How Lovely Are Thy Branches: A Young Wizards Christmas

JD 2455550.52 / December 20th, 2010: It’s the day before the Winter Solstice. The biggest pre-Christmas blizzard for decades is heading straight for the New York metropolitan area. But tonight in one small corner of Nassau County there’s a holiday party at Juan and Marina Rodriguez’s house. And the guest of honor is a being from three hundred lightyears away who looks a whole lot like a Christmas tree... and wants to be decorated. The ensuing festivities (with an epic sleepover in the middle) bring together a cast of old and new friends to eat, drink, exchange presents, and see a few things the likes of which this world has never seen before…

This 30,000+ word novelette is a canonical work in the Young Wizards universe and takes place between the events of "A Wizard of Mars" and the forthcoming "Games Wizards Play" (now available for preorder from Amazon) It's also available in "Interim Errantry", also available from Amazon -- the Young Wizards compendium volume containing the Halloween story "Not On My Patch" and the new original novel "Young Wizards: Lifeboats".