Wyoming Wildflowers

This wasn’t the Christmas either Kiernan or Bexley expected. Snowbound in a shoddy convenience store with the least hospitable storekeeper in the state of Wyoming, two other stranded travelers, four kids forgotten by Santa – oh, yes, and each other.

Because there was that thing that happened last summer. A mistake. They both thought that… though for different reasons. And agreeing it was a mistake didn’t make it any more comfortable to run into each other at the ranch of their mutual friends, the Curricks of the Slash-C Ranch. Especially when those same friends suggest, nudge, and push them into traveling East together to join their respective families for Christmas by spending eighteen hours in a car together.

Except they never made it out of Wyoming, thanks to an early-arriving blizzard.

And now their choice is to have one of the least festive Christmases on record or work with what they have and each other to make this a real Christmas for those kids … and maybe discover what Santa has in mind for them.

Making Christmas, another installment in USA Today bestselling author Patricia McLinn’s Wyoming Wildflowers series, is a fun, feel-good, moving contemporary romance that will captivate fans of RaeAnne Thayne, Barbara Freethy and Debbie Macomber. Fans of the Wyoming Wildflowers series came to know Kiernan, younger brother of A New World’s Cahill, in A Cowboy Wedding – and even had a hand in determining the young Irishman’s romantic future. And for more holiday cheer, read the love-at-first-sight story that planted the wildflower seeds in Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning.

Behind the Scenes of Making Christmas

While Bexley and Kiernan are stranded at a small convenience store over Christmas by a blizzard, they lead the way in giving four kids also stranded there a real Christmas.

I wanted to share some of the instructions behind what they do while Making Christmas, starting with the inspiration for Gramps’ store. This is from Shell, Wyoming, which is on the other side of the Big Horn Mountains from the Slash-C Ranch.

Crafts

Folding stars

Christmas trees for the table (first craft in this video)

Presents

Yarn Octupi (Turn down the volume on the first one – the music’s annoying)

Or pick your own instructions here.

You’ll find the sock snowman in this one. (Also has flower from plastic bags, towel animals, plastic straw hair holder, Christmas tree from paper, plastic spoons, spray paint)

Whittling

Suggestions for Christmas trees in Making Christmas

Hubcap tree:

Gloucester, Mass. lobster trap tree

Deer Antler tree

Jack Daniels tree

Bexley’s PJs

The menu

Overall

Christmas Breakfast: Fried Ham and French Toast (with adjustments)

Christmas Dinner:

• Meatloaf (with adjustments)
• Inspiration for how they cooked it without a baking pan
• Strawberry Parfait

Dec. 26 breakfast: Egg and roast beef scramble (crumbled bread instead of tortillas)