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The Smallest Christmas Tree
Papa says “No Christmas tree this year,” because the family is going to be away from home visiting grandparents.
Mama is frazzled because the family has just moved into a new house in a foreign country and she needs to find the dishes,
not the Christmas ornaments.
But ten-year-old Jack and four-year-old Maria know what is truly important about celebrating Christmas and get some help
from a tree with a mind of its own.
Mama is frazzled because the family has just moved into a new house in a foreign country and she needs to find the dishes,
not the Christmas ornaments.
But ten-year-old Jack and four-year-old Maria know what is truly important about celebrating Christmas and get some help
from a tree with a mind of its own.
40 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2013
324 people want to read
About the author
Linda Cardillo
29 books45 followersLINDA CARDILLO is an award-winning author of historical fiction and historical romance. She writes about the old country and the new, the tangle and embrace of family, and finding courage in the midst of loss.
From the time she was in high school, Linda held in her heart the dream of writing the Great American Novel. But she was also brought up to know that she had to be “practical” and make a living. After graduating from college, she found a job as a secretary at a venerable Boston publishing house (barely passing the typing test). Within a year she had moved into an editorial position for college textbooks in the sciences and social sciences. It still wasn’t the Great American Novel, but she got to immerse herself in American intellectual and social history.
After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School—where she wrote comedy for the annual student musical and performed in a platinum blonde wig while seven months pregnant—she got divorced and gave birth. She then became circulation manager for the launch of Inc. magazine and got a crash course in magazine marketing. Unfortunately, she also crashed head-on into her boss and got fired a year after the magazine’s successful start.
Around this time she got an invitation to her tenth college reunion, signed up to attend and fell in love with a man she hadn’t seen since freshman year. On an excursion to a zoo, her son got carsick and threw up. This wonderful man calmly got him out of the car, cleaned him up and took him for a walk in the fresh air, and she knew she had a keeper.
Linda and the keeper moved to Germany for a few years with their children. While living in Europe, she received an unexpected gift of love letters that became the seeds for her first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons.
Linda has been married for over forty years to the keeper, a brilliant scientist and sailor, and is the mother of three children of whom she is enormously proud. She loves to cook and is happiest when the twelve chairs around her dining room table are filled with people enjoying her food. She speaks four languages, some better than others. She tries to play the piano every night—sometimes by herself and sometimes in an improvisational duet with her younger son. She does The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink, a practice she learned from her mother. From her mother she also absorbed a love of opera, especially those of Puccini and Verdi, whose music filled her home when she was a child. She once climbed Mt. Kenya and has very curly hair. Linda and the keeper live in Western Massachusetts.
From the time she was in high school, Linda held in her heart the dream of writing the Great American Novel. But she was also brought up to know that she had to be “practical” and make a living. After graduating from college, she found a job as a secretary at a venerable Boston publishing house (barely passing the typing test). Within a year she had moved into an editorial position for college textbooks in the sciences and social sciences. It still wasn’t the Great American Novel, but she got to immerse herself in American intellectual and social history.
After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School—where she wrote comedy for the annual student musical and performed in a platinum blonde wig while seven months pregnant—she got divorced and gave birth. She then became circulation manager for the launch of Inc. magazine and got a crash course in magazine marketing. Unfortunately, she also crashed head-on into her boss and got fired a year after the magazine’s successful start.
Around this time she got an invitation to her tenth college reunion, signed up to attend and fell in love with a man she hadn’t seen since freshman year. On an excursion to a zoo, her son got carsick and threw up. This wonderful man calmly got him out of the car, cleaned him up and took him for a walk in the fresh air, and she knew she had a keeper.
Linda and the keeper moved to Germany for a few years with their children. While living in Europe, she received an unexpected gift of love letters that became the seeds for her first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons.
Linda has been married for over forty years to the keeper, a brilliant scientist and sailor, and is the mother of three children of whom she is enormously proud. She loves to cook and is happiest when the twelve chairs around her dining room table are filled with people enjoying her food. She speaks four languages, some better than others. She tries to play the piano every night—sometimes by herself and sometimes in an improvisational duet with her younger son. She does The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink, a practice she learned from her mother. From her mother she also absorbed a love of opera, especially those of Puccini and Verdi, whose music filled her home when she was a child. She once climbed Mt. Kenya and has very curly hair. Linda and the keeper live in Western Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 19, 2022
I had to give it five stars! Not only did it make me smile several times, but it brought back some happy memories. My family lived in Eltville am Rhein, and I met the "characters" in this little book.
My daughter and the author's daughter both attended the same Kindergarten in Eltville. My ex was an Air Force officer and assigned to a small duty station in Wiesbaden. As the two girls were the only American girls at the Kindergarten, they were placed in the same room. And both girls acquired a new sibling in Germany as well! My family acquired a second daughter, while the author's family received a second son.
The three years outside of Wiesbaden was a magical time, and the story with the delightful illustrations captures the magic of a Christmas in the Rheingau!
My daughter and the author's daughter both attended the same Kindergarten in Eltville. My ex was an Air Force officer and assigned to a small duty station in Wiesbaden. As the two girls were the only American girls at the Kindergarten, they were placed in the same room. And both girls acquired a new sibling in Germany as well! My family acquired a second daughter, while the author's family received a second son.
The three years outside of Wiesbaden was a magical time, and the story with the delightful illustrations captures the magic of a Christmas in the Rheingau!
December 29, 2013
In compliance with FTC guidelines, I received The Smallest Christmas Tree for free through Goodreads First Reads.
It was a cute short story about a family who moves to Germany. The family is planning to come back to the States for Christmas for a month and so the parents decide not to have a Christmas tree for the year, much to the disappointment of their two children. As fate would have it, a tree finds them and they end up having a tree after all.
It was a cute short story about a family who moves to Germany. The family is planning to come back to the States for Christmas for a month and so the parents decide not to have a Christmas tree for the year, much to the disappointment of their two children. As fate would have it, a tree finds them and they end up having a tree after all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews