One would not expect a novel by John Grisham to be a catalyst in your seriously step back and reflect on your life but the book “Skipping Christmas” does. The Krank family, sick of the materialism and money culture surrounding Christmas festivities decide that one year they will forego all the celebrations and have a quiet holiday.
Their only daughter is off to Peru as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru for a year and this gives them the reason they seek to justify their action to their incredulous neighbors – that with their daughter away, it just does not make sense to celebrate. In reality Luther and …. Want out of the mindless materialism surrounding Christmas and want a simple uncomplicated holiday by themselves and the first half of the book is devoted to describing materialism in its various forms and decrying it at a useless waste of money to no purpose. The family is socially isolated for making a stand that is counter culture and just as you get ready to applaud the family for the stand they take, the story turns.
Their daughter who was supposed to be gone a year , is suddenly coming back with her fiancée who has never been to the US and she wants him to experience a traditional American Christmas except that her family isn’t having one this year. With little time left for any thing to be arranged, the neighbors rally around and eventually put together a good enough celebration for Blair, the couple’s daughter and her fiancée to feel at home. The second half of the book celebrates community and fellow feeling even in the midst of materialism and John Grisham seems to be saying that even in days of gross consumerism, it is important not to lose the sense of camaderie and fellowship that binds people together – and that it often takes a crisis to throw open bonds which have some how got hidden. The book impressed film makers enough for it to be made into a movie – “Christmas with the Kranks”
Leave Your Comments