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Christmas Gift!
In this timeless, touching holiday memoir drawing on his own experiences as a child of the Depression, master storyteller Ferrol Sams rekindles the sentiment and spirit of the Christmas season in a book that will capture the hearts of generations to come.
112 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
July 26, 2012
I gave this book to my father years ago when I first read it. It crosses and unites generations. I try to read it every Christmas even though the last few years ( and especially this year) it brings me to tears missing my family that have passed on. Having lost Mom to cancer this past January, I know it will really be bittersweet next Christmas when I unpack it.
December 18, 2023
What a wonderful trip back to days gone by! Heartwarming and very humorous!
December 15, 2008
This is a sweet sentimental little book. It's set in rural GA during the depression and recalls the Christmas traditions of the writer's family. Definitely some racist content, the edition I have was published in the late 1980s, and it surprised me.
February 27, 2019
Pretty boring.
November 13, 2025
(Oddly, I can't find my exact edition which is a hardcover that looks like the paperbacks shown with a picture of a sleigh led by horses.)
Another book in my goal to read a selection of different types of Christmas books for a book club meeting this December. This was a disappointment, and I've found it hard not to just skim the remainder of the book.
It started out well. A gently humorous but also loving take of a large extended family's Christmas traditions in a rural setting during the Great Depression era. It's making the most of what you have which is not nothing in this case--I'm surprised in fact by what the family members can buy for each other, so this is not those who are hanging on for dear life.
The back cover of the book I have says "destined to become a traditional read-aloud book." Well, if you include the racist commentary about their "help" and about what they call certain kinds of nuts. The fact that the references were so nonchalant and that it was not culled from the book when it was edited for publication in 1989 (!) is astounding and saddening. The undercurrent of acceptance of racism and its effects at this time in our country when those fires continued to be stoked turned a sweet remembrance into a resurgence of wonder at how our country's racist past, like an underground river, continues to flow into our present. If this was to note the reality at the time and to offer a thoughtful reflection on how those kinds ideas then were taken for granted, that would be one thing. This, however, was a man and publishing company in 1989 writing as though it was perfectly acceptable to use the same racist references knowingly and with humorous intent.
Perhaps it was those references that soured the latter fifth or so of the book, or perhaps all the author could say that seemed new and fresh had been said, and editing for length as well as racial insults would have been a good thing. In either case, I was turned off of this and would not encourage any traditional reading, aloud or otherwise.
Another book in my goal to read a selection of different types of Christmas books for a book club meeting this December. This was a disappointment, and I've found it hard not to just skim the remainder of the book.
It started out well. A gently humorous but also loving take of a large extended family's Christmas traditions in a rural setting during the Great Depression era. It's making the most of what you have which is not nothing in this case--I'm surprised in fact by what the family members can buy for each other, so this is not those who are hanging on for dear life.
The back cover of the book I have says "destined to become a traditional read-aloud book." Well, if you include the racist commentary about their "help" and about what they call certain kinds of nuts. The fact that the references were so nonchalant and that it was not culled from the book when it was edited for publication in 1989 (!) is astounding and saddening. The undercurrent of acceptance of racism and its effects at this time in our country when those fires continued to be stoked turned a sweet remembrance into a resurgence of wonder at how our country's racist past, like an underground river, continues to flow into our present. If this was to note the reality at the time and to offer a thoughtful reflection on how those kinds ideas then were taken for granted, that would be one thing. This, however, was a man and publishing company in 1989 writing as though it was perfectly acceptable to use the same racist references knowingly and with humorous intent.
Perhaps it was those references that soured the latter fifth or so of the book, or perhaps all the author could say that seemed new and fresh had been said, and editing for length as well as racial insults would have been a good thing. In either case, I was turned off of this and would not encourage any traditional reading, aloud or otherwise.
January 4, 2024
Ferrol Sams's little Christmas Gift! is my favorite Christmas book because the family traditions and the sentiments he shares as he looks back on his childhood Christmases with extended family in Georgia remind me so much of my own Appalachian (but really Southern) family traditions, when the extended family all spent Christmas at my grandparents' farm and each wife and mother shared in the meal, kitchen, and child-minding responsibilities, alongside the husbands and fathers who maintained their own traditions. I read this book nearly every year because Christmas Gift! is a love note to the way things used to be that leaves even millennials with a hint of why those things are worth memorializing and preserving. Even now.
December 27, 2020
A lovely tale of Christmas long ago. Set in rural Georgia, the author shares the Christmases he experienced as a child during the 1920's and 1930's. His is a large family that gathers together at the family farm each year to prepare for and enjoy the holidays. Part of their joy is the family tradition of shouting "Christmas Gift!" instead of Merry Christmas on Christmas day. One wants to be the first to say to another.
Christmas is a gift. It is the gift of the Christ child, come to save the world. It is the giving and receiving of gifts, the gift of love, the gift of children and their delight.
Christmas is a gift. It is the gift of the Christ child, come to save the world. It is the giving and receiving of gifts, the gift of love, the gift of children and their delight.
December 9, 2019
True account of Christmas memories in Southern Georgia mostly during the Depression and as usual when I read these things, it makes me miss my memories and it always makes me think the old times were better. In some ways they were so, I always end up with tears in my eyes.
I enjoyed much of this book, learned a few things, laughed out loud in parts, but I thought the writing was a little slow in places mainly because he did use some words I was not aware of and I got a little lost in who the characters were.
Overall it was a good read .
I enjoyed much of this book, learned a few things, laughed out loud in parts, but I thought the writing was a little slow in places mainly because he did use some words I was not aware of and I got a little lost in who the characters were.
Overall it was a good read .
December 17, 2019
Had never heard of the game Christmas Gift -till I read this book..this book was a lovely telling of a Christmas of by-gone days..even had fireworks for the kids in their stockings...I really enjoyed it..& the ending❤️🎄
October 9, 2017
Nostalgic look at Christmas....
January 1, 2019
Very sweet stories of Christmas childhood memories in rural Georgia during the Depression.
December 16, 2020
Neighborhood book club selection for December.
April 16, 2023
Another book to add to my pile to be read every Christmas.
December 23, 2023
Enjoyed the storytelling and some of the charming aspects of this family’s Xmas traditions. Didn’t love the racism involved.
November 19, 2024
I loved most of this book. A caveat: there are outdated terms and ideas referring to servitude and ethnicity.
December 9, 2024
Such a sweet, charming reminder of what times were like back in the olden days, especially in the South. Love it!
December 19, 2024
A short book of Christmas memories from the author’s past. I enjoyed the family connections, but was disconcerted by some of the racist references in it.
December 28, 2024
Nice Christmas Story, very nostalgic
April 24, 2010
I've re-read this book several times. I bought it on my first ever trip to Davis-Kidd bookstore in 1991. We had moved to Nashville earlier that year. Sams is from Fayette County close to my hometown of LaGrange, GA. The greeting "Christmas Gift!" was what my mother and her family all did each year. They loved to "get it" on each other. My sisters and I would also say "Christmas Gift!" because it reminded us of our mother who died in 1981. I stood in the bookstore and read most of the book. So many of the stories reminded me of some of my family traditions. I then proceeded to buy a book for all my siblings (and the oldest child of the two who had passed fairly recently) and mail them a copy for Christmas -- at that time there were only five still living. We were scattered -- living in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, California. This is a nostalgic gift book.
January 28, 2010
Christmas Gift! by Ferrol Sams (Delta 1989)(Fiction). One of the all-time best Southern storytellers regales us with a slim volume of Christmas memories. The title refers to the Southern tradition of greeting friends and family on Christmas Eve with the salutation "Christmas Gift!" Whoever says it first is entitled to receive a gift from the other! My rating: 8/10, finished 1992.
April 27, 2010
I requested this book from an Australian bookmoocher. It is a slim volume of reminiscences of childhood Christmases, not sugary and sentimental, but the final section, which brings it up-to-date is touching and shows Sams at his best. One for son and daughter-in-law in Georgia to read before their second GA christmas!
August 19, 2008
Recommended to me by a friend, I loved this book. I could not put it down and read the entire 90-or-so pages in 2 days. This book is a wonderful reminder of what Christmas is all about. Since reading this book, I am hooked on books by Ferrol Sams. I think he is an amazing author.
December 6, 2016
My mother and her 4 sisters used the term "Christmas Gift" in same manner as depicted in the book, and now my sister and cousins do so in memory of our moms. A sweet tradition from hard times long ago. This book makes me nostalgic.
November 19, 2017
I have always loved every word that Ferrol Sams ever wrote, and this is no exception. He will make you laugh, he will make your heart sing, he will remind you of what's important in life. Always worth the time. Add this to your Christmas-time repertoire. You won't be disappointed.
January 15, 2008
A special surprise and an easy quick read ---
just be sure you read his trilogy first
just be sure you read his trilogy first
December 30, 2011
I had some issues with this book -- mostly to do with its age -- but if I ignore those it's pretty adorable.
December 16, 2012
Excellent Christmas read.
December 22, 2012
Sams is such a good writer that you feel like you're sitting at the table while he's relating his childhood Christmas memories. So much fun and, of course, funny!
December 31, 2019
Great, great, great book about Christmas in the South during Sams' childhood (the Depression years). This is a wonderful history.
June 20, 2012
i read this every Christmas.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews