A Christmas Memory is an autobiographical short story by Truman Capote. Capote is best known for his novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s which was later adapted to a blockbuster film starring Audrey Hepburn. Capote wrote A Christmas Memory, as a nostalgic ode that revealed the darkness beneath the festive glitter, during the depression era in rural Alabama. The protagonist is a seven-year old boy named Buddy. Capote describes the kitchen as an older cousin makes rum-infused fruit cakes, with pecans that Buddy and his friend had collected in the cold. He also describes the excessive whiskey consumption during the holiday season, that was bought from a scary bootlegger named Haha Jones, since the story takes places during the time of prohibition. Capote also talks about how despite the poverty, they sent cakes to friends and family, including one to the then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Capote writes, 

“Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate, too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, “it’s fruitcake weather!”