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 21st 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?
