Skipping Christmas

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-12

Chapters 13-20

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Meaningful Connections and Materialism

One of Luther’s main objections to Christmas is that materialism has superseded meaningful connections in celebration of the holiday. Luther resents the way the birth of Christ has been subsumed in the frenzy of mindless spending and extravagance. John Grisham shows that Luther has a legitimate point—his community is rampant with silliness surrounding the holiday. However, Luther fails to recognize the meaningful connections that underlie his neighbors’ demands for conformity.

Luther grumbles about inconveniences like putting up Frosty and decorating the Christmas tree, but underneath every Scrooge or Grinch resides an idealist. Luther doesn’t hate the holiday; he hates all the stress and weariness that has been attached to it, and the way these things have superseded the holiday’s meaning. With Blair’s absence, the last vestige of meaning is gone for him. As an accountant, Luther’s tendency toward binary thinking makes the idea of simply “subtracting” the whole holiday seem the most reasonable solution to the problem.

Luther’s commentary on the holiday is similar to the justifiable observations of Ebenezer Scrooge in the beginning of A Christmas Carol. Every year, the Kranks hemorrhage money through the holidays, and it leaves them with nothing of value. It doesn’t even give them the satisfaction of warmth or community. Their Christmas Eve party was once a quiet gathering of a dozen close friends. It was fun. Now it leaves them exhausted and cranky rather than fulfilled. Even Frosty was fun, back before he became the center of a pressure-filled contest.

Luther sometimes looks back nostalgically to former years, especially when Blair was young. Those memories give him pleasure. When he looks around, he sees that the past is gone, but rather than analyzing what made those holidays satisfying, he reminds himself that he lives in the present, not the past. In the present, Christmas is an irritating, exhausting mess.

Blair’s departure and return are the catalysts for her parents’ reorientation. In the past, she was the one who gave the holiday meaning for them and made all the stress and spending seem worthwhile. When she leaves, she takes that meaning with her, leaving only the stress and consumption. Without her, Luther and Nora are inspired to reject the materialistic holiday. When Nora starts to waver under pressure from the neighbors and her friends, Blair’s timely letter criticizing “the mindless materialism of our culture” gives Nora strength and reminds her what really matters (53). Once Nora and Luther have divested themselves completely of the holiday, Blair makes a surprise return, forcing them to renege on their resolution. However, as they discover, they don’t have to skip Christmas completely to reject the holiday’s materialism, consumerism, and other meaningless trappings. Instead, they discover that with family, friendship, and community, a perfect Christmas can be thrown together in a few hours. Furthermore, Luther’s rebellion restores his neighbors’ sense of perspective. When they hear about Blair’s return, their love for her reminds them that the point is not to win Christmas but to celebrate it with each other.

Life’s Changes and Transitions

The Krank family is at a crossroads at the beginning of Skipping Christmas. Both Blair and her parents are entering a new stage of life. Blair is leaving home for what appears to be the first time to find her own identity, away from her parents, and Luther and Nora are struggling to cope as empty nesters. Blair’s departure inspires her parents make a dramatic change in their own lives and skip Christmas. Both Nora and Luther feel that the holiday won’t be the same without Blair. Luther uses her absence to cancel the holiday and do something for himself and his wife for a change.

Nora has been absorbed for years in her role as a mother not just to Blair but to other people through her charity work. At Christmas, she cares for others by planning parties, sending cards, making lists, and bullying Luther into participation. She feels a sense of duty to others, and her friends have come to count on her to entertain them on Christmas Eve—like children, they complain when she tells them they must entertain themselves this year. The neighbors are even more importunate, teasing and pressuring the Kranks to participate when they have made it clear they don’t want to. Nora’s growing resentment of the pressure frees her from the weight of her mothering role. When Blair returns, Nora’s community pitches in to support her for a change. By rejecting the maternal role that no longer fits her, Nora makes room for other people to be grown-ups.

Luther, meanwhile, is trying to change his relationship with his wife. Their relationship has lost its intimacy. He and Nora have fallen into a rut in which she makes demands on him and he acquiesces, as he does in the scene in which she asks him to go out in the rain to get her items from the market. Nora also pressures him into helping with Christmas tasks that he doesn’t like. However, there are positives in their routine as well. Luther is not verbally expressive, but he shows his love through simple gestures like bringing Nora coffee every morning.

The cruise is a grand romantic gesture, if also a bit selfish. Luther dreams of escaping a difficult and meaningless holiday season without his daughter, so he chooses a romantic getaway in which he and Nora can be alone together and experience new things. Although Luther plays the role of grumpy anti-hero in the story, he is, in his way, trying to find love and meaning.

While her parents renegotiate their marriage, Blair has been going through a coming of age from child to adult. At the age of 23, she is overdue to make the leap of understanding into the adult world. Blair is described in the beginning of the story as sheltered. Nora’s clinginess in particular points to an over-protectiveness that has prevented Blair from growing up. This is Blair’s first time being so far away from home for so long, especially over the important family celebration of Christmas. Her decision to leave at such an important time represents her need to divorce herself from her family for a time to discover herself.

During the first month she is away, Blair takes on new responsibilities, teaching children how to read for the Peace Corps and committing herself to a serious romantic relationship. The novel ends with Blair engaged to Enrique and poised on yet another major life transition.

Community Versus Individuality

As community pressure mounts against Luther, he wonders why it is so hard to be independent and do something just for himself for once. He has every right to skip Christmas if he wants to, yet his neighbors behave as if they are entitled to demand conformity from him. Both Luther and his neighbors have valid points. Luther’s strongest motivation in skipping Christmas is his resentment of the holiday’s burdens and excesses. On the other hand, his neighbors believe he has an obligation to his community and rightly point out that Luther could make some concessions for their sake without really compromising his principles. He could put up Frosty, for example, as a small gesture of goodwill, or better yet, let them do it for him. However, Luther is adamant that he wants nothing to do with the holiday, and his assertion of his individuality puts him into conflict with his community.

Grisham makes the point that Luther isn’t behaving altogether unreasonably. Unlike the Grinch, he doesn’t try to “steal” Christmas from anyone else. Nor does he say “Bah humbug” at happy people, as Scrooge does. He doesn’t burden anyone else with his philosophy. In his memo to the office, he emphasizes that other people can still celebrate the holiday in his presence and that his choice to not participate shouldn’t interfere with their enjoyment. Some people outside Hemlock Street even admire Nora and Luther for their nonconformity.

Grisham uses satire and hyperbole in his depiction of the nosy, over-involved residents of Hemlock Street. The neighborhood’s reaction to Luther’s bid for independence is both ridiculous and extreme. They spy on him, tease him, and play practical jokes on him, like mailing blank Christmas cards with pictures of Frosty, or sending carolers to sing “Frosty the Snowman” on the Kranks’ lawn. The teasing is mostly good-natured, but it is still intrusive and unreasonable. Their incomprehension of the Kranks’ plan is also extreme, with Spike Frohmeyer saying, “I didn’t know you could do that” (47), and Nora’s friends asking, “How do you simply not do Christmas?” (34). Other acquaintances entirely miss the point of skipping Christmas, accusing the Kranks of being cheap and just trying to save money. Their decision is considered so bizarre that it warrants stories in the newspaper. Grisham’s satirical, over-the-top treatment of such reactions throws the reasonableness of the Kranks’ feelings into sharp relief. It also illustrates an important point about community and conformity. The Kranks’ neighbors’ behavior may be over-the-top, but it points to a very real anxiety. The Kranks, in choosing not to conform to community customs and traditions, pose a threat to social cohesion, which relies on such customs and traditions.

Eventually, Luther and Nora find a balance between individuality and community. As friends point out to them, since they are leaving on Christmas day, they could still participate in some parts of the holiday. Allowing neighbors to put up Frosty, for example, would cost them nothing and give pleasure to the community. The neighborhood Christmas parade is a celebration of community and friendship and once again costs nothing to enjoy. The Christmas Eve party doesn’t have to be a frenzy of cooking and decorating and exhaustion. By the end of the story, Luther has realized that he didn’t have to reject his entire community in order to be his own man.