Skipping Christmas: Christmas with the Kranks

Title: Skipping Christmas: Christmas with the Kranks
Author: John Grisham
Source: Amazon
Length: Novel

Imagine a year without Christmas. No crowded shops, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That’s just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they’ll skip the holiday altogether. Theirs will be the only house on the street without a rooftop Frosty the snowman; they won’t be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash; they aren’t even going to have a tree. They won’t need one, because come December 25 they’re setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But, as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences – and isn’t half as easy as they’d imagined.

A classic tale for modern times, Skipping Christmas offers a hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that has become part of our holiday tradition.

 

This is one of my favourite Christmas stories.

When their only daughter, Blair, leaves for Peru a month before Christmas, the Kranks decide to skip Christmas completely and depart on a cruise on the 26th December instead. Well, Mr Luther Krank does, that is. His wife goes along with it.

All runs relatively smoothly until Blair phones them on Christmas Eve. She’s in Miami, headed home with her new fiancé. What happens next is anybody’s guess.

This is a Christmas romp written in Grisham’s smooth style. He uses an omniscient view, which is not my favoured form of storytelling, but it works very well in illustrating the chaos of an unplanned Christmas. Through it all, Grisham illustrates several important truths concerning Christmas and what it’s all about – or NOT.

The ending is pure Christmas spirit.