Epiphany or Candlemas, depending on how I’m feeling.
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Thanks for being here, Vicki! I’m not one for starting the holidays in October. I think I’d rather extend Christmas through the beginning week of January—maybe something to coincide with school vacation and to extend the use of decorations, feasting, and family time.
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Welcome, Vicki!! Your latest sounds amazing (and oh my, those tarts look delicious!).
I looooooooooooooove the holidays and am quite happy to celebrate from mid-November through Epiphany (which also happens to be Armenian Christmas). Then I would like the rest of the year to be summer!
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That sounds perfect to me, Kathleen
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Welcome to Chicks, Vicki! I can’t wait to read your new Year-Round Christmas book—it sounds amazing. I’m all for rolling festivities in literary form (and sometimes a mid-July TV movie or two). But I don’t start my own prepping or shopping for actual Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I love that adrenaline surge (okay, maybe not *that* much, lol) through the entire Christmas season. I do leave my indoor evergreen fairy lights up all year. I think that’s perfectly legal in woodsy NH.
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As Empty Nesters who often get away during the holidays, I can’t remember the last time we even put up a tree! But when the kids were little, we did it up big. They were on year-round school, so their long break was Thanksgiving until about Epiphany (you woulda loved that, Leslie!). It was heavenly. Nobody ever got sick (because they were out of school), we had leisurely time to do everything, I knew to get my shopping done before thanksgiving (really fantastic, highly recommend!), cookie baking was stretched over a long time so nobody (ie, me) got cranky with all those grubby little fingers in my kitchen. But it’s sure fun to spend the holidays in Manhattan or Santa Fe now and do absolutely none of it!
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Hi Vicki and thanks so much for visiting us today! Congratulations on your latest!
Love the idea of an always-on holiday spirit. There’s something so special about that time of year. I have always wondered about the real-life stores devoted to Christmas decor only…why not do all the holidays? But they do seem to stay in business! So there’s that.
When I was in grad school, we were on the quarter system, so our break went from Thanksgiving to January. That makes so much more sense to me than the semester break, which has Thanksgiving happen, then everyone has to go back to school for a few more weeks right up to almost Christmas and everything is a mad rush. So I guess I’d vote for Thanksgiving through January as one big celebration. 😉
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Vicki, I’m one of those obnoxious people who can’t get enough of Christmas. In fact if I’m feeling down I even break out Christmas tunes in the summer. Christmas, Michigan is about 30 miles from where we live. They aren’t as fab as Rudolph, NY, but they do have a year- round Christmas store. Some years we have driven there to get our Christmas cards postmarked!
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I love all the different approaches everyone has to the holiday season. That’s part of what makes it special.
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I’m one of those that doesn’t really enjoy Christmas any more. Not since my parents passed away. It’s just another day. But I do love this series by Vicki Delany. If it was real I would like to visit and shop. I still shop for the little ones in the family even though I rarely get to see them.
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I love Christmas! My husband and I get a fresh tree every year as did my parents when we were growing up. I have a small metal tree that I keep up year-round with dog ornaments. Hubby Dearest does not let me turn on the tree after New Year’s Eve even though I keep telling him that we should keep it up through the Epiphany and we are Catholics, so we should. Since we are getting older, I decorate less each year. I used to put a wreath hung from a red ribbon in every window, candles in every window, a wreath and garland at the front door, mailbox decorations along with yard decorations, wreaths on the deck along with light up garland and bows on the deck. But now I have quit putting up the wreaths in every window, the outside decorations except for the mailbox, but it still looks good. I do not think that I would like it all year, but I buy gifts all year. I have friends that have fake trees that they leave up all year and change the ornaments for the holiday.
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