Skipping Christmas  Skipping Christmas is a comedy novel by John Grisham. It was published by Doubleday on November 6, 2001 and reached #1 on "The New York Times" Best-Seller List on December 9 that year. The book was adapted for the film "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004) by screenwriter Chris Columbus, recorded by actor Dennis Boutsikaris, and released as a 4-CD audiobook by Random House Audio Publishing Group in October 2006. The story focuses on how Luther and Nora Krank try to avoid the frenzy traditionally experienced during the Christmas holiday. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the two take their daughter Blair to the airport, where she departs for a year-long Peace Corps assignment in a remote area of Africa. Seeing all of the busy traveling at the airport, Luther starts to develop an increasingly personal antipathy for normal Christmas traditions, especially knowing that Blair will not be with them for Christmas this year. To make matters worse, Luther is told by Nora to stop by a packed grocery store on a very rainy day, causing him to get soaked, only to realize when getting back in the car that he forgot the white chocolate on the shopping list, forcing Nora to go inside to get it herself. Nora bemoans the fact that the upcoming Christmas will be the first time they have been separated as a family, prompting her husband to calculate how much they spent celebrating the holidays the previous year. When he realizes they have little to show for the $6,100 they invested in decorations, gifts, and entertaining, he decides to skip all the hubbub at home and surprise Nora by booking a 10-day Caribbean cruise aboard the "Island Princess". Nora at first is skeptical but accepts the idea on one condition – that they still donate $600 to the church and Children's Hospital. At first Luther refuses, but when Nora refuses to consider the cruise otherwise, he agrees, and they begin to plan the trip. It doesn't take long for Nora to adjust to the idea of no Christmas shopping or Christmas tree, and not hosting their annual Christmas Eve party. To the couple's amazement, their neighbors on Hemlock Street strongly object to their decision to boycott the holiday, because the Kranks' decision not to decorate their home will jeopardize the block's chances at winning the coveted prize for best decorated block in the neighborhood. Vic Frohmeyer, the unelected "top man" of the neighborhood, leads the townspeople in taunting Luther and Nora about Christmas celebrations by extending a perimeter of people around their lawn, asking a group of Christmas carolers to sing carols on the Kranks' lawn, calling repeatedly to demand that they decorate their house for Christmas, and picketing with signs, "et cetera".