I love the look of this cat, so fluffy – you know her hair will be super-soft, like a cat we had when I was growing up, in Tucson. He was the sweetest cat, with the most melodic meow, and took care of all the other cats. And he never scratched me – except that time that I decided I should teach him to swim because that would be safer with the pool in the backyard and all. His disagreed and I was wearing a bikini and I still bear the scars. But he didn’t mean it.

This little cat knows that Christmas is coming because, Brown tells us, it’s cold outside and she can smell Christmas trees and tangerines. She knows it’s Christmas because she hears the crackle of Christmas paper and the cracking of nuts.

She knows it’s Christmas because she can smell the snow coming again and hear the streetlights click on: she can hear the snowflakes falling. She runs out to play in the snow and feels the quiet. Brown tells us that cats don’t usually like the cold and the snow but that this cat does.

And the little cat begins to hear jingle bells. But they’re not coming down the street. Where are they? Up in the sky! Guess who the little cat sees, there late at night after the children are all asleep?

Begging to come back indoors, the family lets her in the living room where the fire will thaw her out again – but they forget she’s there and she makes kittycat hay, knocking ornaments off the tree and tearing open the tantalizing wrapping paper under the tree.

And she is banished to the hallway, glass doors shut behind her. She presses her nose against the door, listening to all the tantalizing sounds coming from the forbidden room. The family leaves her there alone, going off together to church, and the house falls silent around the cat again.

Then gradually she hears another sound. It started out low and then it started to grow. Carolers coming to the front door to sing Christmas songs! She lays there purring.

And then sneaks her way back into the living room and curls up under the tree to sleep.

This is a simple book. Similar to Little Bear’s Christmas, it describes the experience of Christmas through the five senses. There’s not a huge plot – but neither is there a plot in Brown’s more famous book, Goodnight Moon.

And like Goodnight Moon, this would be a good book to read to a small child, to help them imagine all the different feelings that Christmas brings and experience them along with the main character.