Winter Blogfest: Avery Easton

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Getting In The Holiday Spirit with Musicals

When Judy Garland sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to Tootie in Meet Me In St. Louis, I have a hard time keeping it together. There’s a reason I write romances centered around Broadway–music has a way of making a story soar. 

Just one song can bring a tear to my eye. When the Whos down in Whoville start singing “Welcome Christmas”? You’ll find me needing a tissue. And if a little kid is singing (lookin’ at you, Love Actually), forget it. It doesn’t even have to be an emotional song. But if there’s a melody, and bonus, a key change, I’m going to get goosebumps and probably cry. 

I’ve always been this way, and that’s why musical theatre means so much to me. Music can bring us together in a way that not much else can. When we all come together to sing and our voices blend… it doesn’t matter if you’re a trained vocalist or can’t carry a note. That’s true magic any time of the year. But especially around the holidays. 

Every year around this time, I throw a huge holiday party and we all gather around my piano and sing every carol and festive song in the songbooks. This year, I will miss gathering my friends close, arms around each other, and singing our hearts out. 

This year, I will have to keep myself company with all the music from movies and musicals on my Christmas playlist, which is almost all I will listen to until December 26^th. And of course, I’ll watch the classics: Meet Me In St. Louis, White Christmas. I’ll throw Mame in for good measure (we do need a little Christmas, right this very minute!). 

The cast recordings of She Loves Me, Elf, and A Christmas Story will feature heavily, and of course the Muppet Christmas Carol. It doesn’t get better than “It Feels Like Christmas”. There are also the Broadway Carols for the Cure compilations. The cast of Hamilton singing “Joy to the World”? Yes very much, thank you. 

And for me and every other theatre kid that came of age in the late nineties, Rent is a necessity. It starts and ends on Christmas Eve and is therefore a Christmas musical. 

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So Judy’s song hits different this year. But I will still get in the spirit, grateful for the health of my family and friends and the technology that keeps us together. I will keep the faith that better days are ahead. 

Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then… we’ll have to muddle through somehow. 

Happy holidays, to one and all.

Heartbroken, Evie O’Hara is trying to move on after her world was changed by a tragic accident. She seeks comfort in her favorite showtunes, sung by her one-time Broadway crush. Although fiercely protective of his privacy, stage and screen star Ethan Carter is lonely. Happy enough with his career and his dog, he still feels an emptiness in his life.

When her best friend gifts her with a weekend trip to New York to see Ethan perform, Evie is thrilled when he singles her out of the crowd. For the first time in over a year, she feels almost…happy. And while inviting a fan backstage, even a pretty one, isn’t what Ethan would normally do, something tells him that Evie is different.

They spend an idyllic, passionate weekend together, forging a deep connection. Neither is ready to say goodbye forever. The odds seem against them as they battle Ethan’s enthusiastic, often intrusive, fans, the hundreds of miles between them, and Evie’s fear of risking her heart again. But if the magic of that first wonderful weekend can endure, theirs could be a love that hits the right note–a love that lasts forever.

With over ten years of wedding planning experience and a lifetime onstage, Avery Easton knows romance. She began writing stories in a pink Snoopy notebook when she was seven years old, and hasn’t stopped since. If she’s not reading, writing, or planning weddings, you can find her cross stitching or belting out showtunes. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two adorable cats.

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