Peter Spier's Xmas

How sad I was to go to my local bookstore and discover Spier's "Christmas" book is out of print. My children are grown and still talk about his books. There is a lightness and positive energy in his books that any child in any generation can relate to. The lack of words allows anyone to use their own memories and imagination to create the story. I had planned to start buying these for my grandchildren. Favorites are "Christmas" and "Bored - nothing to do." How do we get these published again?

You don't have to be a child to revel in Peter Spier's beautiful full-color art (and at age 55 I can speak from personal experience). Here he tells the story of a typical American Christmas season with never a printed word, beginning on December 13 and going on the following January 4. A family of five (plus dog and cat) shop the bedizened mall, make decorations, address and send out Christmas cards, choose and trim their tree, shop for and prepare their holiday feast, go to church, open their presents, and welcome grandparents for Christmas dinner. Nor does the artist fail to show the post-holiday chores--taking down the trims, vacuuming shed needles off the carpet, returning gifts and putting the denuded tree out on the curb. From the hectic (the mall scenes) to the beautiful (the family standing outside its own house to inspect the effect of the decorations, a streetscape showing neighboring homes including two that aren't decorated at all), the fun (a mass snowball fight) to the contemplative (Mom and Dad sitting before the fire on Christmas night after the grandparents have gone home and the kids are in bed) to the mischievous (the family cat tearing a piece of meat off the turkey carcass as it sits on the kitchen counter), it's all here. Spier's Christmas is a season of love and joy and peace, as we're told Christmas should be. This book should be tradition in every home that celebrates it.

This is too delightful a book to be out of print!Mr. Speir again showcases his talent for detail in this charming, word-free picture book about Christmas. The story is linear, have a starting point and logical ending point, but many of the images in between could easily be shuffled about with no detriment to the overall book.What we have here are snatches of personal memory, vignettes of both public and hidden moments, perhaps even just a glance that catches a simple image from a childhood Christmas past, all faithfully recorded in the mind's eye and replayed with each new Christmas season for years and years. I was struck by how carefully Mr. Speir was able to capture these images for us, all of which we instantly recognize in a sort of collective unconscious, or universal memory.The ornaments packed away in the attic, the hectic shopping at grocery stores and shopping malls, hanging a wreath, standing outside in the quiet dusk to admire the Christmas lights and the tree in the window, a packed church service, carolers, bringing small gifts and a visit to the elderly nieghbors, the cat sitting by the electric candle on the window sill and looking out at the world, the silent night, the magic of Christmas Morning, the presents, the dinner, the relatives, the phone calls to old friends and family seperated by distance, the quiet moment by the fire at the end of the day.Everything, absolutely everything is here, lovingly detailed by Mr. Speir's ink pen.This is the perfect Christmas, with no fighting, no stress, no phony commercialism, no bickering children or adults. Like memory, Mr. Speir wisely highlights the good, the pleasant, the golden, the loving, and the ideal rememberances of Christmas.A rare and wonderful achievement, and a Christmas book to be treasured.

My children are growing up with Spier just as I did. The youngest love to look at the pictures and hear me tell about them. Older children love to make up the story as it progresses. Great tool for promoting imagination.

We set this book out with all the other Christmas decorations every year. It's a tradition. Even the older ones in the family enjoy the book without words. The beautiful illustrations take you through a journey of a family's Christmas season. If you love Christmas, you must have it.