by Amy Clipston
danki: Thank you
dat: dad
Dietsch: Pennsylvania Dutch, the Amish language (a German dialect)
dochder: daughter
dochdern: daughters
eiferich: excited
Englisher: a non-Amish person
fraa: wife
Frehlicher Grischtdaag!: Merry Christmas!
freind: friend
freinden: friends
freindschaft: relative
froh: happy
gegisch: silly
gern gschehne: You’re welcome
grossdaddi: grandfather
grossdochdern: granddaughters
Grischtdaag: Christmas
grossmammi: grandmother
Gude mariye: Good morning
gut: good
Gut nacht: Good night
Ich liebe dich: I love you
kapp: prayer covering or cap
kind: child
kinner: children
kinskind: grandchild
kinskinner: grandchildren
kumm: come
liewe: love, a term of endearment
maedel: young woman
mamm: mom
mei: my
mutter: mother
naerfich: nervous
narrisch: crazy
onkel: uncle
Ordnung: unwritten book of Amish rules
rumspringe: running around time
schee: pretty
schtupp: family room
schweschder: sister
Was iss letz?: What’s wrong?
Willkumm heemet: Welcome home
Wie geht’s: How do you do? or Good day!
wunderbaar: wonderful
ya: yes
Acknowledgments
To my best friend and mother, Lola Goebelbecker. Thank you for your love, support, and encouragement. You’re the best plotting partner ever!
My husband, Joe, and our sons, Zac and Matt, you are my life. I love you. Thank you for tolerating my endless hours with my MacBook glued to my lap and my eyes trained on the screen.
I’m grateful to my mother-in-law, Sharon Clipston, for her love and support. Thank you for sharing my books with friends and family members and for telling every bookstore manager in Hampton Roads to order more copies.
I’m so blessed to have my patient friends who critique and edit for me—Sue McKlveen, Margaret Halpin, and Lauran Rodriguez. Thank you for your loyal friendship and helpful critiques! Thank you for always dropping everything to do last-minute proofreading and offer suggestions to make the story stronger.
Thank you to my special Amish friends who patiently answer my endless stream of questions.
I send my sincerest appreciation to my agent Mary Sue Seymour for her professional expertise and friendship.
I’m more grateful than words can express to the Zondervan team. Thank you to my amazing editors—Sue Brower and Becky Philpott. I’m so blessed to be a part of the Zondervan family. Special thanks to Lori Vanden Bosch for editing this book and helping make the story much stronger.
To my readers—thank you for choosing my books. I also enjoy your emails and Facebook conversations.
Thank you most of all to God for giving me the inspiration and the words to glorify You. I’m so thankful and humbled You’ve chosen this path for me.
Also by Amy Clipston:
A Gift of Grace
A Promise of Hope
Copyright
ZONDERVAN
A Plain and Simple Christmas
Copyright © 2010 by Amy Clipston
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
ePub Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 978-0-310-59038-5
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clipston, Amy.
A plain and simple Christmas : a novella / Amy Clipston.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-310-32736-3
1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Families—Fiction. 3. Life change events—Fiction. 4. Pregnant women—Fiction. 5. Childbirth—Fiction. 6. Christmas stories. I. Title.
PS3603.L58P58 2010
813’.6—dc22
2010023778
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