Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present

What have we done to Christmas?

Hank Stuever follows the lives of 3 families through the Christmas Season. He has chosen totally different personalities and lifestyles to follow. He examines the "marketing" of Christmas and how far we have strayed from the original meaning of Christmas. Mr. Stuever, at the same time, is very witty and there are many amusing paragraphs in this book. It is enjoyable to read, but, at the same time, challenges us to rethink the ways in which our own family celebrate the holidays.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Hank Stuever exposes the reality of Christmas excesses in the ever-larger north Texas retail Mecca of Frisco!

All right. I admit to a certain point of view, as a transplant to Dallas from the Midwest so many years ago that I'm flirting with being considered a native Texan. Early on, it's the surface that seems to matter more here. The biggest, newest, shiniest of everything. The Mary Kay effect. The cosmetic surgery. The largest, tallest buildings outlined in lights or argon gas. Never mind the shiny car is leased, not owned; the faces have been altered temporarily or permanently under the cover of big hair; that big imposing structure is laden with asbestos in addition to monumental debt. So it is not so shocking to read the most memorable, and probably the truest, observation of Tammie Parnell, the home decorator in Tinsel, "Fake is OK here."

The author spent much of three Christmas seasons embedded with three Frisco families to study the behavior, beliefs, traditions and habits of Friscans during the holidays. There is Tammie, the transformer of McMansions into holiday splendor for roughly $1,000 for a day's work; the Trykosis, whose household is illuminated with tens of thousands of lights and viewed by thousands of passengers in idling SUVs, not to mention YouTube viewers around the country; and Caroll, the single mom who finds hope and inspiration in the preaching of her megachurch pastor.

I laughed out loud through many of the passages in this book, all the while feeling a kind of sadness for the desperation so many exhibit in their quest for an ideal holiday season to match their perfect lives, raising children who don't experience the denial of any material good or positive reinforcement while in the womb of their parents' homes.

The author tells these stories as a reporter would, through observations and the words of the people he has selected to study. The conclusions and judgements you form when reading Tinsel will be entirely yours. He reports, and you decide. Along the way, you'll find it hard to resist the author's constant wit and charm.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Pulling the curtain back on Frisco

I'm not done reading this book yet but it's been a funny and interesting read. Being a Frisco resident myself and a former Celebration Covenant church goer, I kinda knew alot about Frisco's strange ideological pull between worshiping all things material and being good Christians. Frisco is a great place to live. Mr. Stuever as an outsider looking in gets the same vibe I get being a resident here. Sometimes I just gotta shake my head. I think a lot of us Frisco residents will see ourselves in this book but I'm not so sure how many of us will admit it.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Highly recommended

Another lefty fascinated by the conspicuous consumption and religious faith of Texans!

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