The neighbors, in particular, Vic Frohmeyer, are especially angry that the Kranks refuse to decorate their house. At no point do the neighbors simply decide to throw their own party, by the way. For one, their neighbors always have a really nice time at their annual Christmas Eve party and are angry with the Kranks for not throwing one.

Just as she’s beginning to enjoy the lack of holiday stress, however, their neighbors develop a mob-like acrimony against the Kranks. To Nora’s surprise, the idea of not decorating, not buying gifts, and not preparing for the Christmas party is a relief. Nora stands firm, however, and so Grisham’s putative hero begrudgingly commits less than one-tenth of what he normally spends on entertaining his affluent friends and family members on actually helping somebody this holiday season. His level of Scrooge-ness apparently includes an aversion to both the commercial aspects of Christmas and the so-called “real spirit of Christmas,” like the whole “good will toward men” idea. For some reason, Rupert refuses to do this initially. Eventually, however, she relents, agreeing after Rupert agrees to donate $600 to the church and children’s hospital. Their plan is to leave around Christmas for ten days.Īt first, Nora is far from enthused about skipping Christmas. He calculates that last year they spent $6,100 on Christmas and, he wonders, for what? And so, this year he decides to forgo the chaos of Christmas by booking a Caribbean vacation aboard a cruise ship called the Island Princess. Rupert has a different response: Fed up with spending so much money on Christmas each year, he has adopted a Scrooge-like mentality toward the holiday. Nora is exceedingly sad that they won’t be spending this year’s Christmas as a family. But this year will be the first Christmas they don’t celebrate with their daughter the day after Thanksgiving, her parents see her off at the airport for a Peace Corps mission in Peru. They always put on a highly-anticipated Christmas Eve party and their neighborhood is perennially in the running to win a contest for the best Christmas lights. Rupert and Nora Krank, along with their daughter Blair, are a family that has always celebrated Christmas in a big way.

A dramatic departure from the legal thrillers for which Grisham is best known, Skipping Christmas went on to top the New York Times Best Seller list before it was adapted into the family film, Christmas with the Kranks. Skipping Christmas is a 2001 holiday-comedy novel by John Grisham.

John grisham a painted house summary