Merry Christmas, Mr. Baxter

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. 7x5x0. Fox, Dorothea Warren. Jacket edges rubbed with minor loss from corners, jacket spine toned, ink name on front endpaper, light smudges on p. 60 only. Binding tight and square. 1956 Hard Cover. 181 pp. All that is inevitable, enjoyable, maddening and amusing about Christmas provides a perfect background for the adventures of this new Streeter "hero"--a grandfather who has not yet achieved the age of discretion and gives little promise of ever doing so. George Barton Baxter--who is more of a sentimentalist than he thinks--decides early in the fall that Christmas this year must be approached sensibly and with careful planning. But he reckons without Susan, his wife, or his children and grandchildren and in defiance of the irresistible machinery of what has become one of our most popular national industries. The situations which confront the Baxters--and Mr. Baxter in particular--as Christmas Eve approaches are described with the wry humor which has endeared Mr. Streeter's books to so many. As in Father of the Bride and Mr. Hobbs' Vacation, he has caught the poignant, frustrating and laughable aspects of a family situation which thousands will recognize as their own. As for Mr. Baxter himself, the reader must be prepared to share all with him: his secret Christmas list, his trip to Schwarz with a grandson who has eaten too many hamburgers, his frustrations with Christmas cards, his harrowing experiences with office parties and his last-minute shopping expedition when the spirit of Christmas finally overcomes his scruples and his resistance. Merry Christmas, Mr. Baxter will delight everyone who has ever, late in the evening of December 24, placed (or criticized the placing of) the star on the top of a Christmas tree.