[2] In fictional Clear River, Nebraska in 1946, 10-year-old Addie Mills is a lonely child who wears large horn-rimmed glasses, living in a plain, ordinary house with her widowed father James and her loving paternal grandmother.
Addie finally wins her class Christmas tree in a supervised contest between Gloria Cott and herself by using a guessing technique learned from her father.
Late that night, Addie sneaks the tree out of the house and surreptitiously donates it to Gloria—the only other student in her class who also goes treeless at Christmas, since the Cotts are too poor to afford one.
For another, Paul Bogart's direction was intelligent, helped considerably by fine performances from Jason Robards as the father, Lisa Lucas as Addie and, especially, Mildred Natwick as the grandmother."
The special, entitled The Thanksgiving Treasure featured essentially the same cast with the exception of guest star Barnard Hughes, as James Mills's nemesis Walter Renquist, and Frannie Michel who replaced Alexa Kenin as Addie's best friend.
In his review, he wrote "this time around, Addie took her classroom Thanksgiving lesson seriously enough to attempt friendship with one of her father's old enemies, an elderly misanthrope living as a recluse on a nearby farm.
After a slow beginning, dawdling too long around school scenes, the hour settled effectively and touchingly on the central relationship of the story.
The Christmas show was so successful,[2] it resulted in three other specials with the same cast, all likewise based on books that Gail Rock had written.
[6] On November 4, 2014, the DVD Holiday Family Classics: The Thanksgiving Treasure / The House Without A Christmas Tree was released by Paramount.
Soon after, there was another "Holiday Family Classics" DVD released by Paramount which included both The Easter Promise and Addie and the King of Hearts.
Houston Grand Opera commissioned an adaptation from composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek.