Everything I Need to Know About Christmas I Learned From a Little Golden Book

This was a huge disappointment.

I was expecting a wise and witty guide to the holidays.
I was expecting to be delighted.
I was expecting to have my holiday cheer maintained.
Nope. Didn't happen.

Some of the Little Golden Book illustrations were wonderful, but the text felt forced and preppy and perky and... so fake. It was a bit like they had a general idea of what they wanted to say, and then just found images that fit the thought somewhat, but that wasn't enough, so they filled it with Christmassy images and something that might fit if shoehorned a little, and then write something to go with the images. I didn't count, but I have the memory that about 1/4 of the images were actually Christmassy and relevant. (And now I kind of want to go back and count :-D)

It was like reading a Christmas-themed Cyrano de Bergerac death scene. The text was going one way and started ebbing out, so Diane went back to the beginning and started over, repeated herself, and it went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and LET THE MAN DIE FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!!!

Oh, and don't forget that this is a Christian-themed book, so when Diane had said all they wanted to say about Christmas as they saw it (cleaning and stress and chores and “don't stress!”), she started talking about Jesus. All the same old cliches.