![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Growing up without Christmas, I had all these wonderful notions about the holidays. I held off reading the 13 th Gift until the day of the Book Club meeting and yes, I cried through it, but there in those pages, side-by-side with that grieving family, a Christmas spark kindled in me. Until reading the book, I have not had the Christmas spirit. She told me that as long as I refused to return to their religion, she and I could not have any kind relationship. Her reply hurt more than my father dying. I told her I’d like to come in the hopes of having a relationship with her again. My mother told me I could come, but advised against it. He was a Jehovah’s Witness and as I write this, his memorial, at a JW assembly hall in California (because no Kingdom Hall would have enough space to hold all those who mourn my dad) is tomorrow. This is my second Christmas without my husband of 25 years and my estranged father just died. Although, it’s a story of a family struggling to survive horrible heartache, it is also a tale of healing through the help of 12 anonymous gifts, one for each day of the 12 days of Christmas. The book is a true story about a family of five that became four with the death of the father two months before Christmas. The 13 th Gift was a hard and emotional read for me. I usually review the Book Club discussion impersonally as my predecessor did, but this time, I was a big part of the discussion. 2, the Long Branch Book Club met to discuss The 13th Gift: A True Story of a Christmas Miracle by Joanne Huist Smith. ![]()
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