Holiday Reading Challenge: A Stranger for Christmas

By Carol Lynn Pearson

From the book jacket:

“The holiday season approaches and Florence and Myrna find themselves spending Christmas alone in their California nursing home. They dream of sharing the day with a loving family, singing carols around the piano, and hanging stockings by the fireplace. Myrna still believes in the joy of Christmas, but Florence isn’t so sure. Is there any family out there who might welcome an elderly woman, a total stranger, into their home for Christmas?”

I picked up this sweet little book the other day and sat down to read it. An hour later, I had reached the end and was wishing there was more!

Myrna has always spent Christmas with her family in Idaho, but due to a recent heart attack, the doctor recommends she not make the trip this year.

Florence, on the other hand, never married and never had children, so she’s never experienced a family holiday since she was a little girl.

Now in their 80s, the two women wonder if anyone cares about the elderly. They make a deal to see if Myrna’s family would take in a total stranger for the holidays. She, of course, is sure they will, so they concoct a story about a pen pal in an Idaho nursing home and she begins calling each of her children to find out which one will welcome the stranger into their home.

This is such a precious and charming story. Pearson does an excellent job of bringing the characters into your heart and you soon find yourself falling in love with these two women and wishing you could bring them home for Christmas!

A wonderful Christmas tale that teaches a valuable lesson from the Scripture, “I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”