Dearest Friends,

      As you might have guessed from the number of Christmas books I’ve written, I’m a real Christmas person. Every year I decorate my house and office with boughs, holly, Christmas trees (yes, plural) and Nativity scenes. I simply love Christmas.

      When my children were young, they’d leaf through catalogs, study each page, then make their lists of Christmas wishes (these days, they’d probably be doing it on internet sites!). When they were finished with their lists—and narrowed them down to under a hundred items—they’d present them to me. Come to think of it, they still do that.

      I have a list of Christmas wishes for you, dear readers. I wish you joy and peace and love, not just this season but throughout the year. I wish you good health and prosperity. And I wish you laughter and contentment. (If these two stories bring you a chuckle or a smile, if they leave you with a feeling of warmth, I’ll have achieved my goal.)

      Rainy Day Kisses has been updated, and it has a new prologue and epilogue. I wrote this in 1990, but it’s still one of my all-time favorites. Christmas Letters was published in hardcover a few years ago and is based (loosely) on all the holiday letters I wrote through the years.

      I hope you’ll grab a cup of hot chocolate (or eggnog!), make yourself comfortable and enjoy these stories. And may all your Christmas wishes come true!