For We Read a Little Christmas

One of my favorite things to do to get into the Christmas spirit is read a nice Christmassy book. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, along with a good few that I haven’t gotten to yet but have high hopes for.

Feels Like Christmas... Even If It's Not

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling

Some books put me in mind of Christmas even though they have little or nothing to do with the holiday itself. I’m not sure what it says about me that the books that do that for me are fantasy novels, but perhaps the connection is not all that odd. After all, both of these series are deeply invested in the messages of Christianity, even if they are not overtly about Christianity or Christmas.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... to Fall in Love

How the Dukes Stole Christmas, Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Sophie Jordan, and Joanna Shupe

True-Blue Cowboy Christmas, Nicole Helm

Winter Wonderland, Heidi Cullinan

Nothing says Christmas reading to me like a lovely holiday romance novel. How the Dukes is a collection of four novellas with historical settings by four big names in historical romance. Each of these four stories is in light conversation with a famous Christmas story, and part of the fun of this collection is picking out the references and echoes. True-Blue is a contemporary cowboy romance and hits traditional things associated with 21^st century Christmas celebrating pretty hard—you’ll find tree trimming and cookie making and so on here. Wonderland is an m/m contemporary with slight BDSM overtones. Like many of Cullinan’s works, it’s most excellent in its exploration of male friendship and found family. While the steam levels for these recommendations vary, note that none of them is “sweet”—there’s sex on the page in each of them. So heads up if that is not your flavor.

Deck the Halls with Deductive Reasoning

Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards

The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, edited by Tara Moore 

Here are two collections of Christmas tales that are on my TBR. Since I haven’t read them yet, I can’t vouch for them personally, but I am excited to give them a go. Silent Nights collects fifteen mysteries set at Christmas by British writers, and Ghost Stories presents thirteen Christmas-set ghost stories from the Victorian age. As a fan of A Christmas Carol, I’m particularly interested in tucking into the latter.

Oldies But Goodies

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

A Child's Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas

The Homecoming, Earl Hamner, Jr

Carol and Wales are two of my all-time favorite Christmas stories. I reread Carol every year and have done so since I was in my late teens. If you have never read it (especially if you have only ever seen one of the many admittedly very wonderful film adaptations), I encourage you to give it a try. It’s just the right length to satisfy any desire for Victorian vibes you may have (everyone gets wistful for Victorian times at Christmas, right? No? Just me?) without bogging you down, the details are exquisite, it’s funny, and it’s a wonderful redemption story. Wales is a short story just brimming with old-fashioned Christmas delights and absolutely stunning language. The Homecoming is the novel upon which the TV movie of the same name (which in turn spawned the TV show The Waltons) was based, and it’s a fascinating evocation of Christmas in depression-era Appalachia. Hamner captures his characters (especially the children) so quickly in small moments that they seem to jump off the page.

A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That

The Snow Queen and Other Winter Tales, Barnes and Noble

A Family Christmas, selected by Caroline Kennedy

A Christmas Treasury, Barnes and Noble

These three anthologies all provide a variety of Christmassy and winter tales and stories. Winter Tales is heavy on traditional tales and fairy tales, including many by Hans Christian Andersen, though stories by Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde also appear, as well as a few traditional Native American tales. A highlight may be Alexander Dumas’s novella-length The History of the Nutcracker, which retells E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” (which, unfortunately, is not included). Family Christmas includes mostly shorter Christmas pieces, and contains a lot of songs and poems as well as stories and articles. Be aware that not everything in this collection will be suitable for (or appealing to) children. Treasury collects ten stories and nine poems and would be an excellent one-shot for snagging several classics of Christmastime, including Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, and Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” This anthology also includes lovely full-color and black and white illustrations.

And This Is All True

Perhaps you prefer your Christmas reads with a side of learnin’? This pair of nonfiction Christmas books may suit you. These are also on my TBR (so again, I can’t recommend them personally, except to say that I want to read them).

Why Was the Partridge in the Pear Tree?, Reverend Mark Lawson-Jones

A Jane Austen Christmas, Maria Grace

Partridge is an illustrated little book that explores the history behind popular Christmas carols, examining the meaning of the lyrics, the relevant biblical passages, and the historical context of the carols. In thirteen chapters, Lawson-Jones discusses the history of carols and caroling, the Puritan dislike of Christmas, and the “golden age of carols” before devoting ten chapters to a carol each. Carols discussed include “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” "The Holly and the Ivy,” “Good King Wenceslas,” “The Coventry Carol” and two of my most favorites, “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Once in Royal David’s City.” Austen Christmas illustrates what the celebration of Christmas looked like during Jane Austen’s time (the Regency), before the advent of much of the traditions we associate with Christmas now, many of which began later, in the Victorian period. Topics addressed include dress, games, caroling, gift-giving, food (including recipes), and charity.

What do you like to read at Christmastime? Are any of my favorites your favorites too?