The book starts out with Karen, Hannie, and Nancy having a Lovely Ladies tea party at Karen's house. Andrew runs in to show them his picture of Santa. Karen says that all she sees are scribbles. Do four year olds normally still just scribble? My niece was drawing recognizable people when she was 3. Maybe Karen is just being mean about Andrew's picture because she's a brat.
Karen's family decides that they'll each make an ornament for their tree this year. While they are downtown buying craft supplies, Karen goes in the toy store, where they have a wish tree. She asks the clerk about it and later convinces Hannie and Nancy that the three of them should grant a wish for an underprivileged child. They choose a little boy who wants a fire truck. The three of them plan to do chores for their parents and raise money to buy the toy. It's pretty sweet actually.
Karen has some neighbors, the Druckers, who show up in the books from time to time. In this book, the Druckers are sad because their blue spruce tree died over the summer. Then Mrs. Drucker breaks her hip. Karen is really worried about Mrs. Drucker and her broken hip. She talks to Nancy and the two of them decide to try and raise money from the neighbors to replace the spruce tree.
Nancy is given tickets to Annie as a gift. She can choose one friend to take. When Karen hears what day it is, she mentions she thinks she is busy that day, so Nancy invites Hannie. When Karen finds out that Hannie got the invite, she flips the fuck out and is a total cow to her friends. Nancy and Hannie both look really surprised that Karen is being an asshole, which leads me to suspect that they've never read one of these books. Karen is sure the fight will be over soon but Hannie and Nancy play together at recess and leave Karen out. Good for Hannie and Nancy, I say. Karen is pretty much a bully and a spoiled brat, and if I were Nancy's or Hannie's mother, I would encourage her to make other friends. Then when Karen gets home from school, she sits alone in her room waiting for her friends to call her and apologize. For what, I don't know.
At school, the kids have to write a short paper about their holiday wish. Karen wishes that her fight with her friends was over. Ms. Colman asks her to collect the papers and she sees that Hannie and Nancy had the same wish. That afternoon, she and Nancy go collect money from the neighbors for the spruce tree. Afterward, Karen apologizes to Nancy and they call Hannie and Karen apologizes to her too. The fight is over. Nancy decides to take Grandma B. to the play instead of choosing between her friends. The girls pick out a fire truck at the store and pay for it with their own money.
Karen and Nancy get to go pick out a new spruce tree for the Druckers. The day Mrs. Drucker comes home from the hospital, the neighbors set the tree up in their yard and decorate it. The Druckers are very pleased. This is the scene depicted on the cover, except that Hannie isn't there in the text.
At the end of the book, Karen's family hangs their handmade ornaments on the tree. Andrew made a paper reindeer. Karen made a star out of clay. Seth carved a beautiful wooden soldier. Mommy made a Santa out of pipe cleaners and foil. This always makes me laugh a little because a pipe cleaner Santa seems way more like something a child would make than an adult.
Foods eaten in this book: Pizza, blueberry pancakes, spaghetti and meatballs, salad, melted cheese on toast, warm apple cider, chicken soup.
There's a lot going on in this book, so at times it seems a bit disjointed, but overall it's one of my favorite Little Sister holiday books. My score: 8/10.
The thing that gets me is apparently 4 year old Andrew scribbles like a toddler, but when they adopt 2 year old Emily they constantly try to teach her to write her name. I can't imagine trying to force my 2 year old to write her name.
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