A Christmas Memory
Encyclopedia
"A Christmas Memory" is a short story
by Truman Capote
. Originally published in Mademoiselle
magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963. It was issued in a stand-alone hardcover edition by Random House
in 1966, and it has been published in many editions and anthologies since.
The largely autobiographical story, which takes place in the 1930s, describes a period in the lives of the seven-year-old narrator and an elderly woman who is his distant cousin and best friend. The evocative narrative focuses on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season, and it also gently yet poignantly touches on loneliness and loss.
Now a holiday classic, "A Christmas Memory" has been broadcast, recorded, filmed, and staged multiple times, in award-winning productions.
The family is very poor, but Buddy looks forward to Christmas this year nevertheless, and he and his elderly cousin save their pennies for this occasion. Every year at Christmastime, Buddy and his friend collect pecan
s and buy whiskey — from a scary American Indian bootlegger named Haha Jones — and many other ingredients to make fruitcakes. They send the cakes to acquaintances they have met only once or twice, and to people they've never met at all, like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
This year, after the two have finished the elaborate four-day production of making fruitcakes, the elderly cousin decides to celebrate by finishing off the remaining whiskey in the bottle. This leads to the two of them becoming drunk, and being severely reprimanded by angry relatives.
The next day Buddy and his friend go to a faraway grove, which the elderly cousin has proclaimed the best place, by far, to chop down Christmas trees. They manage to take back a large and beautiful tree, despite the arduous trek back home.
They spend the following days making decorations for the tree and presents for the relatives, Queenie, and each other. Buddy and the older cousin keep their gifts to each other a secret, although Buddy assumes his friend has made him a kite, as she has every year. He has made her a kite, too.
Come Christmas morning, the two of them are up at the crack of dawn, anxious to open their presents.
Buddy is extremely disappointed, having received the rather dismal gifts of old hand-me-downs and a subscription to a religious magazine. His friend has gotten the somewhat better gifts of Satsuma
oranges and hand-knitted scarves. Queenie gets a bone.
Then they exchange their joyful presents to each other: the two kites. In a beautiful hidden meadow, they fly the kites that day in the clear winter sky, while eating the older cousin's Christmas oranges. The elderly cousin thinks of this as heaven, and says that God and heaven must be like this.
It is their last Christmas together. The following year, the boy is sent to military school. Although Buddy and his friend keep up a constant correspondence, this is unable to last because his elderly cousin suffers more and more the ravages of old age, and slips into dementia. Soon, she is unable to remember who Buddy is, and not long after, she passes away.
As Buddy says later: "And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing me from an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven."
by Truman Capote and Eleanor Perry
. The production starred Geraldine Page
and Donnie Melvin, and Truman Capote was the narrator. Both the teleplay
and the program's star, Geraldine Page, won Emmy Awards. The production also won the coveted Peabody Award
. This production is available on video under such titles as ABC Playhouse 67: A Christmas Memory or Truman Capote’s "A Christmas Memory". This version starring Geraldine Page was also released in cinemas by Allied Artists in 1969 as part of Truman Capote’s Trilogy.
The story was also adapted for Hallmark television in 1997. This production starred Eric Lloyd
as Buddy and Patty Duke
as Sook. Eric Lloyd was nominated for a Young Artist Award
for Best Performance in a TV Movie/Pilot/Mini-Series - Young Actor Age Ten or Under. This version was criticized as being inferior to the previous film.
The story has also been adapted as part of Short Story Anthology, a 16-part series available from Children’s Television International. “A Christmas Memory” comprises episodes 11 and 12 of the series.
series, broadcast nationally on NPR
stations, actor John Shea
recorded "A Christmas Memory" in the late 1990s. Shea's sensitive reading was anthologized and sold on cassette and CD, and the anthology, Selected Shorts: Classic Tales, Vol. XII, was the winner of AudioFile Magazines Earphones Award in 1999.
A CD of the story read by Celeste Holm
is included in Knopf/Random House's 50th Anniversary 2006 printing of the book.
Truman Capote's own reading of "A Christmas Memory" was featured on This American Life
in 2003 and is available on CD.
In 2010, Capote's "A Christmas Memory" was adapted into a full-blown musical by Broadway veterans Larry Grossman
(music) and Carol Hall
(lyrics). Duane Pool, who had written the original teleplay starring Patty Duke, wrote the musical's book. A Christmas Memory received its world premiere at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California
on December 4, 2010, starring the Broadway actress Penny Fuller
.
," which also was adapted for television. The 1967 television production of The Thanksgiving Visitor earned Geraldine Page a second Emmy Award. Capote's third short story about Buddy and Sook was "One Christmas
," published in 1983, and televised in 1994.
50th Anniversary 2006 printing which includes audio CD read by Celeste Holm
A Christmas Memory (1966) at the Internet Movie Database
A Christmas Memory (1997) at the Internet Movie Database
A Reading on Capote's "A Christmas Memory"
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
. Originally published in Mademoiselle
Mademoiselle (magazine)
Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963. It was issued in a stand-alone hardcover edition by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
in 1966, and it has been published in many editions and anthologies since.
The largely autobiographical story, which takes place in the 1930s, describes a period in the lives of the seven-year-old narrator and an elderly woman who is his distant cousin and best friend. The evocative narrative focuses on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season, and it also gently yet poignantly touches on loneliness and loss.
Now a holiday classic, "A Christmas Memory" has been broadcast, recorded, filmed, and staged multiple times, in award-winning productions.
Plot
"A Christmas Memory" is about a young boy, referred to as "Buddy," and his older cousin, who is unnamed in the story but is called Sook in later adaptations. The boy is the narrator, and his older cousin — who is eccentric and childlike — is his best friend. They live in a house with other relatives, who are authoritative and stern, and have a dog named Queenie.The family is very poor, but Buddy looks forward to Christmas this year nevertheless, and he and his elderly cousin save their pennies for this occasion. Every year at Christmastime, Buddy and his friend collect pecan
Pecan
The pecan , Carya illinoinensis, is a species of hickory, native to south-central North America, in Mexico from Coahuila south to Jalisco and Veracruz, in the United States from southern Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana east to western Kentucky, southwestern Ohio, North Carolina, South...
s and buy whiskey — from a scary American Indian bootlegger named Haha Jones — and many other ingredients to make fruitcakes. They send the cakes to acquaintances they have met only once or twice, and to people they've never met at all, like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
This year, after the two have finished the elaborate four-day production of making fruitcakes, the elderly cousin decides to celebrate by finishing off the remaining whiskey in the bottle. This leads to the two of them becoming drunk, and being severely reprimanded by angry relatives.
The next day Buddy and his friend go to a faraway grove, which the elderly cousin has proclaimed the best place, by far, to chop down Christmas trees. They manage to take back a large and beautiful tree, despite the arduous trek back home.
They spend the following days making decorations for the tree and presents for the relatives, Queenie, and each other. Buddy and the older cousin keep their gifts to each other a secret, although Buddy assumes his friend has made him a kite, as she has every year. He has made her a kite, too.
Come Christmas morning, the two of them are up at the crack of dawn, anxious to open their presents.
Buddy is extremely disappointed, having received the rather dismal gifts of old hand-me-downs and a subscription to a religious magazine. His friend has gotten the somewhat better gifts of Satsuma
Mikan
The satsuma is a seedless and easy-peeling citrus mutant of Japanese origin introduced to the West.In Japan, it is known as mikan or formally unshu mikan . In China, it is known as Wenzhou migan . The Japanese name is a result of the local reading of the same characters used in the Chinese...
oranges and hand-knitted scarves. Queenie gets a bone.
Then they exchange their joyful presents to each other: the two kites. In a beautiful hidden meadow, they fly the kites that day in the clear winter sky, while eating the older cousin's Christmas oranges. The elderly cousin thinks of this as heaven, and says that God and heaven must be like this.
It is their last Christmas together. The following year, the boy is sent to military school. Although Buddy and his friend keep up a constant correspondence, this is unable to last because his elderly cousin suffers more and more the ravages of old age, and slips into dementia. Soon, she is unable to remember who Buddy is, and not long after, she passes away.
As Buddy says later: "And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing me from an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven."
Television
"A Christmas Memory" was adapted for television for ABC Stage 67ABC Stage 67
ABC Stage 67 was the umbrella title for a series of 26 weekly shows that included dramas, variety shows, documentaries, and original musicals....
by Truman Capote and Eleanor Perry
Eleanor Perry
Eleanor Perry was an American writer known primarily for her screenplays.Born Eleanor Irene Rosenfeld in Cleveland, Ohio, she attended Western Reserve University, where she wrote for the college's literary magazine. Together with her first husband, attorney Leo G...
. The production starred Geraldine Page
Geraldine Page
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. Although she starred in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater...
and Donnie Melvin, and Truman Capote was the narrator. Both the teleplay
Teleplay
A teleplay is a television play, a comedy or drama written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a television plays from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films...
and the program's star, Geraldine Page, won Emmy Awards. The production also won the coveted Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
. This production is available on video under such titles as ABC Playhouse 67: A Christmas Memory or Truman Capote’s "A Christmas Memory". This version starring Geraldine Page was also released in cinemas by Allied Artists in 1969 as part of Truman Capote’s Trilogy.
The story was also adapted for Hallmark television in 1997. This production starred Eric Lloyd
Eric Lloyd
Eric Lloyd is an American actor. Lloyd is best known for work as a child actor between 1992 and 2003, in such roles as Charlie Calvin in The Santa Clause film trilogy, and as "Little John" Warner in the NBC television series Jesse.-Background:Lloyd was born in Glendale, California, the son of...
as Buddy and Patty Duke
Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely...
as Sook. Eric Lloyd was nominated for a Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...
for Best Performance in a TV Movie/Pilot/Mini-Series - Young Actor Age Ten or Under. This version was criticized as being inferior to the previous film.
The story has also been adapted as part of Short Story Anthology, a 16-part series available from Children’s Television International. “A Christmas Memory” comprises episodes 11 and 12 of the series.
Recordings
For the live-audience Selected ShortsSelected Shorts
Selected Shorts is an event at New York’s Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, in which actors read classic and new short fiction before a live audience. The annual season of the live events at Symphony Space begins in the mid-fall and ends in mid-spring, and a typical episode would include...
series, broadcast nationally on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
stations, actor John Shea
John Shea
John Victor Shea III is an American actor and director who has starred on stage, television and in film. He is best known for his role as Lex Luthor in the 1990s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and also starred in the short lived 1990s TV series WIOU as Hank Zaret...
recorded "A Christmas Memory" in the late 1990s. Shea's sensitive reading was anthologized and sold on cassette and CD, and the anthology, Selected Shorts: Classic Tales, Vol. XII, was the winner of AudioFile Magazines Earphones Award in 1999.
A CD of the story read by Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement , as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable and All About Eve...
is included in Knopf/Random House's 50th Anniversary 2006 printing of the book.
Truman Capote's own reading of "A Christmas Memory" was featured on This American Life
This American Life
This American Life is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is distributed by Public Radio International on PRI affiliate stations and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays,...
in 2003 and is available on CD.
Theatre
In 1991, a musical stageplay adaptation by Malcolm Ruhl and Russell Vandenbroucke, Holiday Memories, was published, which combines both "A Christmas Memory" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor."In 2010, Capote's "A Christmas Memory" was adapted into a full-blown musical by Broadway veterans Larry Grossman
Larry Grossman
Lawrence "Larry" Sheldon Grossman was a politician in Ontario, Canada.-Early years:Born in Toronto, Grossman was the son of Allan Grossman, who had represented a downtown Toronto riding in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for twenty years after defeating Ontario's last Communist Member of...
(music) and Carol Hall
Carol Hall
Carol Hall is an American composer and lyricist, born in Abilene, Texas.Hall is best known for composing the music and lyrics for the Broadway stage musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas...
(lyrics). Duane Pool, who had written the original teleplay starring Patty Duke, wrote the musical's book. A Christmas Memory received its world premiere at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
on December 4, 2010, starring the Broadway actress Penny Fuller
Penny Fuller
Penny Fuller is an American actress.Born in Durham, North Carolina, Fuller attended Northwestern University in Illinois. She then went to New York City to make a name for herself on Broadway...
.
Sequels
Truman Capote further explored the lives of Buddy and Sook in his story "The Thanksgiving VisitorThe Thanksgiving Visitor
"The Thanksgiving Visitor" is a short story by Truman Capote originally published in the November 1967 issue of McCall's magazine, and later published as a book by Random House, Inc. in 1968. The story takes the form of a childhood tale about a boy and his bully problem. The story has a strong...
," which also was adapted for television. The 1967 television production of The Thanksgiving Visitor earned Geraldine Page a second Emmy Award. Capote's third short story about Buddy and Sook was "One Christmas
One Christmas
"One Christmas" is an autobiographical short story by Truman Capote, portions of which were originally published in a 1982 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal magazine. It was shortly thereafter published in 1983 as a book by Random House, Inc. The story is an emotional childhood tale about the...
," published in 1983, and televised in 1994.
External links
- "A Christmas Memory" readable online
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...