Christmas Day in the Morning Awakening The Joy of Christmas by Pearl S. Buck Newly Adapted by David T. Warner

 

 

Christmas Day in the Morning

Awakening The Joy of Christmas

by Pearl S. Buck

Newly Adapted by David T. Warner

Publication Date: 10/6/20

Hardcover

ISBN: 9781629727967

Retail Price: $14.99

Page Count: 48

Fiction / Holiday

Book Design: © Shadow Mountain

Art Direction: Richard Erickson

Design: Sheryl Dickert Smith

Book Synopsis:

 

The true joy of Christmas is to love and to awaken love.

 

In this adaptation of “Christmas Day in the Morning,” Rob looks back on his boyhood and remembers giving an unusual gift of self—a gift that filled him with Christmas joy. Now, fifty years later, Rob realizes he can still give a gift from his heart.

 

The original Pearl S. Buck story, published in Collier’s magazine in 1955, concludes with the older Rob writing a letter of gratitude and love to his wife. As he does, Christmas joy is awakened in him once again.

 

The final pages of this book provide a place for you to write your own letter of gratitude and love—a letter that will naturally be included when you give this book to a family member, neighbor, or friend. As you do, you may experience what Rob learned as a boy, and then again as a man: the gifts most likely to rekindle Christmas joy are not just the presents we give with our hands, but the gratitude we express from our hearts

 

My Review:  

I loved this short little Christmas Book, Christmas Day in the Morning Awakening The Joy of Christmas. Once I started reading, I was absolutely thrilled! The story told in this book is one of my favorite Christmas stories. It tells of a boy named Rob who learns the gift of giving selfless service to his father one Christmas morning. He experiences the great joy that comes from serving someone else. This particular story is so touching to me because of Rob doing something so special for his father. I loved my father dearly and wished he was still here. It's been almost ten years since his passing, and I miss him so. I think back to my own experiences of doing acts of service for my father and mother. There is no more important lesson to teach our children and grandchildren than to think of others first by doing loving acts of service and letting go of being overly concerned about ourselves.
 
I highly recommend getting this book as a gift for your children and grandchildren. Buy a copy for yourself and read it on Christmas Eve and make it a new tradition in your family. I can't wait to share this story with my family again in this new format with such lovely pictures and the addition of the song and the final pages where we as a family can write down things we are grateful for.

About the Author:

Richard Thomas, Emmy award-winning actor of stage, television, and motion pictures, first presented this story in the annual live Christmas concert of The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. As a young man, Mr. Thomas came to international acclaim portraying the eldest son in The Waltons, a television series about a large family struggling to support itself on a farm during the Great Depression.

 

The Walton family was much like the family in “Christmas Day in the Morning,” and the character played by young Mr. Thomas was not unlike the boy Rob himself. As Mr. Thomas joined the Choir and Orchestra on stage, he entered a re-created farmhouse kitchen. In that setting, his warm, familiar presence reminded many of their past family Christmases. Audience members young and old were also reminded of their own childlike desires to be good, and to find their hearts bursting with Christmas joy.

 

 

PEARL SYDENSTRICKER BUCK was born in 1892 in Hillsboro, West Virginia, to parents who were Christian missionaries. She grew up primarily in Zhenjiang, China, spending most of her life there from the time she was five months old until her early forties. She was raised speaking both English and Chinese and considered herself American by birth and ancestry but shaped by Chinese culture in how she wrote and told stories.

 

In addition to teaching university-level English literature courses, Buck was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, children’s books, and nonfiction. She published over seventy books in a career spanning four decades, and she was widely recognized as a voice bridging the East and the West. She first made her mark in the literary world with the publication of her novel The Good Earth, which was a best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.”

 

In her later years, Buck devoted much of her time to humanitarian efforts. Through her writing, she spread awareness about issues that were important to her, including racism, sexism, immigration, missionary work, war, refugees, and violence. She was known for being an advocate for women and a champion of minority rights, particularly invested in making adoption services available for Asian and mixed-race children.

 

In 1955, Buck published “Christmas Day in the Morning” in Collier’s magazine.

 

Purchase Link:

Buy your own copy of this Christmas book HERE: at AMAZON