The Homecoming

The Homecoming (1970) is a Christmas novella by Earl Hamner Jr. Loosely based on events from his own life, the story is set on Christmas Eve, 1933. When Clay Spencer does not make it home for Christmas on time, his eldest son Clay-boy goes looking for him. Along the way, Clay-boy is menaced by a deer, must defend his family’s honor from a clueless outsider, crashes in on a Christmas Eve church service, and is waylaid by a pair of elderly lady bootleggers.

As the story begins, Clay is late coming home for Christmas. Because of the Depression, he takes work where he can get it, but this means he can only make it home for the weekends. Clay-boy admires his father, a man who was “a crack shot, a good provider for his family, an honest “look-’em-in-the-eye’ man, an enthusiastic drinker, a prodigious dancer, a fixer of things, a builder, a singer of note, a teller of bawdy stories, a kissing, hugging, loving man whose laughter could shake the house, and who was not ashamed to cry” (16). Yet, as much as he wants to be like his father, Clay-boy harbors dreams of being a writer, and he is not sure what his hard-working, blue-collar father would think of that.

Clay-boy’s mother sends him to cut down a Christmas tree. In the woods, he sees a deer fall into a trap. He thinks about dispatching her with his ax because his family could use the meat, but he helps her out of the deadfall. Meanwhile, an albino buck appears, attracted by the smell of the doe. It charges Clay-boy, who dives underneath the Christmas tree he was about to chop down to get away from antlers and hooves. Finally, he wards it off by making a torch out of a piece of wood and resin. The light irritates the albino’s eyes until it retreats. The buck and the deer make good their escape, and Clay-boy takes the tree home.



Clay-boy and his mother, Olivia, talk about the ways the Depression changed the way the family celebrates Christmas while he sets up the tree. The family does not have money for presents, and only has a few dollars left to spend on food for a large family of eight. The younger children arrive, bringing Olivia’s parents with them, and start decorating the tree. One of Clay Sr.’s friends, Charlie, pays a quick visit, bringing them a turkey he poached; Olivia plans to make it for Christmas dinner. Clay-boy and his friend Birdshot take the children into town where a city lady is handing out toys to the impoverished children—the Spencer children promise their mother that they will not take anything, that they will simply watch. Their father does not believe in handouts. Nevertheless, the youngest Spencer child, Patti-Cake, receives a doll before anyone can stop her. The toy is broken, and although Clay-boy promises to fix it for his sister, she is bitterly disappointed. Clay-boy is also distressed and ashamed, feeling that he betrayed his father.

When the children return, Olivia sends Clay-boy back out to look for his father. He goes to the local watering hole looking for Charlie to ask him for a ride, but the sheriff already arrested him for poaching. Clay-boy catches a ride to a church with the same sheriff who arrested Charlie. The First Abyssinian Baptist Church is along the way to jail and is known for sometimes hosting an illicit poker game. Clay-boy wants to see if his father stopped there. At the church, he gatecrashes a service and is initially uncomfortable because he is the only white person there, and he did not mean to interrupt their service. Nevertheless, the Reverend Hawthorn invites him in out of the cold, and Clay-boy curiously joins the congregation. He sings along with the hymns and watches the Nativity scene. At the end of the service, a black Santa comes in and merrily hands out oranges to the children, including Clay-boy, who gratefully accepts the kindness.

Hawthorn offers to drive Clay-boy up to the Staples sisters’ place to look for his father there. Etta and Emma are two elderly bootleggers who make moonshine up in their big old house. They euphemistically refer to the moonshine as Recipe. They invite Clay-boy in to share the fire, and they give him spiked eggnog. The sisters tell him that they enjoy making moonshine; it brings joy to everyone, gives them something to do in their old age, and brings in a bit of income on the side. Under the influence of the powerful eggnog, he tells them his writing secret. The old ladies decide to put on a record, and by the time it finishes, Clay-boy is seeing double. They offer to let him stay over but he declines, saying he needs to go home. He wonders if he can escape before the weird old lady bootleggers notice. Unfortunately for him, he is well past tipsy, and they end up taking him home in an old sleigh. They drop him off with a mason jar of their Recipe as a Christmas gift. Olivia accepts the jar to make an icing for her applesauce cakes.



Later that evening when the children are in bed, Clay Spencer finally makes it home. He brings them presents, telling them that he wrestled Santa for them. Each of the children gets a brand-new toy, and when it is Clay-boy’s turn, his gift is a fountain pen. His father had known about Clay-boy’s ambitions all along, and the pen was his way of encouraging him.

In 1971, CBS produced a two-hour, made-for-television movie based on the book. The response to the film was so positive that the film inspired the popular prime time television series, The Waltons, which ran for nine seasons between 1972-1981, and produced over 200 episodes. In 2005, a stage adaptation of The Homecoming was produced in Virginia. At the end of the book are two recipes: Olivia’s Applesauce Cake and Jane’s Whiskey Frosting.