Alfred A. Knopf, 1998
Spanish Edition, Vintage, 1999
Illustrations by José Ortega
From the Introduction:
. . . Christmas, we discovered, touches off a full range of feelings. That most highly anticipated of holidays, when families are expected to convene in an atmosphere of great abundance, perfect love, and unmitigated joy, can also be a setup for disappointment, a ripe atmosphere for drama.All the elements that make up a child's world become magnified by the exigencies of Christmas.
For a poor child there is no ecstatic Christmas morning, no tearing through a staggering pile of gifts. For a child newly arrived in the States, colliding with a strange culture is never more bewildering than in fhat first confrontation with the excesses of an American Christmas. And even in the best of circumstances, family reunions are rarely conflict-free. There may be a tío who drinks too much rum, a crazy aunt, an estranged father, obnoxious cousins. And Christmas can be a time of bitter revelation, when adults become too distracted to maintain the facade they normally use to shield a child from grown-up reality.
