Book Review/The Perfect Christmas
The Perfect Christmas 
By Debbie Macomber
MIRA Books
Hardbound $16.95
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
I could say this review is to prove to a reader who told the editor of The News-Review that I only reviewed books that interest me. An old salty Marine reviewing a romantic comedy chic book? But I’d be lying.
While I disagree with the reader who said I only review books that I enjoy, I genuinely like the quick-witted humor that Debbie Macomber writes in her books.
I was first introduced to her by my sister, Frances, whom I was visiting in Florida one year and she suggested I read Macomber’s Christmas book. Debbie writes a Christmas book every year and they seem to get better and better.
In an interview she said, “I tend to go overboard on Christmas because I happen to love the holiday. That is the reason I pen a holiday-themed book every year. At Christmas we so often have such high expectations of what the perfect Christmas should be like. In writing this book, I want to do a spoof on our expectations during this time of year.”
She certainly achieved the spoof part in “The Perfect Christmas,” a hilarious, twisted tale about a soon-to-be old maid. She is determined to find a husband after receiving a Christmas card before Thanksgiving from a married friend who exudes happiness over her martial bliss. The protagonist, Cassie Beaumont, at 33, worries that marriage is passing her by because she is too picky over whom she expects to be a lifelong mate.
Her friend and workmate, Angie, also looking for a husband, tells her about a professional matchmaker who has a money back policy on matching clients to the right mate. He is spendy, but Cassie is desperate and decides it is now or never. She uses the money she has saved for a wedding that has never happened to pay for his services.
Once she has made the appointment with matchmaker Simon Dodson, the reader is in for a roller coaster set of circumstances that only Macomber seems to come up with in her slice of life stories.
Simon might as well be Simon Legree from his superior attitude when Cassie has her first interview. It is almost her last one, but she sticks it out for moreof his insulting inquisitions over her dress, her mannerisms and her speech patterns. He even refuses to allow Cassie to ask questions.
He is one of Macomber’s strong characters in this book as she weaves a tale about the way he handles Cassie’s search for a perfect mate – therefore a perfect Christmas. He claims to have found the perfect mate for Cassie, but first she must accomplish three tasks, one as a Salvation Army bell ringer at a mall; second, by dressing up as a Santa’s elf at a children’s party; and finally, the biggest test of all, to prepare a traditional turkey dinner and invite all her neighbors, none of whom are on a neighborly basis with Cassie.
One neighbor thinks she is inviting him only for some sort of romantic interlude. Another is suspicious because she is the little old lady who steals Cassie’s daily newspaper, returning it after she has clipped all the sale coupons. Yet another is a grouch who grunts when she greets him.
When the dinner is finally prepared and the guests arrive, each one disliking the other, things get very complicated, including Cassie’s discovery that she might have baked a ring that slipped off her finger into the turkey dressing stuffed inside the bird.
Simon is one of the guests who is there to “check out” her performance and make sure she passes the test. She tries to make the guest believe her dressing recipe failed, but each one insists on sampling it and declaring it as the best they have ever tasted.
She worries about a lawsuit for a broken tooth or worse yet, someone choking on her missing ring.
Simon has given Cassie only the first name of the perfect match he has found for her, but says she is not yet ready to meet him formally. In her mind this dinner disaster will cause him to refund her money and doom her to a life as a single with no perfect Christmas like the one her married friend described in that Christmas card pasted on the front of her refrigerator.
Is there a happy ending to this? Oh, yes, but in typical MaComber fashion there is a whiplash ending.
(Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday.com or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)