Book ideas come to me in pieces. Random thoughts. Ridiculous imaginings. Inane thinking.

When I wrote Bellini’s Christmas Burlesque Show, a character named Bellini popped into my mind like a reindeer falling through my roof. Boom. I frowned at myself in bafflement.

What just happened?

Why would she have a name like Bellini? That’s an alcoholic drink. It’s apparently quite tasty with peach puree and prosecco. I would not know, I’ve never had one because I don’t drink.

Why do I not drink?

Let’s just say I went through a wild and rebellious and giggly time starting when I was 13. My equally rather wild, but quite fun friends, decided it would be best if we raided a few of the parents’ liquor cabinets. Yes, at 13.

We did not raid MY parents’ liquor cabinet, because there was no liquor in our home. My parents, delightful, always there, kind, smart, totally dedicated to their family, did not drink.

UNLESS it was the wine at Catholic mass, which my mother refused to do, smartly, because everyone in the whole church was drinking out of the SAME holy goblet of wine at that altar, by God.

I mean, speaking from someone who is not afraid of germs at all, and will eat a cookie off the floor in a heartbeat, YUCK.

My father, who DID drink the wine had, at one time, seriously thought about becoming a Catholic priest, hence, he upturned the holy goblet and probably prayed that he would not get tuberculosis or typhus.

Thankfully, as I would not be here, my father decided he wanted a wife and a bunch of kids more than the priesthood and daily goblets of wine.

These two, my mother a well-loved English teacher, somehow produced a kid who wanted to push some alcoholic boundaries.

Who knows why I wanted to break rules? I don’t. I was 13. I could barely think at that time. It was like my brain had not been switched to “ON,” yet, but hopefully would in future.

One time I went to the ice skating rink with previously mentioned rule-breaking teenage friends and we got all tipsy / drunk. Rule for Life: Do not ice skate while tipsy drunk. You will spend most of the time on your butt on the ice and get wet and maybe bash your noggin in.

This silly debauchery continued for several years, and then at 20 I had a very bad night with tequila in college.

I was at a barn dance with a nice date named Jeff. We went to a pre-party where tequila was served. I didn’t know that tequila could sneak up on you like a thief in the night. I didn’t know what a cursed and devious liquor it was, woe is me, oh woe is me.

Jeff was friendly and kind and we danced in the barn but the tequila DID sneak up on me, chased me around, and got its talons into my suspicious stomach, angry circulatory system and innocent liver.

After that barn dance I felt sick for a week. A WEEK.

Like I’d been run over by a frightened gazelle, say, and then sickened by the broth from a wicked warlock’s cauldron, then dropped into a pond filled with algae from an eagle’s talons.

And that was it.

I stopped drinking.

Now, in the last 30+ years there were two kahluas and cream in two different vacation spots, both about 15 years ago. AND, when I had a fun, mobbed party at my house for my high school reunion a few months ago, one of my classmates brought in two boxes of her acclaimed wine. I did have a sip and now I know that she knows how to crush grapes perfectly deliciously.

(You might ask if some of my ice skating friends / fellow rebels from school were at my reunion party and I will tell you yes, many of them were! They all turned out amazing and would probably ground their own children for months or maybe eternally and forevemore if they did what we did as they would not tolerate such coyote-like sneaky antics.)

My own kids, Rebel Dancing Daughter, Adventurous Singing Daughter, and Darling Laughing Son, older, smarter, preparing to take care of their easily-confused and dottering mother in upcoming years have, upon occasion, pushed me to try whatever alcoholic drink they’re dallying in for jolly entertainment.

For their amusement I have taken a teeny tiny sip on that rare dare and I will tell you this: I feel like I’m drinking poison.

It’s like all of my taste buds wake up and start screaming for their lives. It’s as if fire has just been poured into my mouth. I can only describe it as imbibing horror. Or terror. I would not drink a shot of vodka if you paid me. I would not be able to swallow tequila without feeling like my brain was being bombed.

I truly cannot stand the taste of alcohol. I would give up my stove before I drank a beer.

Does it bother me when other people drink? Oh, hell-o no. Drink away. Have a lovely time. Bring wine or scotch to my house and guzzle it. I don’t care. You should have seen the stash and the keg my still incredibly cool high school friends rolled into my house.

My tastebuds, however, are the enemies of alcohol.

So, it makes sense that when I was planning my Christmas book, I would ALSO think of a woman named Whiskey, right?

(No.)

And I would ask myself why she was named Whiskey, which led to my knowing that Whiskey started a bar in Montana, one of my favorite places on Earth, when she was young, and a single mother, which led me to know that Whiskey, a take-life-by-the-bullhorns and shake ‘em, glittery kind of woman would name her daughter Bellini.

And then I had to make Bellini an introverted children’s book writer and illustrator because I have written a children’s chapter book, that’s been rejected a ton, and wouldn’t that be a delight if it were ever published? So I dreamed of success through Bellini.

And I gave Bellini a broken heart, and the hero was a real man, and his heart was broken, too, and of course I had to put Bellini back in charge of the raucous, rowdy Montana bar she’d grown up in, AND she had to put together a Christmas show, which her effervescent mother named “Lady Whiskey’s T and A Christmas Burlesque Show.”

The “T and A” part was not what you think, it was T for ‘tinsel’ and A for ‘All I want for Christmas is Santa.’

NOT the other phrase, you naughty-thinker, you.

I hope you like this happy ending, funny love story and yes, of course, do drink wine or a Bellini or whiskey or a margarita or strawberry daiquiri while reading. The book will taste better for you then.

(But not for me.)

Cheers and love to all.

Cathy