Description: In this real-life Christmas fable, when a Dad decides to let his kids select the family Christmas tree, he gets an unexpected lesson about God's love.
In this thoroughly contemporary holiday story, a father lets his children choose the family Christmas tree. To his surprise, the kids pick one that is crooked. As he tries one thing after another to make the tree look right, he rediscovers the power of God's love. He begins to understand Christmas in a new way, particularly when his family decorates their tree and crown it with a star, never even noticing the crookedness he spent hours in the garage struggling to hide. The tender and laugh-out-loud narrative of real-life relationships propels the reader through the most un-generic Christmas story. This upbeat and comedic treasure refreshes the Christmas message of love and faith.
My Thoughts: The Crooked Christmas Tree is a nice, short little book, perfect for reading as a family around the holidays when you would like something to spark discussion. The narrative is amusing and easily followed, with thoughtful musings as to what can be taken from the simple state of the crooked tree. Chandler turns the tree into a metaphor for our own broken state before God, and its transference from the tree lot to their living room as undeserved redemption.
The story may or may not be something that most families will want to read with their younger kids. While the majority of the chapters deal with the author's personal thought process regarding the tree his children picked out, there is a chapter where the tree reminded him about an encounter with a woman outside a strip club. Yet this portion of the book can easily be skipped over for younger listeners if so desired.
Reading it on my own, I found the author's voice to be amusing; full of tongue in cheek observations and woe-is-me descriptions. There were at times some turns of phrase that I did not really understand or some points of humor where did not follow, however most of these involved scenarios that I have no past experience with. My family has always put up a fake tree without any real determination to develop traditions, so I am not well acquainted with that struggle.
I have provided an honest review for this book after having received a copy of the book from the publisher.
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