About The Mailbox Tree

Book Description​ of The Mailbox Tree

Time Travel? In a Christmas tree?

Gabriel’s magic ornament transports two boys into a Christmas tree world. There they discover that the tree world is in peril. A sphinx is on the loose! It is devouring Orna folk left and right. They are ill prepared to meet Tree King. It is he who reigns inside the Star at Tree Top.

Once inside the tree world, the boys embark on time travel expeditions through the help of their great grandmother “Nanny.” Her homemade mailbox ornaments have mysteriously become “timeports.” Embroidered on the sides of these mailboxes are past dates in times to which the boys will be traveling. A younger version of their great grandmother, whom they call “Young Nanny,” flies the boys through time in her airplane, “The Spirit of Christmas.”

First, they journey to Christmas future in the year 2525 only to find an enormous volcano shaped like a petrified Christmas tree. The volcano is on the verge of erupting. On its sides are gravestones. The boys have arrived at the cemetery of the Scrooges! There they learn that Christmas future is nearing extinction. They discover they must return to times in Christmas past to find clues that will guide them in repairing the time-wiring. Only in this way can Christmas future be saved.

As they embark on an incredible voyage of time travel, they revisit the dangerous time of the first Hanukkah, the wild celebrations of Roman Saturnalia, Charlemagne’s great Boar’s Head Feast, Puritan New England where Christmas day is not even celebrated, and Charles Dickens’ London on the eve of his publication of A Christmas Carol. It is up to the boys to find clues in the pages of Christmas past that will help them solve a riddle that will save Christmas future from total annihilation.