Take a Look at the Five and Ten

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She had. She was looking at the Santa Claus collecting money for charity outside Safeway’s main door. “That Christmas I worked at Woolworth’s there was a Santa right outside the front door. He had a cotton-wool beard and a chimney you put the money in. It was made out of—” As a Non-Christian married to a Christian person, I have a very nuanced and off view of Christmas. But I love how Connie Willis loves Christmas unashamedly and how she infused her love and joy into all of her works. Everybody has a traumatic Christmas memory, and mine was always Christmas dinner, partly because in my family (a term used veryloosely), it’s actually a series of dinners—Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, and a New Year’s Eve buffet, and if my one-time stepfather Dave had his way, we’d also have St. Lucia’s Day and Boxing Day and Twelfth Night dinners, and who knows what else. I'm referring to songs with a specific date or year in the lyrics, that are mentioned as the present or future. Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. She is one of the most honored science fiction writers of the 1980s and 1990s.

This is exactly what I hoped for. The clarity, the heightened emotional state, the irrelevant details…” I requested this not reading the blurb because ultimately I know it will be a good read. So imagine me surprise to find out that this was a holiday tale. I am not a holiday person and only care to pillage the baked goods. So I had a small moment of dismay about the holiday aspect. I needn't have worried. This story was lovely. Willis is known for her accessible prose and likable characters. She has written several pieces involving time travel by history students and faculty of the future University of Oxford. These pieces include her Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog and the short story "Fire Watch," found in the short story collection of the same name. So, short, sweet, Christmas with a really adorable and lovable older woman, some mean step family members and an MC to root for. What more could you possibly want? No, it’s not,” Sloane said. “It’s boring beyond belief, so, Ori, whatever you do, don’t mention Christmas shopping or snow.”

in which as a young woman she worked at Woolworth's in downtown Denver one Christmas. It seems that anything in the conversation prompts her to spew forth this same tale in florid detail. There is method to his madness. His research project involves TFBM ... Traumatic Flashbulb Memory, and he feels that her story has all the earmarkings of this phenomena and enlists her aid as a participant in the project. This also engenders the need and commitment of Ori .. which may have a secondary effect? Ori’s holidays are an endless series of elaborately awful meals cooked by her one-time stepfather Dave’s latest bride. Attended by a loose assemblage of family, Ori particularly dreads Grandma Elving—grandmother of Dave’s fourth wife—and her rhapsodizing about the Christmas she worked at Woolworth’s in the 1950s. And, of course, she hates being condescended to by beautiful, popular Sloane and her latest handsome pre-med or pre-law boyfriend. the present or future they refer to, has come and gone. 1999 was the future in 1982, 1999 has now passed.

I know, but I’m not talking about happiness. I’m talking about joy, which is a totally different emotion. People think of them as the same thing because they’re both positive emotions, but I don’t think they are. Happiness is a warm, pleasant, all-over kind of feeling. Joy’s nothing like that. It pierces right through you, and it’s so intense, it’s almost painful, and I think that’s the kind of experience Grandma Elving had standing there, looking out the door at the snow, a sort of…” I faltered, groping for the right word. Add to that the fact that Jillian refuses to have roast turkey and pumpkin pie like normal people and insists on serving poached sturgeon and Senegalese locus-pods, that Aunt Mildred complains about everything from the table settings to my failure to bring a date, and that Grandma Elving insists on telling the same interminable story of how she worked at Woolworth’s in downtown Denver one Christmas, and you can see why I start dreading Thanksgiving dinner some time in July.She lives in Greeley, Colorado with her husband Courtney Willis, a professor of physics at the University of Northern Colorado. She also has one daughter, Cordelia. But the research has shown happiness not only isn’t strong enough to produce a flashbulb moment, it doesn’t activate the amygdala or the hippocampus, it activates the limbic cortex.”

The easy, fast & fun way to learn how to sing: 30DaySinger.com It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas humorous Christmas tale. Featured is a dysfunctional, amalgam of somewhat related family members interacting during the holiday season. Our main protagonist is Ori who finds herself invited to a slew of never ending holiday dinners ... starting with Thanksgiving and culminating with a New Year's Eve buffet.. At age eight her mother was briefly married to Dave .... and he still considers her, his daughter., and hosts these endless gatherings. Dave has been married more than six times, and has always made poor choices ... including her mother. Usually in attendance are the usual suspects. Aunt Mildred, actually a great-aunt of Dave's second wife and Grandma Elving, the grandmother of his fourth wife. Aunt Mildred is forever pointing out the failings of the younger generation and the vast superiority of the "good old days" . Her speeches always turn into lectures and she seems to complain about everything. While Grandma Elving cannot be deterred from telling the same story We also accept lyrics that mention prices that are now dated, such as 10 cent pay phone calls. Lyrics that mention a persons age at the time and that person is now past said age, and lyrics that mentioned events that were current at the time of the song but have now passed are also accepted.

Rating

Like Prince's "1999" (which will not be played as much now that it's date has come and gone). These are songs for which Seriously, it is novella length, so not a huge time commitment, though by the end you will have turned into the MOR NOW Monster and it is SWEET and we are technically still in the Christmas season, so you need to get this in now before it is too late for a sweet and uplifting Christmas read. I’m not the only sort-of-relative he invites. There’s also Aunt Mildred, actually a great-aunt of Dave’s second wife, and Grandma Elving, the grandmother of his fourth. Got all that straight? My Boss was pushing this on me after I asked her what she was reading and she couldn't stop going on and on about how wonderful this was. I gave into peer pressure and am here to say... She’s not actually my grandmother,” I said, yanking on the other boot. “She’s my stepfather’s grandmother-in-law from his fourth marriage.” (c)

I didn’t just read it - I devoured it! It was so good! It had all the hallmarks of a great Connie Willis story - scientist just trying to get some data, two people falling for each other who don’t realize it, irritating relatives, and people who genuinely love Christmas. Ori dreads spending the holidays with her family. Her step-dad's latest wife and her daughter are horrible. The other issue is Grandma Elving. She worked in Woolworth's during Christmas in 1950. And loves to talk about her time there ad nauseum and in detail. Everyone dreads hearing about Woolworth's and Ori gears up for survival mode. Only this holiday is different. Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here are me honest musings . . .

Advance Praise

This story is heartwarming and lovely. I adored Ori and I really adored Grandma Elving. The descriptions of Woolworth's were so vivid and alive. I actually spent time trying to figure out if I was remembering ever being in Woolworth's meself or if the imagery was so strong that I just felt like I had. What I am NOT looking for, are songs like Bowling for Soup's "1985" which are written after the date Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said. “This is much warmer than that bus I used to take that Christmas I worked at Woolworth’s. It was so cold the windows used to frost over and—” From beloved New York Timesbestselling, multiple-award-winning author Connie Willis comes another enchanting science fictional Christmas tale and screwball comedy, Take a Look at the Five and Ten. Readers in the need for a dose of Willis’s humor and heart will want to curl up with this novella for the holidays.