The Worst . . . and Best of Us All

This Christmas story of a homeless man, who was once a wealthy business owner hit hard for me. The grown child of an alcoholic father, I know the pain of alcoholism. But nothing like these three grown children did. Jacob MacCallum had it all, a beautiful wife, three healthy kids and a growing business. And he threw it away in a bottle. It was the time of prohibition in America and the Great Depression. From flying high to living on the streets, Jacob seemed beyond redemption. Yet deep inside him somewhere a tiny spark of hope remained. He loved his children. He desired forgiveness. But it seemed beyond his grasp. Too low to pick himself up, someone finally bent down and lent him a hand . . . yet, still it would be a long, long time before he trusted even kindness from an angel sent to him . . . I admit that I listened, thinking that I don't know if I could ever forgive this man . . . and over and over, I was convicted, by my Lord . . . who was I to think such thoughts? Thank God for the Salvation Army who ministers to the lowest of the low, society's rejects, those whom even the church judges . . . shame on us . . . life taught Jacob MacCallum the tough lessons . . . and friendship brought him back home . . . don't miss this story . . . it certainly worked on my calloused heart . . .

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A Good Ol'Fashioned Wholesome Christmas Story

They just don't make movies like this anymore. I wish they did. In fact I had a great cast in my mind for many of these characters - Iain Glen as Jacob Maccallum himself. In our world where every movie or story must include some political nod or some nod to some minority group, perhaps this book consists of a nod to the new minority: what used to be every-day Americans, hard working, and a tinge of faith without apology.

Full disclosure: I'm a pastor.

I found the story to be a guilty pleasure of escapism, almost as if one was thrown into a Thomas Kinkade painting. This is fascinating, because the story is obviously really dark before it's better. It's dark, in that the mess Jacob's made of his family requires some explaining.

I enjoyed the narrator, especially his casting one pastor as Irish. If Snyder mentioned that the pastor was Irish, I missed it in the narration, but I did appreciate that we just didn't get 34 different American accents. It is a quick listen, all it took for me was a few long walks, but it was a good Christmas story to get one in the spirit. Again, I was wishing as I was watching, that a mini-series would be made.

A few things I would nitpick about:

> Sadly Snyder has apparently missed the memo, or decided to be willfully ignorant when it comes to the Salvation Army - the Salvation Army historically hasn't practiced physical communion and baptism. Being part of another denomination that shares those values (Evangelical Friends / Quakers), I can also say that among the Evangelical Friends, allowances are made for physical observances of these rituals. Perhaps the same is true in pockets of the Salvation Army. And perhaps Snyder didn't wish to delve to deeply and explain this reality, and thus, he just matter-of-factly depicted these events occurring around Jacob. I mean, the story centers on a Salvation Army Bell-Ringer, we can't have any other denomination.

> While some might critique this story and say it's all picture-perfect, like a series of paintings by Thomas Kinkade, I won't go that far... except one character. Jacob's son Tom, his wife, is very one-dimensional. While she pleads slightly with Tom to have a heart for his dad, she is the quintessential 40s housewife, who doesn't get too upset if Tom ignores dinner, or comes home late or the like. I found her TOO picture-perfect. I was born in '89, so maybe the vast majority of 40s wives REALLY DID fit the stereotype, but I just found that her character was a little bit too much of the "scenery," and not real enough.

> Too much "tell" in some spots, and not enough "show." This is where a mini-series, or even a season or 2 of shows would do this book some real justice. I understand that Snyder perhaps wanted a book that people could read in a few sittings in an already-busy Christmas season, but there were just too many spots where the author said, "Jacob did this for so many years, and in that time this, that, those, and these things happened... and he ended up in prison." When that could've been used for giving us an even deeper sympathy for the characters.

> Perhaps a bit predictable. But people coming to these sorts of books are usually coming for a wholesome, predictable, feel-good story, and shouldn't be surprised if that's what they find. Most of the stories that I can predict, I still watch because I want to see how it shakes out anyways. There's a bit of comfort and satisfaction in that.

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Very enjoyable story.

This was a fun story. The reader was very good. I am glad that I downloaded it.

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