Diane's Reviews > A Christmas Memory

I wish my grandmother were still around so I could share this charming story with her. I think she would have appreciated the nostalgia of Christmas traditions from long ago.

In the story, Truman Capote is 7 and his closest friend is a cousin who is in her 60s. On a cold day in late November, his friend announces that "it's fruitcake weather!" And so, Christmas season has begun for them. They gather the ingredients to make fruitcakes, they go into the woods to find a Christmas tree, and they build homemade kites to give as gifts.

The illustrations in the story are delightful, and I found myself smiling while I was reading (until the story made me cry, that is). I don't think I'll ever forget this wonderful little book, and my thanks go to Ann Patchett for recommending it.

Opening Passage
"Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate, too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. "Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's fruitcake weather!"