The mad joys and wild emotions of Christmas are captured in Joseph Bottum's new book, "The Christmas Plains." His memoir of growing up on the South Dakota plains include the sweet, comic, sentimental and serious snapshots of the holiday. Bottom is one of the nation's most widely published essayists and poets, with work appearing in magazines and newspapers from the Atlantic to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and National Review. Bottum is the former editor in chief of the journal First Things and former literary editor of the Weekly Standard, where he remains a contributing editor and regular writer.
"The Christmas Plains"
