The largely autobiographical story, which is set in the 1930s, describes a period in the lives of the seven-year-old narrator and an elderly woman who is his distant cousin and best friend.

The woman was Nanny Faulk, elder sister of the household where Capote's wayward parents deposited him as a young boy.

"[1] The evocative narrative focuses on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season, and it also gently yet poignantly touches on loneliness and loss.

Now a holiday classic, "A Christmas Memory" has been broadcast, recorded, filmed, and staged multiple times, in award-winning productions.

The family is very poor, but Buddy looks forward to Christmas every year nevertheless, and he and his elderly cousin save their pennies for this occasion.

The next day, Buddy and his friend go to a faraway grove, which the elderly cousin has proclaimed the best place, by far, to chop down Christmas trees.

In a beautiful, hidden meadow, they fly the kites that day in the clear, winter sky, while eating the older cousin's Christmas oranges.

A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string.

This version starring Geraldine Page was also released in cinemas by Allied Artists in 1969 as part of Truman Capote's Trilogy.

For the live-audience Selected Shorts series, broadcast nationally on NPR stations, actor John Shea recorded "A Christmas Memory" in the late 1990s.

[13] Capote was also recorded in 1976 reading the story to a live audience at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference.

A Christmas Memory received its world premiere at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California on December 4, 2010, starring Broadway veteran, Penny Fuller.

The musical had its Off-Broadway premiere at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Manhattan, starring Tony Award-winner Alice Ripley as Sook.

[21] Truman Capote further explored the lives of Buddy and Sook in his story "The Thanksgiving Visitor," which also was adapted for television.