John Manderino

The True Meaning of Myrrh John Manderino

It isn’t fair. Len’s been asking for hockey gloves since before Thanksgiving but when he opens the only promising-looking box left under the tree, there they are: house slippers. Meanwhile his older brother Sam receives not only the sophisticated smoking jacket he asked for but a tape recorder to capture all the magic in his special holiday broadcast, Christmas with the Rossini Family, 1966, brought to you by Butternut Bread. Making matters worse, the boys’ politically divided parents have a serious falling-out while driving home from Mass–something to do with the Holy Family versus the welfare state–and now they’re not talking.“Some Christmas,” Dad declares, opening a late-morning beer. Will Len manage to rise above the bitter disappointment of house slippers? Will his parents reach across the aisle for the sake of the day? Will Sam learn a Christmas lesson that doesn’t fit smoothly into his “holiday broadcast”? In John Manderino’s The True Meaning of Myrrh, these and other questions get answered, including what myrrh is or isn’t.