FUN FACTS: CHRISTMAS JOY

Hey, y'all! Nancy Naigle here in chilly southern Virginia after a fun evening in North Carolina.

This time of year when holiday movies are running 24x7 on the TV, I get lots of questions

about my books, so I thought I'd answer a few here today.

The cover to the left is the original Trade Paperback cover.

I'd never thought about writing a Christmas book until my agent called to tell me her favorite editor was looking for a sweet small town Christmas story. And that's where it all began.

I had no idea that signing that contract with St. Martin's Press would kick off a chain of events that have landed me with a dozen Christmas novels (and counting!) and multiple movies.

Christmas Joy released in 2016, and it was the first holiday novel I wrote, and the first one to become a movie in 2018. That year Christmas Joy also came out in the smaller mass market version with a fun cover with the Hallmark Movie symbol on the cover.

Which cover is your favorite? Leave a note in the comments for which you like best...RED or BLUE.

Novel adaptations are so exciting, but there were a lot of lessons along the way. For instance, the first time I went on set to see them shoot my movie, was the first time I realized my book wasn't going to be like the movie. I also learned why. A screenplay is about 20,000 words, and my novels are about 88,000 words. There just isn't the time or space to include all the characters or storylines in a 90 minute made-for-television film.

• Was Christmas Joy the original title? Yes. The main character was named Joy to tie in with the title.

  
  

• Is Crystal Falls a real place in North Carolina? No, and it wasn't actually the first name of the town in the book. I love things that are happy and joyful, and that goes for movies too. I don't watch scary movies. So, it was a HUGE surprise to me when in final copy edits the editor pointed out that the town of Crystal Lake was where one of those horror movies was set. YIKES!!! My editor didn't know it either. We made a final hour dash to replace ALL the instances of Crystal Lake with Crystal Falls.

• I heard there was an old blue truck in Christmas Joy, sort of like the red one in the Christmas in Evergreen stories. Which came first? The blue truck actually. It was at the end of the long drive up to the Christmas Tree Farm and for those who didn't want to cut their own, or look for the perfect tree, there were one-price trees piled in the back of the old blue truck on the honor system. Put the money in the glove box, please.

• Did you go on a Christmas Cookie Crawl before you wrote the book? Nope, I made it up. But it was sort of a play on the old Cookie Swaps I used to host in my home in Virginia Beach a long, long time ago. But I wanted to make it grander! I think it worked.

  
  

• Do you have a favorite cookie recipe? Definitely! And most of them show up in my books. Always look for the recipes in my books.

  
  

• What's your favorite moment in the book? When the Christmas ornament gets broken. It was the most precious ornament to Joy because her mother had given it to her. And when Ben gives her the handmade ornament from the fragments he'd rescued while cleaning it up....swoon!!!!

  
  

• How did Christmas Joy get discovered and become a movie? Hard to be absolutely sure, but there were two pieces of the puzzle I know of. 1- I was doing a Facebook party for a movie called The Christmas Note and trying to get people to come. The Christmas Note twitter account tweeted me thanking me for building buzz. Then they later tweeted me again in a Direct Message and said. "We didn't know you were an author. Maybe one day one of your books will be a movie." I wrote back, "A girl can dream." Two weeks later my agent received a call from a movie producer wanting to read Christmas Joy.

• What are some of the differences between the book and the movie? My favorite one is that Aunt Ruby lives in that fancy log home!! In my book, she lives in your typical white two-story farmhouse. There's a little girl and her mother in the book who Aunt Ruby has been helping that didn't make it into the book at all. Read the book, watch the movie on Hallmark or *you can buy it on DVD if you like here. then see how many other differences you can spot.

• Did you like the final movie? I love the movie. It absolutely touches my heart every time I watch it.

  
  

• Did you get to go on set while the movie was being made? I did! That's a big, long, fabulous story. I'd love to share it with you. It was filmed in Vancouver in the earliest part of spring.