A very Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it from Kathryn and Elizabeth! And to everybody who doesn’t celebrate it, happy book-reading!
By this point most people have already read A Christmas Carol, or The Night Before Christmas, or any of a handful of great, classic Christmas stories. So we thought we’d list a few fantasy stories with a little bit of Christmas in them that aren’t usually thought of as Christmas books. Some of them are nice, and some are definitely naughty, so if you’re determined to read something Christmassy, you’ve got something other than The Grinch to curl up with.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
I have to pick Christmas at Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter novel as one of the best literary Christmasses out there, not only because it sounds like a child’s version of the perfect holiday, but because it’s contrasted with what all of Harry’s previous Christmas holidays must have been like. Sure he’s stuck at school, but let’s not forget he’s stuck at a magician’s school, with everything that comes with it, and it saves him from having to spend yet another dreary week with his hateful aunt and uncle.
And if that wasn’t enough, he also gets presents (a couple of them are courtesy of Mrs. Weasley, who really should be nominated for sainthood at some point), and a huge Hogwarts-style feast, and snowball fights with Ron, and learning to play Wizard Chess (with chessmen who don’t quite trust his playing skills and keep shouting suggestions at him). Even the Dursley’s attempt to be stingy falls flat, since Ron is so delighted and amazed at getting to see real Muggle money that it takes all the sting out of getting a fifty-pence piece taped to an envelope as a gift.
“Nicholas Was…”
If you’re looking for something a little more creepy in your Christmas stories, you should definitely check out Neil Gaiman’s short (very short) story “Nicholas Was…” It was a little drabble he wrote for his Christmas cards one year, and it was printed in his Smoke and Mirrors collection, but you can find it all over the internet now, especially since an animated version was created. It’s not even a little cheery, but it’s definitely interesting.
Kushiel’s Dart
In the world of Terre d’Ange, the beautiful servants of Naamah worship their gods with sex. (That’s an oversimplified description of a very complicated religion, but you get the idea.) Every year they celebrate The Longest Night with a Midwinter Masque. (Yes, the Longest Night is technically the Winter Solstice and not Christmas, but the pagan celebrations of the Solstice were folded into the early Christian celebrations, so it has the same feeling.) The halls of the biggest House of the Night Court are carefully cleaned and decorated with white candles and evergreen boughs, huge tables of food and drink are laid out, and the Servants and the peers of the realm all arrive in fantastically elaborate costumes. The Servants don’t accept money for sex like they usually do, they only sleep with whoever they feel like on this night (it’s a very sexy story, as you can tell.)
The Midwinter Masque only takes up a portion of the book, but it’s a celebration that’s returned to many times in the Kushiel’s Legacy series. Be warned, most of the books follow Phedre, a Servant of Namaah who feels pain as pleasure, so the books aren’t always for the easily squeamish. But the decadence of the Night Court and Jacqueline Carey’s amazing descriptions of wealth and beauty always make for a delicious read.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
You’ll have heard of this one, of course, but I’m always surprised it’s not listed among the classic Christmas books. The four children are staying in a distant relative’s mansion for the winter break, and when Lucy finds the door to Narnia she learns that because of the White Witch “It’s always winter and never Christmas.”
When the Witch’s hold is broken we actually get to see Father Christmas, which I always thought was a wonderful touch by C.S. Lewis. A lot of times we hear that Santa is secular, and not really part of a religious celebration. I think Lewis was saying that a symbol of happiness and giving doesn’t have to be out of place in a book that, at its heart, is an allegory for Christianity.