The Christmas Letters

January 1, 1996
It's easier to believe in Santa Claus than in the premise of Smith's holiday novella. Employing the epistolary form that she used much more successfully in Fair and Tender Ladies, Smith provides a series of letters among three generations of women, aiming to create a record of a family's joys and tragedies, as well as a slice of social history from 1944 to 1996. Unfortunately, credibility is a casualty of the device, as we are asked to believe that close relatives living in neighboring Southern states would let a year go by without even the most basic communication about births, deaths and marriages. The letters recapitulate episodes that family members would surely have heard about before (one correspondent reminds her parents at great length about how she met her husband). In the era of telephones and cameras, it is highly unlikely that the information--both intimate and picayune--contained in these detailed missives would have awaited a seasonal newsletter. Recipes passed down through the decades, beginning with boiled custard and ending with an African dish from a woman in the Peace Corps, are meant to indicate changing social mores. But nothing here can surmount the awkward format of a book that is, in fact, as bland as boiled custard. Author tour.

Starred review from September 1, 1996
One of our most accomplished authors scores again. As in Fair and Tender Ladies (LJ 9/15/88), Smith writes an epistolary, here in the form of Christmas greetings sent from North Carolina by female members of the Pickett family. In what they say--and don't say--these articulate, down-to-earth women preserve three generations of American experience. Birdie, a feisty World War II bride, records the challenges of leaving the farm to open a successful small business while raising a houseful of children. Birdie's oldest daughter, Mary, continues the story in the mid-Sixties, after dropping out of college to wed. She tracks 25 years of moves, from trailer to luxury home, from unexplained domesticity to problematic independence. Next, granddaughter Melanie picks up the tradition, hinting that the family writing talent will turn professional. The Picketts's joys, tragedies, recipes, and reflections make an affecting narrative that ends much too soon. Highly recommended.--Starr E. Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, Va.

September 1, 1996
%% This is a multi-book review: SEE also the title "The Christmas Tree." %% Paxton and Carden's effort opens somberly. Only two weeks ago Mama died of consumption and as far as Papa is concerned, the sunshine left with her. The rest of the Jenkins family--Hannah Rose, Maude, Alvin, John Neal, and Becca--try to carry on even though Papa gets sadder and more withdrawn as the days pass. He restricts who they can visit (forbidding them from seeing their beloved Grammy), keeps them home from school, and even cancels Christmas. But the children believe that Santa Claus does not follow anybody else's rules and set about to have Christmas anyway, which eventually brings back their dear Papa. Thirteen-year old Becca, who is mute, keeps a diary and it's her words we read and her paintings (actually by artist Elsa Sibley) that color the narrative. This North Carolina collaboration blends Paxton's tale, (originally performed on stage) with the storytelling skills of Carden, the watercolors of Sibley, and the songwriting talents of John Roman. Ideally this story should be read aloud by someone able to play the guitar for Papa's songs (included at the end) when they need singing.Salamon's story opens upon the predicament of the chief gardener at Rockefeller Center, who every year must find the perfect Christmas tree. This special tree needs "that mysterious mixture of majesty and magic . . . the size of King Kong, and the suppleness of Giselle." Once he found it at Brush Creek, a convent in the prettiest part of New Jersey. However, this particular tree is Sister Anthony's dearest friend. Decades earlier when she as a young orphan was brought to the convent, her first chum was this spruce, then only a sapling, that she named Tree. As they both grew up, she continued to share all her thoughts and feelings with Tree. Although the gardener fails to acquire it, he stays in contact with the sister who carefully watches Tree through many more seasons until a blizzard changes her mind. Salamon and artist Jill Weber were inspired by the New Jersey nuns who in 1995 donated a huge Norway spruce for the official Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Their finely hewn fable enhances one's appreciation of this holiday tradition.Smith has saved every Christmas letter she has ever received. From those information-intensive missives some folks send out in multicopy editions, she draws the inspiration for her novella. It consists of selected holiday letters covering the triumphs, births, new addresses, hardships, and deaths in the lives of three generations: Birdie Pickett, her first daughter Mary, and one of Mary's twin daughters, Melanie. From the first letter in 1944 written while Birdie lives with her husband's parents (he's away fighting in World War II) through the flood in 1956 that ruins their farm house to the long and heartfelt confessions of Mary's failed marriage in 1993, the traditional letters keep relatives, family friends, and the reader abreast of recent personal events. Originally hand written, the letters follow current technology from carbon paper, mimeographs, and photocopies to a computer printer. Most of the letters conclude with a recipe that reflects the period or a special achievement such as the salty cereal snack "Sticks and Stones" or "Mary's Carrot Cake" for which she won the 4-H cooking contest. If you send or receive Christmas letters, you will devour this collection. ((Reviewed Sept. 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)