From the fist page read of the book The 13th Gift by Joanne Huist Smith I was hooked. The author draws you in instantly with what feels like you are reading about your own family and the daily trials and tribulations of getting yourself out the door on time for work as well as your children out the door on time for school. Once you get hooked in that first page you soon learn the real struggle is the passing of the husband/father in the story. The book chronicles trying to deal with finding your Christmas spirit while also trying to deal with the first Christmas without your husband and father. In the beginning Joanne had no idea how she was going to keep life together for herself and her kids. She had no Christmas spirit and the memories of past Christmas' with her husband haunted her instead of bringing her comfort. Megan, Ben and Nick were each struggling in their own ways of dealing with Christmas coming and missing their dad. It wasn't until a gift appeared on their front porch 13 days before Christmas that things slowly started to change. Everyday for 13 days a new gift arrived and against all odds, brought this struggling family together in their darkest of time as they tried to figure out who was leaving the gifts. The family started new traditions, added twists to old ones and the kids figured out how to honor their dad while making new memories on their first Christmas without him. Joanne wasn't sure she wanted the first give but each day as a new gift was discovered she began to look forward to them and they slowly began to show her what the true meaning of Christmas was about. In the days before Christmas she began to life fully again and make this Christmas the best one her children had ever had while healing their hearts in the process.
The book concludes with Joanne and her middle child Nick, meeting with the gift givers some 10 years later and learning why they lleft the gifts and who they were honoring by doing so. Finding this out changed both of their lives and they decided to start a similar tradition of their own.
I honestly could not put this book down once I started reading it. I laughed, I cried and I felt like I was a part of this grieving family as I turned each page. The emotions are real and the author does an amazing job of pulling you in and creating a way for you to feel the words on the page as you read them. upon completion of the story, I read the notes about the editor and found out she based this book and the events in it on her own life, her personal experiences and her heartache. This book helped her heal and move forward and I for one am thankful she wrote it. I was inspired to help bring the Christmas spirit to others after I read it. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone!
I couldn't have been more blessed to receive this book from blogging for books to read and review for free. I will pass this book along to others with the instructions that once they finish it they pass it along to someone else. This book should definitely be read my others.....many, many, many other people.
