In his new book, Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present, Hank Stuever sheds light on the meaning of Christmas through the story of three different families right in the center of it all. It is the first book of its kind to give a journalistic perspective on the holiday where Americans spend $500 billion, even during a recession.
“I hope that [the book] really is Christmas as close to truth as it can possibly get,” Stuever said. “There’s a lot about my book that’s difficult, a lot is funny, warm and a lot of joy. I feel that a real balanced account of Christmas would have all of that.”
The author’s inspiration came from seeing the book sections of stores like Barnes & Noble and Powell’s during this time of year, and their huge sections of Christmas books. In that section, Stuever noted the typical Christmas book—either a Hallmark sort of novel or books by popular novelists about their personal childhood memories of the holidays.
“It surprised me that journalists hadn’t really done any long narratives,” Stuever said. “There’s also a lot of really sketchy history books that are not very well researched. Very fluffy, not a lot of journalism.”
Stuever, who has been a journalist covering the popular culture and lifestyles of everyday Americans for the last 20 years, has reported on everything from the Oscars and the Olympics, to writing about real people at shopping malls, churches and weddings. With this book, he wanted to write about a topic no journalist had ever really gotten in depth with before.
Stuever set out to uncover the reality of the modern day celebration of Christmas through the eyes of three families in a suburb of Frisco, Texas. The author spent three consecutive Christmas seasons with the families taking notes on Caroll Cavazos, Tammie Parnell and Jeff and Bridgette Trykoski.
Parnell owns a Christmas-decorating business. The Trykoskis own the house that everyone in their community comes to see each year for their Christmas lights display. Cavazos, a single mom who struggles to maintain her holiday spirit, fights the crowds at Black Friday sales.
Stuever wanted to see their lives in a long-term way—even if that meant giving up his own Christmas plans for three years.
“By the end of this book my heart melted,” Stuever said. “It had an effect on me emotionally. Christmas is this cultural steamroller that gets it all. I’ve been stopping it, but by this time I’ve let it come over me.”
Stuever followed family members as they did mundane tasks like grocery shopping, going to church and buying and wrapping presents. But these times of the day ended up being the most revealing and useful. Those were the times where they would start talking about their Christmas past, and their own past.
“Everyone’s emotions are here on Christmas,” Stuever said. “They really open up to you; they forget that you’re there.”
His book is the story of real people following the ups and downs of real life, trying to put it all together and get the most out of the Christmas season.
“It’s like you become a really good friend, a part of the family, but I’m the part of the family that’s writing everything down.”