Playing The Dozens

PLAYING THE DOZENS: TWELVE NIGHTS OF BLACK LOVE, LESSONS & LOSS

A Christmas Anthology by J. Lafayette Bunton

Twelve unforgettable couples. Twelve emotional journeys. One holiday season that changes everything.

From struggle love to second chances, from breakups to breakthroughs, from Black joy to Black grief, this holiday collection delivers a full spectrum of what it means to love and be loved.

Set across twelve nights leading up to Christmas, Playing the Dozens celebrates the depth, humor, sensuality, and vulnerability of modern Black relationships.
Each story stands on its own-but together, they reveal a tapestry of community, family, healing, heartache, and holiday magic.

• Young love trying to survive cold nights and empty pockets
• Exes rediscovering what never stopped burning
• A survivor finding refuge in a kitchen that remembers her
• Married couples fighting their way back to tenderness
• An older couple proving love can still be loud at 70
• Interracial love navigating rhythm, culture, and acceptance
• A sensual transformation between lovers on the edge
• Workplace tenderness simmering into something real
• A surprise Christmas baby rewriting the future
• A widow facing her first Christmas alone
• A marriage nearly broken-rekindled by truth, passion, and prayer

Every story is rooted in the richness of Black life-our laughter, our love languages, our households, our traditions, our flaws, our faith, and our resilience.

✓ Terry McMillan
✓ Jasmine Guillory
✓ Bernice McFadden
✓ Eric Jerome Dickey
✓ Brandon Massey's emotional romances
✓ Holiday anthologies with heat, heart, and healing

✔ Realistic relationship struggles
✔ Adult sensuality (tasteful but grown)
✔ Humor, community, and cultural truth
✔ Emotional depth and unforgettable characters

If you love stories packed with heart, heat, humor, and holiday soul-this collection belongs on your shelf.

This Christmas, discover why love-messy, flawed, tender, Black love-is the greatest gift of all.