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Book Club Girl's Holiday Open House - Susan Juby, author of Home to Woefield, on the Joy of Christmas Decorating Alone

Please welcome to Book Club Girl's Holiday Open House Susan Juby!  Susan is the author of the acclaimed YA novel, Alice, I Think, and her first adult novel, Home to Woefield, is forthcoming in March 2011.  Susan's sense of humor comes through in her post, in which she shares her tradition of Christmas decorating by herself--and her husband's tradition of steelhead fishing.  Enjoy!


At risk of sounding like an anti-social writer, I usually pick out our tree, decorate it, our house and do the Christmas baking alone.

While I do all this, my husband, James, fishes for steelhead. If you haven’t heard of them, steelhead are a form of oceangoing trout. Catching one is like winning the lottery, finding the Holy Grail and being the first stop for the dim sum cart, all rolled into one. “Steelheaders” will stand in icy rivers, surrounded by snow and hibernating bears for entire days in hopes of catching one. Steelheading is clearly the domain of the obsessive and I’ve always appreciated James leaving me out of it.

I have my own little rituals for the season. For instance, I like to listen to audio versions of incredibly violent crime novels while I put up our symbols of Christmas cheer.  It’s not decorating if there’s no body! I also approach the holidays with a certain intensity. That’s how I ended up tearing a rotator cuff in my shoulder when I attempted to cook every recipe in Bon Appétit’s holiday issue a couple of years ago.

Then, out of the blue last year, James decided things needed to change. He got it in his head that he was missing out.

“It’s weird for you to do everything by yourself,” he said. “We should decorate together. As a family.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, thinking back to the time we tried to do a minor home repair project and came close to getting a divorce because I accidentally dropped the hammer on his back.

“Of course! Crack out that Boney M Christmas album and let’s do it!”

“Well,” I said doubtfully. “First we have to get a tree.”

“Not a problem,” he said.

Moments later we were in the truck and heading for the local nursery, which has a large selection of Christmas trees.

We spent an hour and a half assessing the different varieties. 

“This one’s nice,” he said, pointing to the Noble Fir.

I shook my head and pointed out the bald spot that made it look as though a tiny logger had been practicing clear cutting on it.

“How about this Grand Fir?” he asked. “It’s very grand.”

“We’d need a semi-trailer to get it home.” The tree was at least twelve feet tall. Our decorations would only cover the bottom third. I usually chose trees that would fit comfortably in my subcompact car.

“What about the Blue Spruce? Now that’s what I call a tree!”

I  paused. Sniffed a branch. Turned over the price tag and saw that it would wipe out half of the Christmas budget.

Finally we decided on a medium sized Douglas Fir. We waited in line to pay, waited in line for the clerk to cut the trunk down to size and then struggled to get the tree into the truck.  Once home, we dragged it, like some enormous, passed out porcupine, out of the truck and up two flights of stairs and into the living room.

We battled the tree over to the designated area and narrowly avoided breaking the living room window when the tree toppled and fell on James, who was trying to maneuver the trunk into the stand. 

Panting and covered in sap and needles, we stood back to survey our purchase.

“You know,” he said after a long moment. “I thought this would be more fun.”

My heart sank. I was just getting warmed up.

“Do you want to go fishing?”

“Will you be mad?” 

“Of course not,”  I said. I didn’t mention that the latest Jack Reacher adventure was burning a hole in my iPod or that, if James left, he wouldn’t be there to catch me going to the hardware store five times in a single afternoon as I changed my mind about what color lights to use. He wouldn’t see me arrange the candles on the mantle ten times or compulsively organizing the ornaments along thematic lines (top quarter: animals, bottom of tree: things that are red!)

Instead, he would come home, tired and cold after a long day on the river, and enter a warm, Christmas-smelling house that looked like a small Vegas casino. He would compliment me on my decorating and cooking abilities, not to mention my apparent calm. I would admire his outdoorsy hardiness and all would be well.

Shared enjoyment of private obsession: it’s what's for Christmas this year!

Visit Susan's website for more details, follow her on Twitter, and for those with e-readers, click here to download an e-galley of Home to Woefield from NetGalley.

Book Club Girl's Holiday Open House - Heather Newton, author of Under the Mercy Trees, on Lessons in Table Manners and Life

Please welcome Heather Newton to Book Club Girl's Holiday Open House!  Heather's debut novel, Under the Mercy Trees, goes on sale on January 18th, and is a beautiful family story set in a small mountain town in North Carolina.  In this post, Heather shares a holiday tradition from her own childhood growing up in Raleigh and the lessons she took from it--treasuring your friends and showing them how much you value them.

Lessons in Table Manners and Life

When I was a child growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina my family had a tradition of inviting one or two friends to join us for dinner at the Plantation Inn every Christmas season.  The Plantation Inn was a fancy restaurant attached to a less fancy motel.  It had never been part of an actual plantation but it looked very Old South–all white with antebellum columns.  Inside, the carpet was lush and red and candy canes hung from the chandeliers.  A lady in an evening gown played Christmas carols on an electric organ in the corner.  To my child eyes the Plantation Inn epitomized elegance.

To understand the significance of this annual event you must know that with four children and not much discretionary income, my family almost never went out to eat.  When we did, we went to IHOP, or if Burger King had Whoppers on sale for a quarter my dad might spring for a bag.  Otherwise, we ate at home.  The local paper even did a full-page feature on my mother in which she proudly gave tips about how to feed a family of six on twenty-five dollars a week. 

My parents’ intent in starting the Plantation Inn tradition was to honor the friends we took as guests, and to teach us children how to behave in public.  Going to the Plantation Inn was a big deal.  We dressed up.  We hung our coats in a cloak closet as we entered.  The tables were set with something called “cloth napkins.” Our parents expected us to chew with our mouths closed, refrain from licking our plates and, for one sweet evening, stop hitting each other. 

Their efforts to turn us into ladies and gentlemen succeeded during the meal, but always fell apart when it was time to leave because of one thing–the mint bowl.  On a coffee table in the lobby sat an oblong silver serving dish full of butter mints.  The idea, of course, was for patrons to take one mint to cleanse their palates after dinner.  Because my mother’s food budget didn’t allow for candy at home, however, my siblings and I had no self-control whatsoever when we encountered candy elsewhere.  Every year we stuffed handfuls of mints into our mouths and our linty pockets, completely cleaning out the bowl. 

One fateful year as my dad was settling the check, another little girl was sitting on the couch in the lobby, surreptitiously raiding the mint bowl.  As we watched, she reached out and somehow hit one end of the candy dish, flipping it high in the air.  Pastel-colored mints rained down and the dish landed upside-down on the floor.  Oh, the humanity.  The hostess rushed over and swept all the mints into the trash.  My siblings and I lingered as long as we could by the cloak closet hoping the hostess would refill the bowl, but she never did.  As long as we live we will never forgive that clumsy little girl.

The guests we invited to the Plantation Inn included close family friends and people my parents wanted to know better.  A few were couples but most were single.  They were teachers, writers, a minister, a wood carver.  My favorite was a young man who had served as a missionary in Kenya.  He spoke a made-up language called “Alfalfa” (similar to Pig Latin, only funnier).  When he told a story in Alfalfa my normally reserved father laughed so hard tears spurted from his eyes.  The trait all our guests shared was that they were interesting and willing to engage with grownups and children alike.  They entertained me and they listened to me. 

In his book Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz describes the Plantation Inn as “a faux plantation motel on a busy suburban road, right across from Kmart” where a group “designed to prepare youngsters for Confederate citizenship” had decided to have its annual meeting.  For me, despite its politically incorrect name, the Plantation Inn was not a nostalgic symbol of the fallen South.  I remember how warm and cozy it always was, the savory smells that rose from silver warming dishes on the buffet line, the strong hands of the man who carved the roast beef, his uniform and chef’s hat as crisp and white as the snow we never got for Christmas in North Carolina. And I remember the lessons I learned there: Treasure your friends, old and new.  Show them you value them.  Enjoy them. 

Those with e-readers can download an e-galley from NetGalley of Heather Newton's debut novel Under the Mercy Trees, which goes on sale on January 18th.  Also make sure to check out her website and like her on Facebook.