Christmas Gift Ideas: Part 3 of 4 - TWO Peeks into the Bush Family...

Friends!  This week I’ve got highly entertaining reads that would make wonderful Christmas gifts for you or for your friends, especially if you’re fans of the Bush family. You’ll be enlightened and will learn a lot.

Many months ago, my friend, Shirley, from book club, who’s always “in the know,” told me Jenna Bush Hager was coming to the Kentucky Center for the Arts (KCA) in May of this year.  She would be talking about her new book about her grandparents, Everything Beautiful in Its Time:  Seasons of Love and Loss. (If you bought a ticket, your ticket included a signed copy of the book.) We jumped at the chance.

Then Covid happened, and the May event was postponed until September.  Then September rolled around, and the KCA announced Jenna would join the audience via Zoom, or a screen, or however they were going to do it virtually. Shirley and I opted out of that, getting a refund for the tickets, buying our own copies of Jenna’s book to read later.  (It’s got to be terribly challenging to launch a book during Covid!)

I’ve just finished Jenna’s book and loved every chapter.  Being a big fan of the Bush family, this book does not disappoint.  Note the subtitle:  Seasons of Love and Loss. I needed a Kleenex more than once. 

Jenna openly shares about her close relationships with all of her grandparents.  I didn’t just cry tears of sadness for her (Three of the four grandparents died within one year!), I cried from laughing on more than one occasion, i.e. “the Enforcer’s” stories are killer funny. (Yes, that would be Barbara Bush, George H.W.’s wife.)

There are beautiful pictures in the center of the book showing Jenna and her twin sister, Barbara, with both sets of grandparents on all kinds of adventures. Heartwarming!

I consider this book an excellent resource for other reasons.  The take-home value is at a premium.  Jenna shares numerous pearls of wisdom her grandparents taught her over the years, including rules for their home in Kennebunkport, Maine, and guidelines for living from George H.W. Bush.  Jenna relays her whole family are “prolific letter writers.” (I knew this from having read George W.’s book on his father, 41: A Portrait of My Father.)

Back to Jenna’s book:  We readers get to read letters from Jenna’s Grandmother Bush, “Ganny,” and even excerpts from her Grandfather Bush’s (“Gampy”) prayer at his inauguration. Prayers Jenna read in her church after her Grandfather Bush’s funeral, etc., are also included.  These are beautiful and a delight to read.

Even Jenna’s Mother’s Mother, “Grammee” Welch’s obituary is given to allow us to become better acquainted with her. We also get to read the Scripture verses Jenna’s Mother, and Father, and sister, Barbara, read at the funeral, plus the poem Jenna shared is included. (Jenna’s Grandfather Welch, “Pa,” died years before Grammee did.)

The title, Everything Beautiful in Its Time, comes from the Scripture Jenna’s sister Barbara read at Grammee’s funeral: 

Jenna and her twin sister, Barbara, wrote two books about their relationship as sisters. I’ve not read the one for adults, Sisters First:  Stories from our Wild and Wonderful Life, but I did order the one for children, Sisters First,  for our granddaughters, Claire and Charlotte, last year for Christmas.  It’s adorable.

Next up, don’t miss The Matriarch:  Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty by Susan Page.

This book, friends, is absolutely delightful.  It is quite the tome, however, nary a word is wasted and you’ll read it quicker than you’d suspect. I laughed out loud so many times, reading excerpts to my better two-thirds, a/k/a John, on more than one occasion.  Barbara Bush is quite the whippersnapper and is not to be outdone.

Author Susan Page comes with grand credentials, being an award-winning Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY.  Susan’s covered six White House administrations and ten presidential elections.  She had several interviews with Barbara Bush and adeptly kept the book very respectful of the Bush family which I greatly appreciated.

You’ll learn astonishing facts throughout the book.  One example comes from Susan reminding us Barbara’s days in the White House were before social media.  She received “more than thirty thousand letters in the first one hundred days of the new administration. Each year in the White House, she would average about one hundred thousand pieces of mail.” Isn’t that wild?  That’s just one of a lot of things you’ll learn.

Two themes emerge from Jenna’s book as well as Susan’s on Barbara:  Faith and family are of utmost importance.  The closeness the children and grandchildren felt with their grandparents is palpable.

Now that John and I are grandparents, it’s my constant prayer to keep our family ties tight.  These babies are growing so fast, we simply try to savor every second we’re with them. 

Both books include part of the commencement address Barbara Bush gave at Wellesley College in 1990. My favorite quote is:

You can’t go wrong with either of these books for a Christmas gift for that special friend.  Now you know how we like to close...Run, don’t walk to your nearest bookstore and snag these books! 

‘Til next time!

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