Author: Jennifer Scott
Published: October 2015, NAL
Format: Paperback, 384 pages
The national bestselling author of The Sister Season shares a new novel about a woman who discovers the spirit of the season is truly in the giving....
With the holidays around the corner, empty-nester Bren Epperson realizes that for the first time in decades, she has no large family to cook for, no celebration to create. So she starts teaching a holiday cooking class, and it’s a hit—until Virginia Mash, the old lady upstairs, bursts in complaining. Rather than retaliate, Bren suggests that the class shower Virginia with kindness—and give her one hundred gifts. So they embark on the plan to lift a heart. Along the way, amidst the knitting and the making and the baking, they’ll discover the best gifts can’t be bought and family celebrations can be reborn.
MERRY STRESS-MAS!
Its no surprise around here that THE HUNDRED GIFTS is the second holiday-centered novel Ive written. I love the holidays. I love the decorations and the music and the food. I love the meaning behind it all, the hope for peace on earth, the silent nights. The gift wrap and the cheerful cards. I even love the snow (if were lucky enough) and the shopping (and I am so not a shopper!).
But its not lost on me that the holidays are also filled to the brim with pressure. And stress. And stressful pressure. And pressurey stress.
After all, we have to make it perfect. Make everyone happy.
Theres the pressure to prepare everyones favorites - this kids favorite cookies, and that aunts favorite side dish, and it just wouldnt be the holidays without your super secret recipe (that you wish youd never made in the first place because its so darned complicated and you will nevre get out of making it again for as long as you live).
Theres pressure to buy the perfect gifts, which just seem to get more and more expensive every year. And isnt there always that one person on your list who just has it all already? And another one who truly wants nothing. And another who is so pickly you know youll never get it right anyway. And, of course, that gift that you can find nowhere (its always the one your kid wants more than anything in the world) (Oh yes, Im looking at you, Tickle Me Elmo).
Theres the stress of going to all the concerts and pageants and shows. Trekking through the cold and maybe even the snow, then melting in a crowded, overheated auditorium while you listen to another kindergarten rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and pretend that you didnt just see that one kid wipe his nose with the same hand hes now holding your childs hand with.
And there are the million tiny pressures that are unique to you. Relatives who dont get along, little dramas, big dramas, the friend who unexpectly gifts you on Christmas Eve and you have nothing to gift back...
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