"Merry Christmas, 2004

Hello to my wonderful kith and kin and my readers around the world:

Let me thank you all for the reassuring and support I've received this year, and particularly for some six hundred or more positive Emails that have come in to AnneObrienrice@mac.com. I've truly enjoyed hearing your responses not only to my novels but to my postings on Amazon.com.

I'm delighted that many of you are reading the reviews I've been writing there of books that have made a significant difference in my life. I've yet to write a long, complex review rivalling some of those that appear in the history or Biblical Studies departments, but I can point the way with positive comments to some books which might be overlooked by you, and which you very much might enjoy.

This year has been one of intense writing and study for me, as well as the time of another health crisis -- a blocked intestine necessitating emergency surgery which was successful -- and I'm looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home here outside New Orleans, with the wind blowing harshly, and the Queen palms thrashing against the windows, and the freezing air pushing against the glass.

Our gas fires look like the real thing in these comfortable shadowy rooms, and I've much to be thankful for -- that the elders of my family made it to our Christmas party, along with old friends -- and we had glorious singing from a choir assembled by Gerald Stroup, the magnificent operatic tenor who's become my "musical director," always ready to find great talent when I want to throw a bash. Michael Koerber, my beloved pianist and composer was also here, entertaining us. He's now working with a rock band in addition to maintaining his classical studies. We had a full orchestra for waltzing at the party and the high point for me was when my son, Christopher, entirely on his own, asked me to dance. (Worth the lessons, I assure you.) And waltz we did.

I did a lot of talking this year about retiring to some small simple house. But I don't know how I can live without all my books, and bedrooms for members of my family to come and to go; and now and then, I must emerge from all this clutter to give just such a party as I described above. And then what do I do, if I don't have a big house?

Speaking of big houses, the house at First and Chestnut officially sold two days ago. The escrow had been open for some time. Well, the Act of Sale as they call it in Louisiana has taken place, and last I heard the new owners were celebrating merrily. Of course First and Chestnut will live forever for me in my books -- and its the architecture in which my son grew to manhood, and it's where Stan painted the vast majority of his magnificent canvases and where he wrote almost all of his later poems. It was there that I wrote The Witching Hour, of course, and all the books after that through Blood Canticle, which I wrote as Stan lay dying very nearby.

I don't know how I could give up. I don't entirely know why. I know that I'm glad I did. It's what I wanted to do. I'm very happy to be in a new place. But why it all happened -- why I was able to get up and leave a house I thought I'd live in forever? I don't know. Perhaps the house lost its heart for me when Stan died, and when Christopher moved out West. Maybe that was it. It was The Past. And I found myself thinking of my Father too much, who'd loved in the beginning, right before he died in 1991.

That's alot of sadness. My father was a hero to me. So was Stan. They were both heroic men. They chose to live their lives as heroes. They were not always easy. But they were great.

Enough. The year's ended. The house is gone. Fifteen years comes to a close. And I tell you, as I end up telling you everything, in one way or another. And I love your letters, and you know how much I want you to write your books, to be happy, to reach for the fire from heaven, to live out your dreams.

Spend this Christmas with those you love. Be warm. Be safe. Take Time, and if you possibly can, give thanks, because it feels so good to do it. And I'm convinced that some one hears our prayers. I love you, Anne Rice, December 23, 2004 3:55 a.m."