Jesus in the Underwear Drawer...and other tales of holiday hysteria

Product Description "Jesus in the Underwear Drawer…and other tales of holiday hysteria" is a collection of essays based on author Sandra Flahive’s remembrances of holidays that did not live up to expectations. The essays illustrate in humorous fashion that, whether it be Christmas or Labor Day or even the heralded Iowa State Fair, special occasions are not necessarily ordained to be free of the problems and foibles that afflict everyday life. The time frame of the essay collection spans the author’s life. Many of the essays recount stories from Flahive’s life as the tenth-born child in an Irish Catholic family. The title of the book, Jesus in the Underwear Drawer, is the title of one of her most popular, previously published works. It is the story of her experience as a nine-year-old girl who was asked by the stern parish priest to carry the Christ Child to the manger at midnight mass. All went well until she realized she had left “Jesus,” represented by a doll she was to carry in the procession, at home in the underwear drawer, where she had selfishly tossed him because she didn’t want to share him with her sister. Another childhood tale describes her disgust with her little brother when she realizes that he had an “accident” in the confessional and her subsequent attempt to remedy the embarrassment of it so they could complete the walk home from the church without the wet spot on the front of his trousers being noticed. Other essays in the book are more recent Erma Bombeck-type accounts of what can happen during the course of everyday life. They include, the dilemma one faces when confronted with multiple attire designations on holiday party invitations, the frightening aftermath of a champagne bottle that blows its cork in the dead of night, and the embarrassing predicament that can occur when one’s false fingernails catch fire at a Christmas party. While the essays in this collection are personal in nature, they also serve to nudge readers into recalling their own litanies of holidays-gone-wrong as they read the zany tales found in this small memoir. About the Author Sandra Flahive is an Iowa writer whose humorous-but-pointed essays have appeared in Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Short Prose Reader (Simon and Schuster), The Iowan Magazine, the Des Moines Register, and a number of other publications. In addition, her essays have been aired frequently on (Iowa) National Public Radio station WOI-FM. She has been writing and publishing essays for 30 years, and this is her first collection to be published in a book. In addition to being a writer, Flahive has been a high school English teacher as well as the director of public relations at Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa, where she currently serves as special assistant to the president of the college. She has three adult daughters and four grandchildren.
ASIN: 0977292002
VSKU: 56JTFH0014AN_ns
Condition: Acceptable