The X-Mas Men: An Eclectic Collection of Holiday Essays

Beyond the parties and the TV specials and the shopping and the gift exchanges, even beyond the sermons and the prayers, Christmas has a way of shedding a twinkling light on our lives like no other day (or time) of the year. Despite their disparate religious and familial and economic backgrounds, for seventeen authors at Indy Men's Magazine, Christmas is a day charged with laughter and beauty, hope and regret. This book is a very personal celebration, reconsideration, and, at times, an indictment of, to quote a lyric from a famous TV special, “the most wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day of the year.” Inside you'll find: Novelist Michael Kun on Buying a Gift for Dad; Esquire magazine's Tom Chiarella on Christmas at the Poker Tables; Award-winning memoirist Doug Crandall on Homemade Holidays; Playwright Eric Pfef finger on Holidays Home from College; Best-selling author Philip Gulley on Holiday Lights and Holiday Songs; Radio host Ed Wenck on Troublemaking at the Altar; Novelist/writing teacher Dan Barden on Receiving— and Rejecting—Gifts; and Journalist/retired Navy of ficer Todd Tucker on Coming Home. Plus stories by: Tim Farrell, Eric Furman, Peter Graham, Lou Harr y, Brian D. Smith, Julia Spalding, Sam Stall, John B.Thomas, Todd Tobias . . . and Santa.

Paperback. 144 pages. 2006, Indiana Historical Society and Indy Men's Magazine.  Edited by Lou Harry and Todd Tobias.