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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Book Review - The Christmas Catalog - Cliff Hicks

The Christmas Catalog

Title:   The Christmas Catalog

Author:   Cliff Hicks

Review:  This is a cute Christmas story that takes place in a much simpler time. A time when children look forward more than anything, to a catalog that comes in the mail. It is written as a first person remembrance of a Christmas when Hicks was a child. Christmas is almost thwarted though, when they find that the mailman is unable to come to their home on Christmas Eve. They may not get those catalog items after all.

My children loved this book and had me read it to them again once I had finished. I liked the way Hicks writes. There is a reason he is a master storyteller. My children couldn’t believe that people actually had to wait for a mail catalog as well as the mailman to receive their Christmas gifts. They learned a lot about “how things used to be.”  We also liked that they ate and wrapped SPAM for Christmas as well. It is a fun story.

Gotta love that SPAM - Thanks Heather for this review.

Publisher: Published February 10th 2012 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781466493599
Copyright: 2012
Pages:  48
Quick Review:  4 out of 5 stars
Why I Read It:   Sent for review      
Where I Obtained the Book:  Sent by publisher

Synopsis: 2012 Indie Excellence Finalist in the Holiday Division.

This beautiful story of a nostalgic look back when the "Wish Book" Sears catalog was the only way children would get their Christmas wishes.

The specialized Sears Christmas Catalog, nicknamed the Wishbook - began in the mid 1930's. It became a holiday staple in virtually every American home.

Not realized at the time, the Sears catalogs were recording the changing scene in America and represented the daily lives and work of thousands of Americans.

Author Biography: We lived in a valley called Eagle Creek, which is on the eastern side of Arizona between the Apache Indian reservation and the New Mexico State line. The mail came once a week.

We had no electricity, no indoor bathroom and the water was pumped into the house by a windmill. I lived there with my Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Grandmother and my Uncle that lived out in the bunkhouse.

A catalog was something that we always welcomed into the home. There were feed catalogs, seed catalogs, clothes catalogs and dry goods catalogs.

We enjoyed every one of them. They seem to take us on a journey that we would have never went on unless the catalog arrived.

We ordered mostly out of two catalogs, the Sears, and the Wards catalogs. We ordered our dry goods out of these two catalogs.

When Christmas came around, we didn’t have any malls to browse through but we had something that was better. There was one special catalog that us children loved to see arrive.

As a matter of fact the person that took it out of the mailbox was almost a hero for an hour or so. It arrived around the middle of October; it was the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog.


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