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Love the Ones You’re With: A Holiday Remembrance

Growing up, my family was not exactly poor, but our vacations mostly consisted of going to my grandparents’ Kentucky Lake house. We also spent every single Christmas Eve and Day + the Week After there, which was sometimes a challenge, considering my father was a minister of music at our church and head of the music department at a small Baptist college. In short, we were committed to this tradition, and while sometimes we were rushed to make it happen, we would always make the trek across the entirety of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in time to soak up all the awesomeness of the holiday PLUS (bonus) more birthday love for me, since I’m one of the Blessed Few who get to have a birthday and Christmas in one full-filled month.

I’m now in the fifty plus category when asked by marketing professionals and have had some time to create my own family traditions. Thanks to the six Christmases I spent with my family in three different countries, I’m somewhat averse to turning “traditions” into hard and fast rules. In my experience, the only real tradition necessary is that you and your family are together, happy, and healthy. It certainly worked for the Crowes as we celebrated alongside our new friends and neighbors in Japan, Turkey, and England. 

As I get older, I think back on my childhood Christmases spent in at that lake house, at meals that never, ever included alcohol, always involved at least one trip to church, with most evenings culminating in family-wide gin rummy games where we ate fresh popped popcorn and drank sugary co-colas, and realize that I probably did not realize how good I had it. It was, without a doubt, a more innocent world—sans social media, smart phones, and other interpersonal skill-killing devices. And I was, of course, madly in love with the holiday itself—the music most especially, plus the ballet, and the hush of a Christmas Eve carol service. It was all I needed in the whole wide world—my parents, my brother (ok, I had to include him), my grandparents, and extended family all living nearby. 

That solid base of holiday traditions stood me in good stead when I began creating my own—the last minute shopping (I hate shopping), the very last minute gift wrapping session, and a delicious meal—although we do include the Devil’s Juice, sorry Nana. One thing I do always try to do is find a new game—card* or board or otherwise—that we can all play a few times in the week leading up to New Year’s Eve, when the now-grown Crowes take flight for their now-grown lives and we all settle in to tackle a new year with good food, fun times, a fair bit of booze, and family game time to sustain us until the next December. 

*Remind me to tell you about that time we taught my 77-year old mother how to play Cards Against Humanity….

Happy Holidays to you all, no matter how, or with whom, you celebrate them!

Book one in the Brewing Passion series
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One hot entrepreneur plus a driven saleswoman and sultry brewer: simmered in the craft beer world for a unique, sexy reading experience!

When wealthy brewery owner Austin Fitzgerald meets sexy saleswoman Evelyn Benedict, angry sparks fly. They seem destined to clash, until a hot hookup in a cold beer cooler changes everything.

For Austin, it’s a life-altering moment that sets him on a path away from his birthright, while Evelyn must face her fears about committing to a man considered the playboy of the micro-brewing world.

The power of their preconceived notions nearly tears them apart—until they meet up with brewmaster Ross, who opens their eyes to a deeper, more erotic connection.

But three strong personalities don’t always make for the best emotional mix and when a simple misunderstanding causes chaos, it’s up to Ross to somehow repair the tattered shreds of their relationship.

Amazon best-selling author, mom of three, Realtor, beer blogger, brewery marketing expert, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse to call upon for inspiration.
With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished. Liz books bring something unique, both in settings and characters, that will hook readers of romance, women’s fiction and chick lit alike.

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