5 Holiday Books to Cozy Up With on a Winter's Day
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The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern
Read this if…you want to start a new holiday reading tradition.
This 1943 short book will be perfect if you love holiday traditions. I see it as a peaceful Christmas week literary time-out: sitting with a cup of spiced-apple tea, cozied up in one’s reading chair with this brief tale of George Pratt and his small-town despair that turns into a celebration of gratitude and meaning. Alternatively, a family tradition of reading this aloud wouldn’t be out of place. This is the short story that Frank Capra’s feted 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life was based on, and the edition I have is the deluxe release marking the fiftieth anniversary of the movie’s release. The classic black and white drawings by Ontarian illustrator Scott McKowen are a fantastic addition, and the afterword by Van Doren Stern’s daughter Marguerite Stern Robinson relates the story of her father’s story, a neat telling in itself.
For me, this book is about gratitude. When I read this simple story, I saw the hurt and depression in George, and felt a sort of kinship; I suspect all of us human souls have had those times when nothing is okay, thinking we’d be better off never having been born. The story works because one senses that this is a brief moment of despair for George, who is otherwise loved and supported in his life. A gentle reminder of gratitude works. For many of us, this is also what helps. For others, though, what the angel shows George about a world without him in it would not be enough to overcome their sadness. Their stories may end differently, or they may need different sorts of help. I found that important to remind myself as I read, which changed the message from gratitude to compassion, another valuable lesson.
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You Better Watch Out by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth
Read this if…you want to cut the saccharine-sweetness of the holiday season with a bit of gore.
I always like to pick out one Christmas horror or thriller novel per season. I love the horror genre, and I find that I like the sharp edges of a good creepy book as a foil to the general sweetness and light that is the holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, I love the lovely celebration of December, but it’s all the merrier when there’s a hint of horror to draw your gaze into the shadows just behind the Christmas lights and festive displays.
You Better Watch Out was an interesting book: it started simply and I had my doubts about the set-up but it did not disappoint! A creepy deserted town decked out for Christmas, with loud speakers blaring a warped version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and several unfortunate folks fighting to survive until Christmas morning dawns? Yes please! Seriously, it got better and better, and at some point, I had that great feeling that a book gives when you just want to read faster so that you can see what happens. There was a decent helping of the “No! Do not go there! Don’t climb down into that tunnel!” type of thing, the classic horror fodder, and I liked it.
I don’t want to overhype the book. It was basic, not super sophisticated and stretched credulity at many points. And there’s a fair amount of gore and weirdly inventive methods of dying, but all of that led to quite a campy feel. It was over the top and I’m sure the writers were well aware. It won’t be for everyone, but it was short and can be read in a day, it was fun and mixed suspense and silliness, and it had all I wanted for a horror Christmas fix.
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Yours for the Season by Uzma Jalaluddin
Read this if…a sweet holiday romance with a side of family drama is what you’re craving.
Yours For the Season is a really nice introduction to the holiday season. Sameera is a lawyer in Atlanta, recently separated from her long-term boyfriend who was a real piece of work, to say the least. She’s also been estranged from her family for a couple of years, and has only recently started talking to them again. The book starts with her meet-cute with Tom, an up-and-coming chef who’s working on growing his social media viewership. They make a deal to help each other out in a fake dating scenario…platonic, of course.
Jalaluddin has written a sweet romance with good pacing, and it kept my interest fairly well. I liked the two main love interests, Sameera and Tom, and they had a nice chemistry. There was a fun focus on food, with lots of Indian food represented. It made me want to cook up some biryani myself! Tom’s friend Andy was an interesting sort, and Jalaluddin had me guessing and then second guessing myself as to his motivations. And Sameera’s family in particular was a pleasure to read, kind of hilarious.
I will warn that this book is lighter on the romance and heavy on the family drama, as much about Sameera and Tom reconciling with their respective families on this trip to Alaska (oh, did I mention the story is set at Christmas/Eid al-Fitr in Alaska?) as it is about the romance. Sameera herself is wrestling with how her identity as a non-religious Muslim fits in with her parents’ expectations, a compelling plot point.
Overall, I recommend this for those looking for a sweet Christmas and Eid romance with a beautiful Alaskan setting, with fun and meaningful family dynamics that are just as important as the central love story.
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A Christmas Visitor by Anne Perry
Read this if…you love novellas with traditional British Victorian-era settings and a bit of cozy mystery at Christmas. Though to me it was a bit over the top and silly (which might actually be a selling point to be honest).
I’ll admit that I am an Anne Perry newbie. I get the sense that her books have a large following, much of which is detective fiction that feature recurring characters. Perry was a Scottish novelist, and passed away in 2023. I did a double take when I looked up her bio: she was born in London as Juliet Hulme and was convicted of murder when she was 16, a case dramatised in the movie Heavenly Creatures. She changed her name to Anne Perry and moved back to the UK. Her dual life wasn’t uncovered until 1994.
That out of the way–which I only discovered on gathering information to write about this book–I am amazed about how prolific a writer she was. She wrote one Christmas novella per year for 21 years, until she died, from 2003 to 2023. They often feature characters from her previous novels, but are not really interrelated. A Christmas Visitor is the second (2004), and the one that happened to be available on audiobook. Apparently some folks have a tradition of reading one of her holiday novellas each year, and I totally get that.
However, I’m going to warn the Perry novella lovers right now that I had some difficulty with this one. It was actually very fun to listen to, but almost because of its shortcomings. It’s a simple story of a well-to-do family living on an estate in the English countryside. The oldest of four brothers, Judah, lives with his wife and nine-year-old son in the beautiful manor house. Judah was a judge, and years ago ruled against a local man in a forgery case about said estate; after the man went to jail, Judah bought the house for a steal. This enabled his brothers to travel the world pursuing their passions. They’re all coming back for Christmas, but Judah has been murdered. Will the family, and good friend Henry, our older narrator from London, be able to solve his murder?
(Slight spoilers follow) First of all, this family is so privileged, and the polar opposite of self-aware of their good fortune. I had a hard time not shaking my head. Honestly, Judah the judge should never have bought the estate at a competitive price after sentencing the seller to jail for eleven years for fraud. It screams conflict of interest. When the family cannot figure out why Judah might go to a rendezvous in the woods late at night, they never even considered anything that would put him in a bad light. And everyone was so amazing and good, and beautiful and handsome. The bad guys were out of shape and not very attractive. And at the end, I really didn’t understand why the person they say murdered Judah did it; rather, the book just seemed to end. And the family all just seemed a trifle too cheerful for the way things ended.
That said, maybe I would listen to another of Perry’s Christmas novellas, because they seem to reflect a bygone era of old Britain and also A Christmas Visitor just did seem fun because it was so improbable and silly.
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A Festive Season on Vancouver Island by Bill Arnott
Read this if…you’re a local, or going to visit Vancouver Island, and would love a personal guide through some key Island areas during the festive season.
For something completely different, I’ll end with a very local book from Bill Arnott, a prolific British Columbian writer who has of late specialised in travel writing: guides of a sort, but filled with bits of memoir, local history, and some really cool art. The current volume is a new release this season from Rocky Mountain Books. This time, he took a trip to the southern half of Vancouver Island, from Campbell River in the north and Victoria to the south. I’ll be doing a full blog post that will highlight the book in more detail and show you some of the adventures I got up to with the book as I followed in Arnott’s footsteps recently. What makes his books unique is not only his rather free-form galavanting, but also the conversations that he has with locals and the way that allows the reader to see one layer beneath the usual sightseer’s superficiality. I spent my time with his book in the Victoria area and it got me out visiting places that I’d never really been, even though I grew up there. This would also make a very thoughtful gift for a local.
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Happy holidays again, and I hope that you’ll find something from my festive reading list that will make the season just a bit brighter and even more fun.
Drop a comment below if you have any excellent holiday suggestions. Perhaps I’ll get to them next year. I’d love to explore other holiday traditions a bit more too! And should I read more Anne Perry?
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