A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit by Mike Huckabee (2009)

Note: this post includes Amazon affiliate links.

I’m starting my 15th Christmas season on this blog with Mike Huckabee’s A Simple Christmas—a book I thought was fiction (based on the subtitle) but is actually a holiday memoir. No short stories this time around, but I still enjoyed the read.

Mike Huckabee, One-Time Presidential Hopeful

Published in 2009, this book came just after the Governor’s loss to John McCain in the 2008 Presidential Primaries—and quite a few years before his Israel ambassadorship. I’ve long been a Huckabee fan and am so glad he’s remained relevant, a strong Christian believer in the spotlight of Trump’s efforts towards peace in Israel. Although I voted for Dr. Ben Carson in the primaries, Huckabee was a close 2nd, and I hope he can run again someday.

A Simple Christmas – A Minor Critique

I’ve never read Huckabee’s books before, so I’ll open with one minor critique before sharing thoughts and quotes from his 12 chapters: he’s wordy. With better editing, he could have cut these stories down 30% without losing umph. Still, his entertaining life experiences and spiritual lessons kept me reading, and in the end, I learned much about the man I’d never known.

A Simple Christmas Chapter-by-Chapter

Huckabee writes of Christmas experiences is a roughly chronological manner, from early childhood to recent days. In doing so, we get to watch the man reflect with raw honesty about the joys and challenges of marriage and family, ministry and politics. The following are brief synopses, quotes, and comments about each of his twelve chapters.

Chapter 1: Patience (childhood)

Mike compares his own youthful impatience waiting to open his Christmas presents with a spiritual thirst to experience the gift of life that God offers. He also notes how patience in some areas (i.e. waiting for perfectly marbled steaks) illustrates how length of days on Earth will make the glories of Heaven all the more wondrous.

Chapter 2: Sacrifice (1966)

A great chapter about his love for music and the guitars that shaped his childhood and life. I loved this line about the benefits of learning music from a young age:

Unconsciously, music taught me teamwork, discipline, perseverance, and patience. I learned how to persevere through all of those hours of hard practice, and I came to understand what every musician knows—that for every minute onstage, there are hours of lonely practice that no one sees or appreciates. That is a lesson that served me well in speaking, writing, and every endeavor is which I’ve since been a part. (25)

Chapter 3: Loneliness (1967)

This chapter is perhaps the most poignant in the book, as Mike recounts the health struggles of Uncle Garvin. Garvin was a sophisticated bachelor who enjoyed spending Christmas with Mike’s family, until his final one—when his cancer diagnosis forced him to move in with the Huckabees where he withered away physically and died 4 months later. It was a sad, simple Christmas in 1967 that taught Mike a whole lot about loneliness and the importance of family. He writes:

I had  always thought that [my Uncle Garvin] had it great, but that night I realized that he also had something I’d never known before—he had loneliness. It had never occurred to me before that being independent and unencumbered by other people’s schedules, likes and dislikes and needs also meant not having the stability of knowing that there would be someone around to share your burdens or help shoulder your load. (46)

Chapter 4: Family (childhood)

This chapter is all about his family lines on both sides of the tree. He tells some stories about many individuals from the previous 3-4 generations and gives us insight into the Huckabee clan. In this chapter, he has this great line about how Christmas presents supposedly helped determine his political future:

I even tried to find a way to rig the [Christmas present] drawing, which I never figured out how to do. I think that’s one of the reasons I became a Republican instead I’d a Democrat; I just wasn’t able to get the whole ballot-box-stuffing, election-fraud game mastered. (62)

Chapter 5: Tradition (childhood)

In this chapter, he deals with a person’s innate desire for tradition. I really appreciated his take as someone who lives more often on the road than at home about the need for consistency. This is why he uses one hotel chain worldwide, if he can swing it, because the rooms are the same no matter what state or country he’s in.

I’ve definitely been living on the road lately, and while I tend to love the adventure of it all, sometimes homesickness sinks in. For me, though, “home” isn’t anywhere geographic. It’s family and being together. Yet when I think about the comfort of holiday traditions, I’m a bit saddened. I realize again—my family doesn’t have too many! For Thanksgiving, we ate a street-food duck. Thanks to our recent move, we’ve got no Christmas decorations and no tree. Christmas is about a week away, and we’ve yet to make plans. All this to say that traditions are a luxury. Enjoy them if you have them, and start making them if you don’t.

Huckabee touches on another reason why traditions are sometimes hard to form, especially for newlyweds—with a poignant shoutout to Israel 16 years before its time:

It’s difficult for every married couple; how do you combine the traditions of one family with the traditions of another? It might be easier to get Israeli and the Palestinians to the peace table than to resolve some of the challenges of mixing two very different family rituals into one harmonious Christmas experience. (82)

Chapter 6: Crisis (1975)

This chapter was as powerful as Chapter 3, as Mike describes his wife Janet’s cancer. I loved his 20-20-hindisght view of God’s care for them in not providing a miracle cure:

We learned more from taking the long trail instead of the shortcut and more often than not found that having experienced it, we had credibility to bring encouragement to others who had as many valleys as mountaintops… That Christmas, learned that Gods greatest gift to us is not to remove from us crisis, but to walk through crisis with us. (102-103)

This is 2Corinthians 1:3-7 in action, a passage worth quoting here as well:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Chapter 7: Hope (1976)

Following Janet’s brush with death, the Huckabees were convinced they could never have children—that is, until they found out they were pregnant! Poor as all get-out and trying to make it through seminary without starving, they decide that helping each other bring a new life into the world is all they really need for this very simple Christmas.

Chapter 8: Stability (1977)

As they move into their third year of marriage, Mike and Janet and little John Mark get the joy of a new job and the chance to buy their first house. They get a real taste of the American dream, one that in my 40s I’ve still yet to enjoy, though we have out reasons.

Mike’s focus on stability for the family, though, whew. That one got to me, because it’s something I’ve yet to provide my own wife and kids. We talked about it this morning actually: as a family, we’ve got consistency in the bag, but consistency and stability are not equal, and sometimes a mother just wants to lay down some roots. It was nice to read Mike’s recollections of those days.

Chapter 9: Limitations (1979)

This was a very long, fairly unnecessary chapter about Mike’s inability to put together a tricycle for his son’s Christmas. The moral of the story is that we’re all gifted and not gifted in different ways: Mike Huckabee can run a state, but he can’t follow instruction manuals.

Chapter 10: Transitions (adult life)

In this chapter, Mike’s all grown up and we finally we get into his history of pastoring and politics. This is the stuff I was wanting to learn. That he never fizzled out throughout all those years, never had a scandal, always kept the faith, and is currently serving as the Ambassador to Israel—dang it, this makes him a guy worth knowing more about, don’t you think?

Chapter 11: Faith (1996)

This is a full chapter about Huckabee’s father who overcame his bitterness about church and eventually became a dedicated Christian and great example to the family, thanks in part to Mike’s own testimony and growth in the Lord. It’s also about his father’s death—which sadly came just a few months before Mike became Governor—and the lasting impact he’s had on his life.

As a fan of Dad Jokes, too, I enjoyed this line about fatherly humor:

Kids never think their parents are really very funny or entertaining. Of course, my kids still don’t think I’m very funny or entertaining, but I’ve fixed that by cutting them out of any inheritance until they acknowledge the wonderful world of humor that I’ve imparted to them. No laughs, no loot. I think that’s fair. (178-179)

Chapter 12: Rewards (2006)

In this chapter, Huckabee provides a summation of all that’s gone before, as he prepares to leave the Governor’s Mansion for the last time. It’s a fitting end to an enjoyable memoir.

Conclusion

I’ve been lookout for short-story-styled memoirs and biographies in the vein of Roald Dahl’s two books Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984) and Going Solo (1986). I think I found that with this great read from Huckabee. Sure it’s a touch wordy, and sure you’ve probably got to be either a Republican or a Christian to enjoy it, but I’m both, so I did. It’s informative, mildly humorous, and down-home-bumpkin at times—and hey, it hit the spot for me.

Now on to my next Christmas read: Exploring the Joy of Christmas by Phil and Kay Roberson (2015)—yup, of Duck Dynasty fame.

©2025 E.T.