A Little Fruitcake: A Childhood in Holidays

I would have loved this book even if it wasn't so well written, as the author grew up in Maine and is exactly my age, so it was like a trip down memory lane to read about his childhood--exciting trips to LaVerderies to get Christmas presents, the feeling of going to the big city when you are really going to a small Maine city, the extra sunny day when I too went inside from playing in the Maine summer to see Nixon resign, picking a Christmas tree from the woods and trying so hard to find the perfect one among the imperfect Maine scrubby forest trees, the transition from the huge colored bulbs to smaller ones that gradually took place, the feeling of a Christmas pageant in a small church, Grants Christmas albums---WOW! This memoir is told all in Christmases, little samples of the author's life growing up fairly poor in Norridgewock, Maine, half Cuban and therefore half an outsider (although the fact that the other half was an old Maine family probably made it easier). I know too the feeling of leaving home young and never really going home, and how the guilt when you do visit can be quite overwhelming. This book evokes the time and place so well that it brought me to tears several times. A real triumph.

A Little Fruitcake: A Childhood in Holidays Wonderful read for getting in the holiday spirit - warm, vivid, witty and fun!

A Little Fruitcake is my pick for holiday gift this year. It's a wonderful collection of stories about family and holidays that you can feel comfortable giving to anyone from your traditional Grandma to your quirky and hip college roommate (and it sure beats an actual fruitcake). I'm going to send copies out as early holiday gifts, maybe around Thanksgiving, to help everyone get into the holiday mood.

give them A Little Fruitcake. As spirited and hilarious as Sedaris' Holidays on Ice, A Little Fruitcake veers between laugh-out-funny and a warm loving look back at childhood holidays. Valdes Greenwood's voice is fresh, wise, with just the right amount of bite -- the perfect holiday guest (unlike the great aunts you actually have to spend Christmas with!)

Greenwood, David Valdez. "This Christmas, Try a Little Fruitcake", De Capo Press, 2007. The Spirit of the Season Amos Lassen Remember when? These two words say succinctly and precisely what "This Christmas, Try a Little Fruitcake" is all about. The book is a collection of charming and comical little stories that brim with the spirit of the holiday season. David Valdes Greenwood who gave us "Homo Domesticus" captures with elfin charm the sometimes outrageous unpredictability of family celebrations in a series of delightful and heart warming little stores. He gives us twelve tales, one for each of the twelve days of Christmas and they are all set against the background of the rural countryside of Maine. Holidays can be compared to fruitcake--they are both mixed blessings. They each offer unexpected chaos and actual merriment. It is so easy to identify with the characters as all of us have relatives like the ones we read about in Valdes Greenwood's stories. Remember the time you tormented Santa Claus or the time you went to the Christmas pageant when the wise men were not speaking to each other because of some petty argument? There is a Scrooge in every family (I resemble that remark) and then there are the homemade decorations that while may not be beautiful hold a prominent place in the home because the children made them. Valdes Greenwood looks at Christmas through the eyes of a child and makes the holiday come alive. He reminds us of the sappy TV spectaculars and getting together to decorate the tree and then he lets us remember how ewe sat at the kids' table which was not exactly placed too close to the grownups. It is the humor and the nostalgia of the book that makes it special but at the heart of the stories is David who is loveable and precocious at the same time. There is also a very strong moral here and that is that Christmas spirit is not what is wrapped under the tree or the birth of Jesus but the beauty of the season which gives us memories to last a lifetime. Even as a non-Christian, I could identify with much of the book. I may not have Christmas but I have the season and it is that special time of year that all of us cherish so dearly.