Reminiscent of Lee Smith's "Oral History" or of "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns for its intimate portrayal of mountain life in an earlier day, "The Christmas Quilt" is a compelling and tender account of seven months in the lives of the members of a family in the mountains of north Georgia. It will endear you not only to its storyline, but to the pictures it paints of Sunday dinners, of picking blackberries, of running train tracks, of a revival meeting, and of Granny creating a quilt for her long-absent son.