Skipping Christmas

Skipping Christmas is a novel by the American writer John Grisham, published in 1998.

Luther Krank works out what the family spent the previous December on decorations, presents and entertaining and concludes that it bought them very little. Their daughter is away, so he proposes a cruise, Nora agrees, and the two of them announce that they will not be taking part this year. The neighbourhood does not accept the decision quietly: the street has a decoration contest, the local merchants depend on the season, and their friends treat the abstention as a personal slight. Grisham writes the book as a comedy about a sensible decision that nobody will let a couple make, and the story turns on a telephone call close to Christmas that changes what the Kranks have to do.

It is a short novel written in the middle of the author's long run of legal thrillers, and one of the few of his books set outside a courtroom or a law office. The comedy here is domestic, and the plot turns on the neighbours rather than on a crime.