Sophistikatied Reviews: Making History with Victoria Schwab

I feel so honored that Sophistikatied gets to kick off the new year with the brilliant author of The Near Witch and The Archived - Victoria Schwab! I read the book and it's AMAZING so I'm excited that I get to host her today on her Making History blog tour!

Introduction to the Making History vlog tour:

Making History #16 - That time QUEBEC RUINED CHRISTMAS

Because Victoria shared a not-so-happy Christmas memory, I decided to keep with the theme and do the same! (Though mine has a biiiiiit more of a pleasant ending than Victoria's)

Like Victoria, my family and I have strict Christmas traditions that we never break. We wake up insanely early, open presents, have a delicious, fattening breakfast of french toast and home fries and then around noon we're off to my grandfather's house to spend the rest of the day with him and my uncles. We never missed going to his house. We never broke tradition. But in 2010, we did.

My twin brother and I woke everyone up at seven, which is a bit ridiculous considering we were twenty-years-old. But it's PRESENTS, you know? Usually my dad has to take a large mug of coffee with him upstairs to get my mother up but it doesn't take longer than fifteen minutes. After forty-five minutes, we began to worry. My dad kept rushing up and down the stairs, grabbing pots and bags and wash rags and all sorts of things. He told us that she was feeling sick.

So we waited another hour. And then another hour. My mother had yet to move from the bed. It's not because she didn't want to, it's because she couldn't. Every single time she moved to sit up, she was violently ill. We had to call my grandfather and tell him that we wouldn't be there this year. And while I was insanely worried about my mother, there was a tiny part of me that was absolutely devastated that Christmas was ruined. My mother was sending my dad downstairs to tell us that she wanted us to open our gifts without her, to go to my grandfather's without her. But there wasn't a chance of that happening. So my brother and I sat by the Christmas tree all day and all evening in silence.

Are you thoroughly depressed yet?

Around nine in the evening, right as I was about to crawl into bed and go back to sleep, she finally mustered up the strength to stand and get down the stairs. She drank from her large mug of coffee, we opened presents and afterward, my dad made us all a late dinner of french toast and home fries.

And even though our tradition was broken, we still managed to hold on to a few of them despite the situation so Christmas 2010 was tainted but not totally ruined! And if you're wondering about my mother, when she woke up the next morning feeling the same, we took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with vertigo. She's absolutely fine now but after getting appendicitis on Halloween 2011 and a nasty gallbladder attack that led to a four-day stint in the hospital during Thanksgiving 2012, we're a bit wary of her and holidays now ...

And now for the giveaway! Victoria has sent me a gorgeous swag pack including a tote, bookmarks and more to give away to one of you lucky blog readers. Check out the contest details and scroll below to enter!

Giveaway Information:
- Open to US addresses only.
- Ends on January 15th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway