Christmas Lists

Bill and Carlota meet by accident, a slight bump of their vehicles in front of Una Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee. Both are single parents with a child in the first grade. Both are university students, Carlota a senior poetry major at Vanderbilt and Bill, recently arrived for graduate study in music composition at Belmont. Christmas Lists is a tender love story where a close friendship of Johnnie and Annie, the two first graders prompts frequent picnics between Carlota and Bill. Carlota doesn’t date and has a disdain for guys ever since her seduction and pregnancy after high school prom. Bill’s wife, Mary, had died in Annie’s childbirth. At their first picnic together, Bill lets Carlota know that he has high regard for the sanctity of marriage, and Carlota gradually warms to this new, non-threatening friendship. As they trade child-care times, Bill introduces Johnny and the reader to the “Hauser Handicap” method for inter-generational competition at games such as checkers. He plays with six checkers against Johnny’s twelve, and with eight against Annie. This sense of fairness is later picked up by Carlota’s mother. Bill wraps tunes around some of Carlota’s poems and Carlota revises the lyrics of one of Bill’s songs, and the two explore the prospects for song-writing together. The book includes the lyrics of nine original songs which are a significant part of the story. A delicious and delightful Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Carlota’s parents, Hank and Connie, turns sour as Hank and Bill get into a tiff, but the ladies settle ruffled feathers. After considerable thought, Carlota seeks the advice of her teacher-friend, Melody Bishop and of her mother, and finally answers Bill’s question in song, “Can You Love Me,” with her “Yes, Forevermore.”