A Family’s Holiday Tradition Inspired by a Well-Loved Children’s Book

This is just such a sweet story and just in time for Christmas. Author Robin Antalek, author of the forthcoming family novel The Summer We Fell Apart, talks about the holiday tradition that was inspired by a beloved chidren’s book.

…we stumbled upon the most glorious book: Night Tree by the beloved children’s author Eve Bunting. Night Tree tells the story of a family venturing out on Christmas Eve, bundled together in the cab of their father’s truck, as they head out into the woods to find the perfect Christmas tree. Not for cutting down, but for decorating with popcorn and fruit for the animals of the forest to have for Christmas.

Soon after that very first reading, my youngest daughter, a sensitive lover of all creatures, came home from preschool with a peanut butter smeared pinecone crusted in birdseed.
Her teacher had suggested she hang it in a backyard tree but my girl had something grander in mind. She wanted to fill a tree with these pinecone treats and not in our city backyard where our lab mutts would scare off any potential animals, but in the forest. She and her sister quickly set about collecting a box full of pinecones and making a list of the necessary ingredients: birdseed, carrots, cranberries, peanut butter and popcorn. With their father and me, they formed an assembly line at the kitchen table smearing and slathering the cones in peanut butter before rolling in birdseed and looping a twist of twine around the stem and packing them neatly in a big brown box.

Read the entire story here. The Book Club Girl is also hosting a series of blog posts during the month of December and is inviting several authors to share their favourite holiday traditions and memories.