Customer Reviews

Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present (Library Edition)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the story of a writer for the Washington Post, Hank Stuever, who takes a leave of 14 months to do an in depth story of how Christmas is celebrated in one fast growing Dallas suburb called Frisco, Texas. . The story takes place primarily in 2006 but also includes glimpses into the following years up to the beginning of 2009. He focuses mainly on three families, striving to create the perfect Christmas. At first they all seemed like over-the-top eccentrics and I did some of eye rolling while reading about some of their actions which seemed a little crazy to me. One lives in a McMansion and has a Christmas decorating business in her high end neighborhood and those nearby that promises to bring a "phenomenal" Christmas to her clients, even if they don't have the time to decorate themselves. Another is a single mom with 3 kids who has worked to pay off her home who stands in lines before sunrise on "Black Friday" at Best Buy with her kids and is very involved in the local mega-church and all it's goings on. The third are the inhabitants of a more modest home which have the huge Christmas light display coordinated with music that has people backed up for blocks in their cars to drive by for the yearly viewing ritual.

I thought this was going to be strictly a lighthearted look at some of the outrageous lengths many of us go to in order to have a happy holiday and recapture the feelings of Christmases past, which somehow are always magnified in our memories. While there were some moments that had me laughing out loud, much of it had me thinking deeply about what it is to search for that perfect holiday and why we do it. I found myself beginning to understand what these people were trying to find and I ended up feeling like I had actually been invited into their homes and was able to see things through their eyes. Stuever has a way of introducing you and then drawing you into the lives of the people he writes about as he became closer and more involved with the families. While their holiday is quite a bit different than what I experience here, in California, I found myself looking up the light displays for Frisco on youtube and looking up the mega church site to see actual photos and videos of things Stuever writes about both in the past and present. (There are some great videos of these light and music productions of the characters on youtube!) It's not often that a book draws me in to that extent.

I expected this to just be an interesting, funny, social commentary. It was all of that, but also some sad and introspective parts. It caused me do some serious thinking and wondering about why we do the things we do in our pursuit of happiness, be it the holidays or other times of the year. I felt a closeness to the families he writes about and found myself liking them. Although he goes back and writes a little about what happens in the following two seasons I hope that he'll write another book and let us know how their lives are changing in the coming years.

This is the first book I've read by this author, but I love his writing style. I just did a search and found that he's written another book, Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere which I immediately ordered, barely reading the description, just based on how much I enjoyed this one. This book, Tinsel, will go on my list of gift ideas for the holidays this year. Two thumbs up for a book that kept me up til the wee hours reading!

While not a page-turner in the traditional sense, TINSEL is a book unlike anything I have ever read. Not hilariously funny or overly melodramatic, it is a simple yet in-depth look at modern day Christmas. While focusing on three main families who each celebrate Christmas in a unique way, the fourth, and probably most riveting character, is the town of Frisco, Texas. Author Stuever gives a solid background of the town's development, boom, and eventual decline while encompassing the Christmas Seasons of 2006-2008. There is nothing in this book that is particularly earth-shattering or new to the reader, yet one finds it hard not to get caught up in the trappings of this town and its inhabitants. It's almost like a reality show in book form. Once one starts reading it is really hard to stop, like it or not.

In the end I decided I really enjoyed TINSEL, and I also appreciated the author's straightforward approach in his storytelling. I kind of feel like visiting Frisco, Texas this December just so I can meet some of the people from the book. Stuever is excellent at describing the personalities and idiosyncrasies of each family member. One of my favorites was Marissa, a precocious and somewhat unappealing attention-seeking tween, who reminded me of a cross between JonBenet Ramsey and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

You'll just have to check this book out for yourself because it is truly one of a kind and, clearly, hard for me to describe. Unwrap TINSEL this holiday season.

Overly snarky and condescending. The summary made it sound like a collection of colorful and humorous stories about a few eccentric Christmas-philes. Instead, I read 300 pages of snobby, subtle insults to the very people who welcome the author into their lives. It was occasionally entertaining but I was left with a sincere dislike for the author, who must be incredibly depressed this time of year. Even his coverage of the charitable side of Christmas came off as condescending. In all, a rather bleak and morbid view of Christmas.

I loved this book. I've read a bit about the history of Christmas, so when I saw that someone was taking an in-depth look at how Christmas is celebrated today it seemed like a natural complement. The author takes us inside the holiday traditions of Frisco, Texas, a fast-growing and wealthy suburb finding its way in the land of the Big Box Store. He follows the lives of some of its citizens, but doesn't stop there, as he gives us an analysis of the area and national trends. The people he tracks could have been presented as caricatures (the guy with the giant light display, for example), but they become fully human in the telling. I found the look into the area's Angel Tree program surprising and the insights it gives as to the reasons people donate intriguing. The tanking economy lends drama to the story as residents of the wealthy neighborhood with its giant houses. Reading it was a little bit like listening to an episode of This American Life on public radio, but more complex. The book is well written and compelling. I found myself caring what happened to these people. My only regret is that we won't have any more updates.

I think this book was just terrific! Hank Stuever is a journalist for the Washington Post who takes 14 months off from the newspaper to immerse himself in the culture of Frisco, Texas and pays particular attention to the way Christmas is celebrated there. He follows the lives of three families in the area and how they deal with all the Christmas "stuff". A single mom with three kids, a childless couple, and a typical suburban family with mom, dad and two kids have their lives laid open for us as we get to see how they go about "doing" Christmas.

This book appealed to me on my fronts. First of all, the town I live in is similar to Frisco - a fairly affluent suburb of a major city which is struggling to create a sense of itself as a separate town. I could really relate to his story of people giving you directions using stores as the landmarks (in my case, turn right at the Starbucks, just past the Kroger). Secondly, I am very, very split on my feelings around Christmas. Part of me absolutely loves it all and enjoys the music, food, festivities while the other part of me dreads the whole season. I usually end up feeling exhausted and promising myself to do it differently next year. As he examines how these three families deal with everything as well as a fairly introspective look at his own feelings about the season, I found myself with those light bulb moments where I realized I was not alone in my thinking. While the author describes himself as a cynic, I found him to be largely fair and balanced and a joy to read.

This book is definitely not a light, easy, feel-good book about the season of Christmas, yet I found myself immersed in the book and read it all in a 24-hour period. A truly enjoyable read.

Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present is a very frank, in-your-face, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes ironic, sometimes sarcastic, yet true and honest look at what Christmas has become and what it means to much of the modern (first?) world today. Hank Stuever has written about a subject that I haven't seen anyone treat this honestly before. Ever since the upper middle-class lifestyle became more affordable through the mortgage boom of the early 2000s, there have been more and more Joneses (pp. 157-159) able to live in what Stuever calls a "fantasy land" of wealth financed by bigger and bigger credit. With the huge house comes the opulent and borrowed lifestyle: since you live in a ritzy neighborhood, you gotta drive spiffy cars, send your kids to private school and lots of extracurricular activities/lessons and, come Christmas, outdo your neighbors' (if not your own) budget in holiday decor, parties/dinners, and gifts--racking up more debt for you and making your creditors and the National Retail Foundation extremely happy. Despite the "leaner" times of the mortgage crash in 2008, our Christmas expenditure has not gone down substantially at all. As Hank writes in his book, even the poorest of the wealthy middle class are still able to afford to buy expensive gifts even if they have to go to the local food pantry to buy (or get for free) bags of groceries to feed themselves.

In this book, Stuever narrates, through following the lives of 3 families in Frisco, TX from 2006-2008 during Christmastime, how nothing--not even the mortgage crisis--can stop the economic machine that is Christmas. The machine is supplied by what Stuever calls the "real North pole", China, where overworked prisoners (the elves) slave away to manufacture all the "gifts" on each American's Christmas list. In the last 2 centuries (20th and 21st), the Christmas spirit has deteriorated into the most basic law of economics, supply and demand: what you and I can demand and supply from each other in terms of gifts is multiplied in a geometric progression over several million people across the country so that what we buy always makes the National Retail Foundation's record books each year. The more gifts, the better it seems--mainly because we believe that the more things we have, the more it will keep our families happy and closer together because we will spend more time together enjoying the things we bought each other (like the plasma TV; see p. 90), and the more gifts we give each other means that we love each other and care for each other. After all, isn't the spirit of Christmas all about love? The reality that Stuever points out, though, is that Christmas is not so much anymore about love or Christmas spirit or even about the Savior who was born and whose birth is the reason for commemorating Christmas, it is about the American economy masquerading as the Christmas spirit of love. The love we have for each other is now measured in what we can give or get from each other on Christmas: the more numerous and pricier the gifts you give me are, then the more you love me. The love/compassion we show to others is measured and "seen" in how many lights we can put up to make the children and other people happy (the reason for the Trykoskis' light display) because they love to see our light show, or the number of gifts and food items we donate to the Christmas Angel tree or the food pantry (both mentioned in Stuever's book) to assuage the guilty feelings we might have about having so much while others have so little or none. Furthermore, Christmas nowadays is self-serving and self-gratifying: If I don't see numerous evidences of love under my tree, then I won't be happy; if I cannot make others happy with my hobby by putting on a light show for them, then I'm not happy; if I can't buy some poor kid a stuffed toy for Christmas to make him/her happy, then I'm unhappy; if I can't donate canned goods or other food products to the pantry, then I'm not happy; if I feel guilty over others who don't have as much as I do, then I won't feel happy either, and I want to be happy because isn't Christmas also about joy and happiness? However, as Stuever's book points out, Christmas has deteriorated to the point where it's just a season of activity with huge buying sprees that build up into some sort of much-awaited climax that we never really reach because on Christmas morning, no one is even awake early enough to realize it's Christmas day and that it's just like any other ordinary day. It's like the events building up to a wedding, except that in this case, there isn't any wedding. Just so many trash and recyclables going back to the true North pole (China) to find their way into more plastic toys and other gifts for next year's Christmas. As the title of the book suggests, Christmas doesn't mean anything nowadays other than being America's biggest shopping spree season.

I highly recommend this book so we will realize what we have made Christmas into, and for us to get back in touch with ourselves and find out if this is what Christmas has come to mean for us: a yardstick for the American economy that measures the various degrees of our affluence and so-called generosity.

I was lucky enough to get to read "Tinsel" in the days leading up to Christmas 2009. Although I'd be floored if "Tinsel" turned up as a Hallmark holiday movie next year, Hank Steuver is NOT all about impaling through the heart the Christmas Season and all who celebrate it. What this book is about is one man's search for something real in a season and city (a country) of artificial. Steuver shows that we're all searching for something real.

"Fake Is Okay Here" is not only a pithy quote from one of the people profiled in the book, but is a way of life in Frisco, Texas, so much so that the town happily accepts snow from a snow machine to turn its town square into a winter wonderland, despite the fact that it's rare for winter to come to Frisco. The town square of Frisco, aptly named Frisco Square, is a place to "live, play, and work," that is to say a perfectly lovely neighborhood with idyllic architecture and landscaping, a throwback to "good old days" that never were. Frisco is at once a very particular place and any up-and-coming-hurrying-up-and-waiting 'burb in America. The story or biography or profile that Steuver has spun is as engaging and gripping as any novel.

For all the forced nostalgia of the Frisco Squares across America, and the forced nostalgia of the Holiday Season itself, the "characters" that people "Tinsel" are very real, and Steuver portrays them as they are, warts and all. While he's delightfully snarky at times, it's always very, very clear that he has great affection for these people. The ribbing is good-natured. Any lesson or moral the reader arrives at, is arrived at honestly, without it being jammed down one's throat. Like a good journalist, Steuver reports the happenings in Frisco. He doesn't scramble to wrap up the book with a pat conclusion or a Christmas miracle to make you say "ahhhhhhhhh!"

Yet it's a very satisfying read with a very satisfying end. And since Christmas is becoming a year-round pursuit for more and more people, don't think of this as a book appropriate to the Christmas Season only. Pick up a copy right now, RIGHT NOW. Only 361 more shopping days, after all...

Contrary to many other comments posted here, this book made me want to get out the decorations, put up the tree, play Christmas music, the whole nine yards. Our Christmas will be silly, jolly, and very traditional.

We have traveled twice, in the past few years, to avoid all of the hoopla. No grandchildren yet, just a bunch of adults opening a few gifts. Where is the "merry" in that? Well, the "merry" is in putting in the effort, being grateful for what is, and carrying on traditions that our parents, and grandparents, held dear. My favorite childhood memories are of the Christmases that my folks put on for us. Over the top! My children enjoyed the same.

Mr. Stuever, thank you for reminding me of what makes a Christmas jolly. It is the love that goes into the making, however flawed that may be. You are welcome in our home any time.

The author, Hank Stuever, is a journalist with the Washington Post. He begins by telling the reader that after years of sitting out Christmas, he's ready to opt in again and in 2006 heads to Frisco, TX, an exurb of Dallas/Fort Worth and one of the state's (and country's) most affluent and quickly growing cities (1990 pop. 6000, 2006 pop. 90,000). There he tags along for the holidays with 3 households; the twice-divorced single mom, oddly connected at the hip with her 10-yr-old daughter, the childless (and intend to stay that way) couple whose husband has turned his interest in Christmas lighting into an obsession (his home light show is on YouTube choreographed to Mannheim Steamroller) and an almost-career as he contracts out with the city and a huge shopping center to do their Christmas lights. We meet Tammie, part of the "perfect" family; Mom, Dad, precocious daughter and son. She has turned her love of Christmas into a career as well, decorating the interiors of the McMansions in her town. One family never mentions religion at all, and 2 families are very religious so we get in on the spiritual side of the season. We don't get the impression that the author ever finds what he's looking for. Can you say "cynical"? I think he thinks he's being objective, but he doesn't quite pull it off. In the acknowledgments at the back of the book, he thanks the shadowees "with respect" for letting him do this book. However, his portrayals of most of the people is less than flattering to say the least. He makes it easy to write some of them off as bitchy, obsessed, or an air head, but there's more to these people and their lifestyles than that. He does updates in 2007 and 2008 and we learn the effects of personal crises and the economic crash. I felt rather ambivalent about this book, but I find myself re-reading parts and just enjoying the authors "phenomenal" writing skills (apologizes to Tammie). He is a top-notch writer.

Like many great books, "Tinsel" is hard to characterize. As might be expected when a self-described "blue state" guy spends many months ensconced in the very red city of Frisco Texas, there is no shortage of wry observation and commentary. But those who seek only snark will miss something much deeper. For far from making fun of the residents of fly-over land, and their consumer-driven Yuletide celebrations, Hank makes us care for them. He does this by creating a character-driven narrative with the impact of a novel. That I ended up feeling an emotional connection and fondness for a pro-Palin housewife who lives in a "snow globe" of affluence is no small achievement. Part of Hank's secret is not just that he allows himself to be part of the narrative, but that he is such an endearing part of the narrative. It's hard not to like Hank Stuever. Lest anyone suspect this is just good writing on his part, realize that strangers with a radically different worldview let this man into their homes. Part of the amazement I feel about this book is that he managed to write it at all. And in keeping with the complexity of this book, the conclusions it draws about Christmas are equally complex. One is left with an understanding that the power of Christmas is firmly rooted in our personal reaction to rituals and tradition. The details don't matter, be they perfectly-arranged synthetic foliage, computerized Christmas lights, or Monkey Bread. And this is what makes this book so engaging. To paraphrase the words of Mr. Stuever, while one might not groove on the Christmases being presented, it is awfully hard not to groove on the groove.