police who give her a hero's welcome in the baggage claim and escort her home with her fiancé. As he slowly realizes that he has benefitted from the Christmas spirit of all his neighbors, Luther starts to celebrate Christmas willingly and gives his cruise tickets to the Scheels, who are having a very bad Christmas because his wife was just found with her third recurrence of breast cancer. Critical reception Publishers Weekly observed, "For all its clever curmudgeonly edge and minor charms, no way does this Christmas yarn from Grisham rank with A Christmas Carol, as the publisher claims. Nor does it rank with Grisham's own best work. The premise is terrific, as you'd expect from Grisham . . . But as clever as this setup is, its elaboration is ho-hum. There's a good reason why nearly all classic Christmas tales rely on an element of fantasy, for, literarily at least, Christmas is a time of miracles. Grisham sticks to the mundane, however, and his story lacks magic for that . . . The misanthropy in this short novel makes a good antidote to the more cloying Christmas tales, and the book is fun to read. To compare it to Dickens, however, is...humbug." Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly graded the book C+ and commented, "Even at 177 minipages, Skipping Christmas feels padded . . . Despite a few nicely observed details . . . Grisham mostly trades in stale fruitcake jokes and sub–Christmas Vacation slapstick. Like his recent coming-of-age novel, A Painted House, Skipping represents a departure for the king of the legal thrillers, but in this case, it's to an unworthy destination." See also List of Christmas-themed literature References 2001 American novels Novels by John Grisham American novels adapted into films Christmas novels Doubleday (publisher) books