Part of Elm Creek Quilts, book 8
First published 2005
Christmas Eve approaches at Elm Creek Manor, but Sylvia Bergstrom Compson wants a quiet holiday. Her friend Sarah McClure has different plans and searches through old family decorations that have sat untouched for fifty years. Sarah discovers an incomplete Christmas quilt made with seasonal fabrics and patterns. Sylvia explains that four generations of Bergstrom women worked on this quilt. Her great aunt, mother, sister, and she herself each added blocks but never finished the project. The quilt blocks trigger memories of past Christmases at the manor. Each generation faced different challenges during the antebellum period, Great Depression, and World War II. Christmas traditions provided comfort during hard times. Now Sylvia deals with scattered and estranged family members. She struggles to reconnect with her family history while Sarah tries to complete the Christmas quilt. The manor holds many secrets, including a special Christmas tree and the family strudel recipe.
Genres: christmas, family-life, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, generational-saga
Setting: Elm Creek Manor
Period: Christmas Eve, Antebellum Period, Great Depression, World War II
240 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster