The Christmas of ’45: A Timeless Christmas Story for the Modern World
But that reveals how deeply we long for the holiday that hearkens back to a time that’s enshrined in our hearts, to a season that’s more than Black Friday sales the day after Thanksgiving. We’re looking for a Christmas experience that will last after the decorations are taken down. That’s the feeling of The Christmas of ’45, a collector’s book by Mills Crenshaw, whose novel is now a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. By raising $23,000 by November 27, crowdfunding can make it possible for new readers to discover the true meaning of Christmas in Crenshaw’s novel.
When you think of Christmas, what comes to mind? It’s the bags of mail addressed to Santa Claus that show up in the courtroom at the end of Miracle on 34th Street. It’s George Bailey in his living room singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing after he’s learned the value of his life from a whimsical angel named Clarence. It’s the nostalgia of the heartwarming Saturday Evening Post Christmas covers that Normal Rockwell painted. It’s Ebenezer Scrooge returning from a night of ghostly visitors to realize that it’s not too late to change from his bitter existence as a penny-pinching miser to living as a generous man who keeps Christmas in his heart all year long. We rely on the words and images of Christmas celebrated in stories because it’s in fiction and art that the truth of the holiday can fully be experienced as a promise that’s kept, a mystery that’s revealed, a joy that’s shared.
That’s the feeling that Crenshaw’s Christmas classic powerfully and movingly creates through the perceptions of a five-year old child named David who, instead of being safe at home on Christmas Eve with his widowed father, has gone to find his mother who, according to the adults, has gone to live with Jesus. Crenshaw’s America after the war draws the reader into a simpler time in our history when people had gone through great hardship and suffering, and looked to the holidays for renewal of their spirits. Readers traveling along with young David as he braves a blizzard will meet the characters whose lives are changed by their interaction with an innocent boy who believes that he will be able to plead with Jesus for the return of the mother he mourns.
“This is a must-read and an ideal gift for family and friends, especially if they have children,” praises on-air host Martin Tanner of KSL Radio’s The Religion Today Show. Leonard Gundersen, President of VHR Counseling, echoes the praise but sees the book’s value to adults as well as children, as Crenshaw’s young hero takes literally the words of comfort that well-meaning adults offer without realizing how a grief-stricken child will interpret them. “When we talk with small children, they take us at our word,” Gundersen explains. “This book is . . . satisfying for adults while remaining understandable to children”
Perhaps the best endorsement of the novel comes from Mark Meservy, owner of M Creative, who recommends the book as the perfect gift for the holiday “This book is the one gift you can send family and friends with a card that reads, ‘DO open before Christmas—it will add to your enjoyment of the season!’”
About The Christmas of ‘45
Author, radio talk show host, and Kenpo expert Mills Crenshaw has made a name for himself in fields as varied as broadcasting, publishing, and martial arts, but with The Christmas of ’45 (www.christmasof45.com) he renews his ties with the fans who read his book when it was first published and wanted more. The words of his novel, set at the end of 1945, are matched to the images of a young Chilean artist whose painting style conjures the touch of the legendary Norman Rockwell, in their collaboration on a Christmas story that adults can savor and children can enjoy. Mills Crenshaw knows a lot about children; he and his wife have five, along with 25 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Mills Crenshaw
The Christmas of '45
www.christmasof45.com
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