What are the main ideas in "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote?

The main theme of the story is the friendship between Buddy and his older cousin, but the nature of this friendship is unconventional at best. Most people might think there is something wrong in their companionship. Clearly the older cousin is mentally impaired, possibly an alcoholic, and certainly unable to live independently. She is, as the narrator says at the beginning, "still a child." The other adults in the house are mentioned only obliquely, but they are the ones in charge, and to an extent the friendship happens in secret. It is certainly true that the truth of their affection for each other is something only they can appreciate.
There are many ideas associated with their friendship: for example, there is the idea that "true" friendship is based on sharing a common view of the world, in this case, a child's view; there is the idea that true friendship somehow is always transgressive, as the episode with the whiskey bears out; there is the idea that even marginal people, like the cousin, or Haha, can be good people. In a way the story is about the world Buddy and his cousin create for themselves as a refuge from a harsher reality. It is this secret world that Buddy misses after he is sent to school; it is what he hopes to find at the end when he searches the sky for a pair of kites "like hearts."


One of the main ideas in "A Christmas Memory" is that true goodness and kindness are often practiced by people who society deems as lesser or unfit. Buddy's "friend," as he calls her (and who is his older cousin), is poor and an alcoholic, but she makes fruitcakes for people she has never met. Sacrificing what little she has and showing Buddy the wonderful gift of giving to others, she spends much of the Christmas season making cakes for President Roosevelt and other people to whom she wants to show kindness. The presents they make for each other, such as kites, are simple but inspired by love. In the end, the relatives who feel that they know better decide that Buddy has to be taken away from his elderly cousin and sent to military school, as they don't really understand the kindness and love that she has shown him and the valuable lessons about love that she has taught him. 

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