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KAREN TEMPLETON,

a bestselling author and RITA® Award nominee, is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty nappies are not mutually exclusive terms. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasising about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.

Dear Reader,

Like every other five-year-old, at some point I asked my mother if Santa was real. Since the gifts were all piled in a corner of my parents’ bedroom, the whole Ho-Ho-Ho Delivery Service thing was kind of shot, anyway. So Mama told me Santa Claus was a spirit (cagey woman, my mother), and off I went, satisfied. Not until much later, however, did I really appreciate the wisdom behind her response.

Because even the most secular version of Santa is still about the message, not only behind the trappings of the season, but also beyond a particular religious belief. Santa Claus symbolises love and generosity and joy…and, perhaps most of all, hope. So little Haley’s plea to the jolly old elf isn’t about asking for stuff, it’s an unselfish faith in something beyond her small self to bring healing and happiness to the people she loves.

Leave it to a small child to really get the true meaning of Christmas…just like that long-ago kindergartener who intuitively understood her mother’s off-the-cuff explanation about something far more substantial than mere myth.

Karen Templeton