"A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote (reprise)

A month of Christmas Short Story Mondays was planned for December, but my copy of The Virago Book of Christmas has yet to arrive from The Book Depository. Over the weekend, I reread Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory". It's my favorite Christmas story, and this post is a rerun from last December.


Originally posted 12/6/09:

After a couple of decidedly untraditional stories, Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory", set in the depression-era rural south, had me sighing with relief at the end of the first paragraph.

"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."

This house is home to several members of a family, including an old woman and a young boy (our narrator) she calls Buddy. The two friends obviously have a very special bond.

"It's always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: 'It's fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.' "

The boy's memories of the season follow. On the first day of "fruitcake weather", the two gather 'windfall pecans'. The second day finds them buying the rest of the necessary ingredients, with money that has been carefully saved all year. On the third day, the baking commences.

The fruitcakes (as many as 31) are given to people that matter to the old woman and boy. Some are people the two barely know - like the bus driver that waves as he passes by every other day. One is even sent to President Roosevelt at the White House, and the old woman imagines him enjoying it on Christmas morning.

The boy shares the adventure of cutting down the Christmas tree:

" 'It should be, muses my friend, 'twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can't steal the star.' The one we pick is twice as tall as me. A brave handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it keels with a creaking rending cry. Lugging it like a kill, we commence the long trek out. Every few yards we abandon the struggle, sit down and pant. But we have the strength of triumphant huntsmen; that and the tree's virile, icy perfume revive us, goad us on."

The making and giving of homespun gifts is also described. The entire story is beautifully written and a joy to read.

Truman Capote wrote this autobiographical story in 1956. It was first published in Madamoiselle and, later, as a book. It was also made into a movie in 1997 starring Patty Duke and Piper Laurie.

An internet search turned up this You Tube video that has Capote reading the story himself. Enjoy!

"A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote

After a couple of decidedly untraditional stories, Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory", set in the depression-era rural south, had me sighing with relief at the end of the first paragraph.

"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."

This house is home to several members of a family, including an old woman and a young boy (our narrator) she calls Buddy. The two friends obviously have a very special bond.

"It's always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: 'It's fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.' "

The boy's memories of the season follow. On the first day of "fruitcake weather", the two gather 'windfall pecans'. The second day finds them buying the rest of the necessary ingredients, with money that has been carefully saved all year. On the third day, the baking commences.

The fruitcakes (as many as 31) are given to people that matter to the old woman and boy. Some are people the two barely know - like the bus driver that waves as he passes by every other day. One is even sent to President Roosevelt at the White House, and the old woman imagines him enjoying it on Christmas morning.

The boy shares the adventure of cutting down the Christmas tree:

" 'It should be, muses my friend, 'twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can't steal the star.' The one we pick is twice as tall as me. A brave handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it keels with a creaking rending cry. Lugging it like a kill, we commence the long trek out. Every few yards we abandon the struggle, sit down and pant. But we have the strength of triumphant huntsmen; that and the tree's virile, icy perfume revive us, goad us on."

The making and giving of homespun gifts is also described. The entire story is beautifully written and a joy to read.

Truman Capote wrote this autobiographical story in 1956. It was first published in Madamoiselle and, later, as a book. It was also made into a movie in 1997 starring Patty Duke and Piper Laurie.

An internet search turned up this You Tube video that has Capote reading the story himself. Enjoy!

"A Chaparral Christmas Gift" by O. Henry

Week two of Christmas Stories and it's pretty obvious these stories were not compiled by Hallmark. "A Chaparral Christmas Gift" by O. Henry, written in 1910, is set in southwest ranching country. It opens:

"The original cause of the trouble was about twenty years in growing... Had you lived anywhere within fifty miles of Sundown Ranch you would have heard of it. It possessed a quantity of jet-black hair, a pair of extremely frank, deep-brown eyes and a laugh that rippled cross the prairie like the sound of a hidden brook. The name was Rosita McMullen..."

Though Rosita has many admirers, two stand out from the crowd. Madison Lane, a young cattleman, wins Rosita's hand and the two are married on Christmas Day. The spurned lover, Johnny McRoy, takes rejection hard, crashes the wedding, and shoots off his gun while yelling "I'll give you a Christmas present!".

"It was considered an improper act to shoot the bride and groom at the wedding" and the guests defend the couple. The shooter is deterred, but makes his intention known to "shoot better next time".

That night Johnny is reborn as the Frio Kid. The notorious 'bad man' is eventually responsible for eighteen deaths. Rosita fears for their lives, especially at Christmastime.

"Many tales are told along the border of his impudent courage and daring. But he was not one of the breed of desperadoes who have seasons of generosity and even of softness. They say he never had mercy on the object of his anger. Yet at this and every Christmastide it is well to give each one credit, if it can be done, for whatever speck of good he may have possessed. If the Frio Kid ever did a kindly act or felt a throb of generosity in his heart it was once at such a time and season, and this is the way it happened."

The Frio Kid does, indeed, have a Christmas gift for Rosita. It has been said that O. Henry is the master of surprise endings. He lives up to his reputation here, and I'm not going to spoil the story. You can read it for yourself here.

Christmas Stories for December

The Virago Book of Ghost Stories made October Short Story Mondays such fun, I decided to read from a holiday collection for December, too.

Perhaps I started checking the local stores too early, but neither B&N nor Borders had a collection in stock. Amazon was the next option, but the number of choices there was overwhelming. What could I do but turn to other bloggers for suggestions? A conversation on twitter and comments on my blog lead me to purchase Christmas Stories from Everyman's Pocket Classics, a book I first heard about around this time last year from Darlene.

This list of authors included reads like a literary Who's Who, and I couldn't wait to get started! Since December 1 happened to fall on a Tuesday, Short Story Monday is a day late this week.

"Vanka" by Anton Chekhov, originally appearing in The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories (1922), was the first story I chose. In it, a young orphaned boy, working as an apprenticed shoemaker for a cruel master, is writing a letter on Christmas Eve to his grandfather. The letter is a plea to be removed from the horrible situation and allowed come 'home' to the family that employs his grandfather as a night watchman.

Chekhov's description of Christmas Eve night is beautiful:

"The air is still, fresh, and transparent. The night is dark, but one can see the whole village with its white roofs and coils of smoke coming from the chimneys, the trees are silvered with hoar frost, the snowdrifts. The whole sky spangled with gay twinkling stars, and the Milky Way is as distinct as though it had been washed and rubbed with snow for a holiday..."

The letter, though, is simply sad. It reads:

"Dear grandfather, it is more than I can bear, it's simply no life at all. I want to run away to the village, but I have no boots, and I am afraid of the frost. When I grow up big I will take care of you for this, and not let anyone annoy you, and when you die I will pray for the rest of your soul, just as for my mammy's."

The boy addresses the letter "To grandfather in the village" but later adds a name to the envelope, and naively drops it in the box before returning home to dream sweet, hopeful dreams.

The story left me with an empty, somewhat bittersweet feeling... not at all what I was expecting from Christmas stories! You can read the story here. Visit The Book Mine Set for more short story posts.