You may well have missed this one.  It’s a small book, pocket sized, and though it says a novel on the cover, its really a novella– 177 pages even with gracious spacing. You can easily read it in a day, or on a long plane ride and its enjoyable from start to finish. 

I thoroughly enjoy John Grisham’s fiction, and even his non-fiction but this is something entirely different.   In a small way this little story could be compared to Dicken’s A Christmas Carol (not to be confused with Disney’s A Christmas Carey… err Carol).  This little novella came out in 2001 without the usual fanfare of his lawyer novels, and I actually found this book at a second hand sale in Grafton Vermont at the tiny Grafton library.  And guess what?  Its really worth the read and is a keeper.

The story is told of an accountant named Luther Krank (think Scrooge) who decided that Christmas was a big waste of money.  He hated the pressure to be sucked into the neighborhood parties, tree decorations, putting up of lights and Frosty the snowmen etc.  He calculated that he was throwing good money after bad to the tune of more than $6,000 plus dollars every Christmas.   Its enough to give an accountant endless Mallox moments!

So this Luther may not have 95 theses but he does have a big idea and he comes up with a plan. Instead of getting sucked into all that secular Christmas stuff, how about a nice Caribbean cruise for ten days beginning on Christmas?  After all their only daughter was away in the Peace Corps and there was no law saying they had to keep Christmas like this— they could skip it!  So Luther and his wife Nora decide to pass on the whole deal— no buying the tree, no buying the fruitcakes etc. But this is much easier said than done…. as these two were soon to discover as they rapidly became personae non grata in their neighborhood,  Mr. and Mrs. Grinch in the flesh. 

The story moves rapidly and is easy reading, but the further you get into, the more you realize that like Dicken’s story, you have fallen into a morality play that has a point, and as you will see if you read this little winner it has its hilarious moments along the way as well.  

John Grisham is not merely a good story teller, he’s also a Christian, and I gather a Baptist Sunday school teacher on occasion.  Here is an enjoyable tale, with no X rated or offensive parts, and it prompts the right kind of reflection on the difference between the real meaning and focus of Christmas, and most of what happens in America starting right about this time of year (why the heck has Disney already started showing A Christmas Carol long before Thanksgiving?).

Here’s a little warning.  You may like Luther’s idea so much that you too may be tempted to skip Christmas this year. Let me warn you now, that you too may discover there is a price to pay for skipping Christmas, and I’m not referring to the lack of tax deductions.  For instance, you may have relatives who tell you—- “just put this book down, and back away slowly!!!”  You’re dealing with social dynamite here.