Going through and slowly but surely re-reviewing all of my old reviews that somehow got deleted.
This book is a bit nostalgic for me as I decided on a whim to pick this up early December of 2019 and so created my new obsession of books. It ended up being the perfect timing due to Covid-19 and so that's all I ever did during lockdown. My big thanks goes out to this book and John Grisham for creating a reading monster!
I recall thinking this was such a fun book! I remember watching the corny movie numerous times growing up, but reading this as an adult I had a way different perception as I've started to relate to wanting to skip a large family event with a ton of people in light of the pandemic and how nice it would be to spend my Christmas or Thanksgiving morning reading or hanging out with my kids instead of making some elaborate meal that no one will end up eating or spending a fortune on Holiday-esque expenses. As such, it's the fantasy of it rather than the reality as I couldn't imagine not doing something that's been such a part of my life my whole life. I think it was fun reading about something a lot of people probably fantasize about doing but know they never will because of how important seeing family and celebrating the Holidays are.
My Dad is a HUGE John Grisham fan and he tells me that his books are quite different from this one so although I anticipate I will read more from Grisham eventually, I'll go in with expectation of his other works being still good/great, yet different from this entertaining read.
A solid 4 stars!!

"Who would ever dream that two otherwise sensible adults would skip Christmas and go on a cruise?"
- John Grisham, Skipping Christmas

The question above is posed by an idiot. The idiot in question being Nora Krank, who learns too late the awful price to be paid for not strictly conforming to your neighbors’ Christmastide expectations.

One is tempted to treat the query as the rhetorical device of an imbecile. And yet, the urge to answer is overwhelming, if only because the answer is so obvious to everyone except the people inhabiting this insipid Christmas novel.

So, why would two otherwise sensible adults skip Christmas and go on a cruise? Maybe they are Jewish. Or Muslim. Or Hindus. Maybe they have just suffered a loss, and in the process of grieving, don’t feel like celebrating. Or maybe they live in a cold latitude, where the idea of a peaceful cruise in a tropical locale is actually freaking awesome. There are literally billions of people on Earth who do not celebrate Christmas. Thus, there are literally billions of answers to that stupid bit of inquiry.

John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas doesn’t recognize this fact. Indeed, it is set in a world in which this fact isn’t a fact at all. Skipping Christmas takes place in a white, upper middle class suburb where such things are barely mentioned. There was once a Pakistani couple in the neighborhood, we are informed, but they moved very quickly. By the end of this nasty little work, you will understand why.

We begin with a fairly anodyne premise fully articulated in this book’s title.

Luther and Nora Krank’s daughter, twenty-three year-old Blair, has just left home for Peru, where she will be serving with the Peace Corps. With their grown daughter out of the nest, and facing a Christmas bill that runs to over $6,000 each holiday season, Luther has an inspired idea. Instead of burning 6K on parties, decorations, food, booze, and presents, Luther discovers that he and Nora can go on a warm-weather vacation for half that amount.

This makes sense to me. It should make sense to you. This is a rational idea on a personal level (daughter gone for the first time, meaning the break of old traditions), on a financial level (you’re saving money), and on a temperature-level (it is not snowy and icy on a cruise). Going on a Christmas cruise is an excellent idea to everyone except the holiday Nazis who live on Hemlock Lane.

(It should be noted that Luther is a tax accountant and drives a Lexus. His wife is a full-time volunteer, and drives an Audi. Their financial considerations thus necessarily fall into the realm of uptown problems).

Like Galileo, though, Luther is condemned for his heresy. His main nemesis is neighborhood Gauleiter Vic Frohmeyer. Vic’s job is to enforce social compliance among the residents. Chiefly, he ensures that everyone places a large Frosty the Snowman on their roof. Because nothing says “Christmas cheer” quite like being forced to purchase, install, and display a decoration chosen by a guy who lives down the street.

This is a novel about intolerance. Wait, that’s not correct. Sorry. This is a novel that celebrates intolerance. Vic soon has the neighbors rise up against Luther and Nora. People trespass on his lawn and post signs. People chant “Free Frosty.” Carolers are sent to annoy them. Their neighbors treat them coldly for their refusal to abide Frohmeyer’s edict.

As satire, this might have worked.

The latent fascism of the neighbors is ripe for parody. It might have been interesting to see how American notions of “freedom” and “religious tolerance” and “the right to be left alone” rub uncomfortably against the reality that “freedom” means I get to tell you what to do; and “religious tolerance” is being a Christian or shutting up; and “the right to be left alone” means you just need to surrender to the Christmas magic as it gets shoved up your – well, as it gets shoved in your stocking, which better be hanging on the mantel or else. When I read this, I kept thinking about the Christmas bullies who demand stores and cashiers say Merry Christmas, as though forcing some minimum-wager at Wal-Mart to utter bland holiday greetings in the checkout line is somehow actualizing.

But I don’t think this is satire. Grisham never allows that he’s in on the joke. Ultimately, he approves of the neighbors’ triumph over Luther’s free will.

Just about everyone in Skipping Christmas is a low-grade monster. Luther, despite his utterly logical plan, is also a raging asshole. I suppose this is Grisham’s way of stacking the deck against him. His wife Nora is a blubbering nitwit. One classic scene has her discussing the cancellation of her Christmas Eve party while volunteering at a battered woman’s shelter. As you might imagine, the specter of domestic violence pales in comparison to Nora’s shocking decision to go on a vacation. The neighbors are grim, backbiting, gossipy, small-minded conformists.

Scenes like the one in the shelter made me question Grisham’s self-awareness. There is little textual support for this being a satire. However, it occurred to me that this might be an Andy Kaufman-esque performance piece. Nothing in this book is funny or charming or pleasant. But perhaps the overall meta-joke is that Grisham created an utterly hateful fable packaged as a delightful little spree with the understanding that because it was labeled a Christmas book no one would realize they’re being conned. This might be a literary version of the Rickroll. I suggest this only to give Grisham some benefit of the doubt. There is little evidence to support this interpretation.

To the contrary, the weight of the evidence goes the other way. We know this because the lesson that Luther is forced to learn is that you don’t skip Christmas. Midway through, Blair, realizing that she has cut the cord of extended adolescence too quickly, calls and informs her mother and father that she is coming back for Christmas. She has been gone for only a month, but Millennials, amiright?

Not only is Blair returning to the roost, but she’s bringing Enrique, her Peruvian boyfriend that she’s known for three weeks. I mention Enrique only because the Kranks are obsessed with his skin tone. Don’t worry, though. The Kranks quickly discover, that if necessary, Enrique can pass for Aryan.

The door opened and Blair rushed in. Nora and Luther both glanced at her first, then quickly looked beyond to see how dark Enrique was. He wasn’t dark at all! At least two shades lighter than Luther himself!

Well, thank God we dodged that bullet! Let the bloodlines remain pure. Or something. I really don’t know what Grisham was getting at. It made me a bit uncomfortable.

Anyway, Blair’s imminent return means that the Kranks have to have Christmas after all. Luther is verbally bludgeoned by his wife, beat down by his neighbors, and finally surrenders to the joys of the season.

There are obvious parallels to A Christmas Carol. Both have wealthy men learning an important truth. For Ebenezer Scrooge, the lesson is social consciousness, to take care of the least of his brothers and sisters. For Luther, it is that any attempt to withdraw from the conspicuous consumption of Christmastime will be dealt with by public ostracism. Both receive this message through visitors. For Ebenezer, those visitors are three ghosts. For Luther, it is the Yuletide Gestapo coming to make sure the tinsel is on the tree.

I don’t write this as a cynic. I love Christmas. I celebrate Christmas. I started watching sappy holiday movies while my kids were still out trick-or-treating. My enjoyment, however, does not require everyone else to love it too. I know plenty of people who don’t get into the season like I do, for various reasons. It never occurred to me to bully them into line.

The sad truth is that I picked this up in the spirit of Christmas cheer. When I finished, I just wished it was Spring.

A long time ago I used to read John Grisham. A lot of John Grisham. I was definitely a fan of the courtroom drama written in his words. So, I thought this book might be a safe (and also easy) choice for book club.

Not so.

Unfortunately, this book was surprisingly terrible. It was so bad that it might just be the standard by which to judge all other terrible books. Underdeveloped, shallow characters, pointless diatribe, a complete lack of conviction, and a splash of random racism combine to make this a book you should probably avoid.

And, what's worse is, the more I think about this book, the more I hate it.

This was great jolly old fun!

This is the swedish edition of John Grisham`s "Skipping Christmas", a christmas comedy story inspired by the classic "A Christmas Carol".Luther Krank is an accountant who is deeply bitter about the coming Christmas where he will have to waste several hundred dollars for everything traditionally needed for Christmas.So he persuades his wife to skip Christmas so they can go on a cruise across the Caribbean together.But one thing after another becomes an obstacle to their dream trip.My first book by this best-selling author and certainly not the last.He is so good when it comes to comic relief and i found Luther Krank`s inner distateful thoughts about christmas,his hatred that grew minute by minute. Ah, he hated everything about it. It was so fun!I also plan to watch the movie adaption someday!

Truth be told, I've never read a John Grisham novel before this book. So this book made quite an impression. I know that his other books were obviously more serious that this one, but I really liked how this book turned out. Although how they celebrate Christmas here in the US is different than how we celebrate it back home, more or less, it's still the same, being with FAMILY and FRIENDS. And being grateful for the things that we have.

“For her, the holidays began in late October and steadily gathered momentum until the big bang, a ten-hour marathon on Christmas Day with four meals and a packed house.”

This was an adorable tale - a story of a husband and wife and recent empty nest-ers - hoping to "skip" Christmas and save money going on a cruise together.

But the whole town is used to everyone being on board for all the Christmas activities. There are charities that require fruitcake purchase, neighborhoods that require each house be decorated, Fire Departments that require holiday calendars to be sold and Boy Scouts that need their trees sold. As each person comes to this couple, they are resolute and hold strong and won't partake.

This couple is adorable and I loved reading all about their adventures.

All the way back in the summer of 2004, my mom and I were seeing some movie in the theater; I believe it was The Terminal, but I'm not 100% sure. We arrived earlier than usual, so, they had some advertisements for other flicks, one of which was an upcoming holiday comedy called Christmas with the Kranks. The promotional material we saw--or, actually, she saw more of it than I did; I only saw a small part of it because I made a restroom trip before the feature presentation started--mentioned that it was based on John Grisham's Skipping Christmas. The title was likely changed to avoid confusion with Surviving Christmas, a film allegedly so dreadful that it should never have been made. Soon after we saw that ad for Christmas with the Kranks, my mom borrowed the audiobook of Skipping Christmas from the library, and had a field day with it; she said it was hilarious because of how deadpan the narrator was. That Black Friday, my mom, my grandmother, and I saw it in theaters...and I enjoyed it. We got the DVD the next Christmas season, and have watched it more than once since; in fact, it was the first film that I popped into my Blu-Ray home theater system that I got as a gift from my parents one Yule.

Despite seeing the film multiple times in various formats and even hearing parts of the audiobook version, I had never read the book...until now. While the print and celluloid versions differ in some ways, I still like both of them. The original Grisham work had occasional profanities and suggestive references--that is, more so than the flick did--that were unnecessary, but, it was still a fun story. Fans of the Allen/Curtis movie versions should seek out the book, either in print or audio format; you'll be glad you did!

Disappointment.

Reading through reviews, I found a common theme in the negative ones which focused too much on the neighborhood pressure of Kranks skipping Christmas and I thought that this is a Christmas story and usually Christmas stories have exaggerated plot points to deliver a message.

I managed to be right, but it still disappointed me in the end. The Kranks live in a neighborhood that is close-knit, despite at least half of them are talking behind each other backs (and admittedly, they only like people that share similar beliefs. Not a Christian? BYE~ But not the point of the book, so let us proceed), and as such, they are used to a certain routine of things throughout a year. Christmas is part of that routine. Everyone has a set number of things they do and when Kranks deviate for the first time from that, there is reaction. Mind you, not huge. Everyone is just weirded out and you have the occasional emotional manipulation or just pure manipulation to keep things a certain way.

I was perfectly ok with that. I never felt they were being forced, yet it makes sense that if you stray from something you are not used to, you feel the eyes on you all the time even when they are not. And I LOVED how they fought each time against that feeling of remorse and doing something wrong.

They wanted a change.

They wanted to try something new.

They wanted to do something for themselves.

And it was working fine... until... the last few pages. This is going to be spoiler territory, so I'm sorry for that. Blair, their daughter calls, last minute (literally last hour) to tell her parents she's at the airport with a fiance who she knew 1 month and decided to marry in 1 week and because he's foreign, she wants to show him true, American Christmas at her home.

"You’re doing the party, aren’t you, Mom?"

THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A NO. Plans were made. Preparations were taken. Choices were decided on. BUT, Blair is coming back and we have to abandon EVERYTHING we planned for, because why make poor little Blair who didn't even care to give a proper warning be sad? What would the fiance of one month think?!

Are we even real here? Why is this book making me dislike Blair when it wasn't even her fault for her mother's inability of saying no and her father's inability to set things straight? What is the message this book is giving us?

So, after this great turn of events, the book tries to promote this "neighborhood is your family" mindset, but all I was thinking was that the Kranks suck, the neighborhood truly helps only when their thinking aligns and Christmas is an obligation instead of a happy event that you WANT to take part in.

What I liked:

The Kranks decide to skip all the rigamarole that has become "Christmas" and treat themselves to a cruise. There are contrary social pressures, which they are determined to resist. I always admire those who are able to fend off the pressure to conform.

What I didn't like:

There is a plot twist and then the whole novel veers off into another direction. Bah-humbug, this reader said. The novel devolves into being quite sentimental and "idyllic" — i.e. false. A fantasy. A sugar plum concoction, that is, of course, at the same time true to type for this sort of Christmas make-believe.

Three stars, because my hard bitter heart has not become completely shrunken and useless.

Still, to all those who decide for one reason or another to "skip xmas" — I salute you! Save yourself a whole heap of stress and a good chunk of cash.

What a sweet and humorous Christmas story.

This has to be one of the bleakest books I have ever read. The couple at the center of the story seems to be locked into a sort of suburban yuletide cult. The husband's plan to skip Christmas is met with resistance by his wife and she never seems to fully embrace the idea. This is reinforced when their daughter announces her imminent return and the wife utilizes their limited time to excoriate her husband for his terrible idea.

The community reacts to the Kranks' plan in the most toxic manner imaginable. Neighbors judge and denigrate this couple for the crime of wanting a vacation and first responders are perturbed as their annual extortions come up dry. Only when the Kranks renew their fealty to their holiday overlord, does the community come together to throw a farcical party to placate their impetuous daughter. The ending is supposed to have a feel good quality, however it seems to posit that you can only count on your community's support if you are conforming to the standards of others. Post-apocalyptic societies seem more welcoming in comparison.

Langsam kommt auch bei mir Weihnachtsstimmung auf.
Daher musste jetzt ein Weihnachtsbuch her. Habe mich für dieses Büchlein von John Grisham entschieden, da ich bisher nur die Verfilmung kenne und liebe ("Verrückte Weihnachten" mit Tim Allen und Jamie Lee Curtis).
Zum Glück war das Buch genauso witzig und charmant wie der Film und hat mir ein paar gemütliche Lesestunden an diesem Sonntag verschafft.
Wenn ich nicht wüsste, dass das Buch von John Grisham geschrieben ist, hätte ich das nie im Leben erraten. Wer hätte gedacht, dass er auch solche Geschichten wunderbar erzählen kann?
Wegen mir hätte das Buch noch ein paar mehr Seiten haben dürfen, allerdings war es so genau auf den Punkt erzählt.
Die Situationen, in die Nora und Luther geraten, sind so herrlich abstrus. Und es kommt beim Lesen wirklich Weihnachtsstimmung auf, da es um den ganzen Wahnsinn rund um Weihnachten geht, wie beispielsweise das Dekorieren der Häuser und der Einkaufsstress rund um die Feiertage.
Und das Ende ist einfach perfekt kitschig und harmonisch. Klare Leseempfehlung für die kommenden Wochen! Und ihr müsst den Film ansehen, falls ihr ihn noch nicht kennt :)