Every town has its secrets. When it becomes known that Mr. Nicholas, the eccentric owner of the local hardware store, is somehow involved with reindeer, toys, and children, the town becomes more and more suspicious that this man is more than just a clerk on Main Street. 

JB, a clever, open ten-year-old boy with Down syndrome, is able to figure out the secret from the first time Mr. Nicholas gives him a chocolate deer wrapped in gold foil. JB’s father and mother, both cynical and on the brink of divorce, follow JB's adventures as he reminds folks all that is easily forgotten by those who are too busy to remember the magic of Christmas, cuckoo clocks, and love.

"Christopher de Vinck has the insight and the courage to speak for those small devotions, dangerously unfashionable in our time, by which a human community lives." ––Wendell Berry

"Christopher de Vinck's writings are widely and wisely attentive; they neglect neither the failures and anguish nor the compassion and hope of this world. They are elegant. They give insight and comfort. They cannot help but nurture the spirit." ––Mary Oliver

Hardcover with dust jacket, 157 pages. 2021. Foreword by Joanne Rogers, wife of Fred Rogers.