"A Christmas Memory" is a short story by Truman Capote. Originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963. It was issued in a stand-alone hardcover edition by Random House in 1966, and it has been published in many editions and anthologies since.

The largely autobiographical story, which takes place 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 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.

"A Christmas Memory" is about a young boy, referred to as "Buddy," and his older cousin, who is unnamed in the story but is called Sook in later adaptations. The boy is the narrator, and his older cousin — who is eccentric and childlike — is his best friend. They live in a house with other relatives, who are authoritative and stern, and have a dog named Queenie.

Truman Streckfus Persons (September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984), known as Truman Capote ( /ˈtruːmən kəˈpoʊtiː/), was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At least 20 films and television dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.

Capote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother and multiple migrations. He had discovered his calling as a writer by the age of 11, and for the rest of his childhood he honed his writing ability. Capote began his professional career writing short stories. The critical success of one story, "Miriam" (1945), attracted the attention of Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract to write Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood (1966), a journalistic work about the murder of a Kansas farm family in their home, a book Capote spent four years writing, with much help from Harper Lee, who wrote the famous To Kill a Mockingbird. A milestone in popular culture, In Cold Blood was the peak of his literary career, though it was not his final book. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity status by appearing on television talk shows.

Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987) was an American actress. She starred in at least two dozen feature films, but she was primarily known for her performances in American theater. She was nominated for an Academy Award eight times, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful in March 1986, just over a year before she died.

Page was born in Kirksville, Missouri. She attended the Goodman School of Drama (later renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago and studied acting with Uta Hagen in New York. She began appearing in stock theatre at 17 years of age.

Page was a trained method actor and worked closely with Lee Strasberg.

Her appearance as Alma in the 1952 Off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke at the downtown Circle in the Square Theatre is as legendary as anything^{[peacock term]} that has ever happened in the American theater. Summer and Smoke had not been particularly well received in its Broadway incarnation. Page's performance (as the minister's daughter consumed with infinite longing) and that 1952 production, directed by José Quintero, gave the play a new life, and, according to common wisdom^[who?], it was that production (for its daring, for its fervor, for its being "downtown" rather than in the artistically "safe" realm of Broadway) which gave birth to the Off-Broadway movement in New York theatre. Her work continued, on Broadway, as the spinster in The Rainmaker and as the frustrated wife whose husband becomes romantically obsessed with a young Arab, played by James Dean, in The Immoralist.