I just finished this beautiful story and I am still blinking away a few tears for the ending.

What a superb tale of love and finding happiness in the smallest things. There is a lesson to be learned here about what is really important in life as one elderly lady makes Christmas special for a small boy who has very little at all.

Nostalgic, emotional and beautifully written. Something you could read every Christmas just like Sook making her thirty fruitcakes each November.

Thank you to Patty for bringing this one to my attention and I hope it is okay to add here the link you provided for this story.
http://www.sailthouforth.com/2009/12/...

Loved this story when I first read it when I was much younger. Always love Truman Capote.

TRUMAN Capote's A Christmas Memory is a recollection of his boyhood in rural Alabama. It was first published in 1956 and has become a modern-day classic. It is an unforgettable portrait of an enduring friendship between two cousins, Miss Sook Falk -- who is in her 60s -- and Buddy – who is seven.
Every November with the change in season, Miss Sook Falk exclaims loudly: "It's fruitcake weather!"
Mr. Capote goes on to explain. “The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something, We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. We are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880's, when she was still a child. She is still a child.”


Buddy helps his one and only friend Sook in making fruitcakes.

Mr Capote writes simple sentences but these are ones that really affect you or touch you. Besides, he has an exceptional power of observation. “Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry.” Only relatives with hardened hearts must be frequently making them cry. “The other Buddy died in the 1880s, when she was still a child. She is still a child.” Sook was a child in the 1880s. She still remains a child during the present times.


Truman Capote by Richard Avedon, 1958.

His creative writing is enjoyable to read. Check the following paragraph:
“The hat is found, a straw cartwheel corsaged with velvet roses out-of-doors has faded: it once belonged to a more fashionable relative. Together, we guide our buggy, a dilapidated baby carriage, out to the garden and into a grove of pecan trees. The buggy is mine; that is, it was bought for me when I was born. It is made of wicker, rather unraveled, and the wheels wobble like a drunkard's legs. But it is a faithful object; springtimes, we take it to the woods and fill it with flowers, herbs, wild fern for our porch pots; in the summer, we pile it with picnic paraphernalia and sugar-cane fishing poles and roll it down to the edge of a creek; it has its winter uses, too: as a truck for hauling firewood from the yard to the kitchen, as a warm bed for Queenie, our tough little orange and white rat terrier who has survived distemper and two rattlesnake bites. Queenie is trotting beside it now.”


The action of "A Christmas Memory": Fruitcakes.

I am sure this is the best Christmas story that I have ever read. To tell you the truth I was avoiding it for the last two months, thinking that it might be the usual Christmas stuff. But then I thought that I should never judge a book by its cover or in this case by its title. So on this Sunday night, I picked it up and started reading it. I am glad that I did. I enjoyed every word of it.


Buddy and Sook are stopped by a rich woman who wants to buy their Christmas tree.

I am sure memories make the best stories. I am sure you will agree with me. If you don’t, then please read the story in the following link and let me know what you think.
http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explor...

Buddy and Sook take their kites out on Christmas morning.

Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory is a short, beautifully written story by one of my favorite authors. It's about the relationship between a woman in the latter years of her life and a boy just starting out. It is, according to the book jacket notes, “based on Capote's own boyhood in rural Alabama in the 1930's.” The edition I read was illustrated by Beth Peck. The pictures are as wonderful as the text.

Here is how Capote introduces the relationship between the woman and the boy:

I am seven; she is sixty-something. We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend.

Together they gather ingredients for fruitcakes which they share with people as diverse as President Roosevelt, some missionaries to Borneo, and the little knife grinder who comes through town twice a year. They also go into the woods to find a Christmas tree and later fly kites together. It is their relationship that is important, not what they do. It comes out in the way they speak to each other, dance together, and deal with the other people in the house, who often think they act inappropriately.

The book covers their relationship until the boy goes away. Some people, my wife among them, think the book should have stopped a page or so before it did. But what is happy can't be as beautiful without what is sad and it is all part of the memory. The book only took about an hour to read and it had the power to bring out my own Christmas memories. That was an hour well spent.

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!"

Warm, humorous, and with a soupcon of melancholy. Capote's prose is delectable and filigreed, and speaks volumes than what's overt on the page. A morning well-spent.

This brief prose work (1956) by celebrated author Truman Capote is a classic in its own right and has inspired video and aural remakes. Young Buddy (the real Capote) and his much older cousin Sook hunt windfall pecans, buy ingredients, and bake fruitcakes to give to friends and sell to passers-by.

This story would make a lovely present to anyone who honors the season or the richness of our language.

«دیگه کو اون احمقی که می‌خواست همیشه زندگی کنه؟ ظاهرا اکثریت ما. اما این خیلی ابلهانه است، یه چیزی مثل نقطه‌ی اشباع زندگی: جایی که هرچیزی در تلاش بی‌نهایت و تکرار مطلقه.»
قطعا ترومن کاپوتی قراره به نویسنده‌های دلخواهم اضافه شه.چه قلم گرم و خلاقی گه با دهه پنجاهی بودنش برام لذت بخش تر میشد. این کتاب شامل سه چهار تا داستان کوتاهِ خاطره‌طور بود که تو حالوهوای کریسمسی این روزا خیلی بهم چسبید (کاش تهران هم برف می بارید) که جالبه بدونید همشون یک مضمونِ مشابه دارن: از زبونِ پسربچه‌ی ۷ ساله‌ای که نزدیک ترین آدمش یه زنِ پنجاه شصت‌ساله‌س. فضای داستان‌ها و شخصیت‌ها طوری بود که همیشه گوشه‌ی ذهنم میمونن. انگار من که خاطره‌ی کودکی‌ای از کریسمس ندارم، جاش رو اینطور داستان‌ها پر میکنن تو ذهنم.

His personality absolutely comes through, he was always Truman.

This is a Christmas tale that could be read to children as well as being nostalgic and heartwarming to an adult. It also holds a bigger than average dollop of Southern character and nuance. Much more than average. It's also about a special bond between the youngest and the oldest in a household. One cemented by like more than just being the "extras".

He had a gift for placing the onus for outcomes exactly where it belonged without being nasty, snarky, over dramatic in insinuating language, or with the normal "attack" principles (such as name calling and other invective nonsense)- and most usually with a kind of "half grace" gentleness that was sometimes startling. Kind of like the "Bless Your Heart" connotation but in a much wider and deeper sense in the message.

And all of that, beyond the warmth of affection for the beloved, does come through in all of his writing- even that which was of a child nature and practical category Christmas holiday read.

It makes you almost always know that "the others" who never "get" the inclusions of the actions, not just the trite words people use to echo their own faith or conviction beliefs, are truly missing out.

My first Capote experience, and I absolutely loved it.

This edition contains 3 autobiographical short stories; A Christmas Memory, One Christmas and The Thanksgiving Visitor. It's a touching tribute to Capote's distant relative, and good friend, Miss Sook Faulk. I chose it because I've been reading about food all year, and with Christmas now approaching, it turned out to be the perfect union. If I have to re-read it every year to motivate my Christmas baking, I really wouldn't mind.

Eggbeaters whirl, spoons spin round in bowls of butter and sugar, vanilla sweetens the air, ginger spices it; melting, nose-tingling odors saturate the kitchen, suffuse the house, drift out to the world on puffs of chimney smoke.

Although Buddy is only a small child, and Miss Sook is in her 60s, they are the best of friends, housemates and daily companions. Early one November morning they detect a change in the air and declare it to be Christmas cake weather, in A Christmas Memory. This is depression-era Alabama, and they are not well-off, so gathering together the ingredients for their marathon baking session is no mean feat. One thing they don't have to buy is the pecans, with windfalls abundant.

Caarackle! A cheery crunch, scraps of miniature thunder sound as the shells collapse and the golden mound of sweet oily ivory meat mounts in the milk-glass bowl.

Working together, the pair bake 31 cakes to send off to friends and people they admire. Afterwards, I went away and made my very first Christmas pudding!

Truman Capote is so freaking talented, it's insane. In one paragraph, in a few short sentences, he's able to weave this image of his childhood so clearly, I felt like I was experiencing virtual reality, rather than reading. In the next, he introduces an older woman who exclaims, "It's fruitcake weather!" and takes the narrator on an adventure, and as a reader, I was completely hooked.

The story has an immediate hook, and it packs a powerful and emotional punch possibly stronger than any other short story I've read. Capote almost bring you to tears in just the few minutes it takes to reach the ending, yet somehow reverse that into a bitter-sweet happiness in the last few sentences. It's a reminder that whenever you're sad, maybe you should really be grateful instead, that you had such great memories and blessings in the past, instead of being bitter the present situation is different.

The ending reminded me of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in that way--what felt like an emotional masterpiece to an otherwise so, so story. I didn't really enjoy most of A Christmas Memory, to be honest. The imagery was outstanding, but it seemed to go on excessively and at a few points was downright boring. For a master of prose like Capote, who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's, I was unpleasantly surprised by the choppy, lifeless, and bland style of writing.

So it's kind of hard to say how I feel about it as a whole. I'm definitely glad I read it, but I didn't enjoy much except for the last three pages.

I was totally unaware of this book until the fine folks on Goodreads brought it to my attention. Thank you folks and Goodreads.