Mainlining Christmas

A Christmas Journey Anne Perry, 2003 Premise: A bunch of rich snobs drive a young lady to suicide at a Christmas party and then make another lady travel to Scotland because she feels guilty. What in the hell did I just read? It wasn’t a romance. It wasn’t suspense. It barely had a plot. I guess it’s tepid historical fiction? It was really odd. I liked the beginning, I thought maybe it was going somewhere. I liked that the main character’s name was Vespasia, that’s dramatic even just to read. However, as the insignificant details mounted, and discoveries came to light about a character who really got very little page time prior to her death, I just couldn’t bring myself to care. There were some almost okay parts where Vespasia reflects on her friendship with Isobel and how it brought them both to the back end of Scotland in the dead of winter (to carry the news of the deceased young lady to her mother). But sadly, most of it was just navel-gazing. Boring navel-gazing. Vesp

I sat down with Glenn Beck's famous Christmas story expecting to hate it. I started with low expectations - possibly some of the lowest I've ever had for anything, ever. But then something unexpected happened: something that can only be called a Christmas miracle: I hated it even more than I thought I would. The story of "The Christmas Sweater" is loosely based on Beck's childhood. The introduction seems like it's intended to mislead you into thinking it's a true story, but it's almost immediately obvious that's not the case. To be fair, Beck includes a section at the end offering a quick overview of what's true (the name of his parents' bakery) and what's BS (pretty much everything else). There's a lot to hate about this. The humorous bits aren't actually funny, the characters don't come close to feeling real, the last 99% of the story drags, and the writing's about as bland as fiction can get. But, more t

Manga Claus: The Blade of Kringle Writing: Nathaniel, Marunas, Art: Erik Craddock, 2006 Premise: One small disgruntled elf plus a large amount of black magic spells trouble for the North Pole. Can even his magic swords help Santa save Christmas now? This was an odd, cute little book. The art was fun, and the story was silly. The beginning was probably the best part, and I wish it had been a story about Santa just hanging out in feudal Japan. I really wanted to like this more; it seems like a cute idea and one of the creators thanked a (sadly now-gone) comic store I’m rather fond of. But it wasn’t great, just fine. The evil magic teddies were cool. The larger plotline of the elf messing with magic worked at times, but the resolution felt really wrong to me. I just don’t have much more to say about this. It was really short.

Generation X Holiday Spectacular (1995) Scott Lobdell, Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham This little story about Generation X (Generation X is a team of teenage X-men, mostly second and third stringers I don’t know much about) intervening in a hostage situation in a Maine town isn’t terribly holiday related except for the snow. And the fact that the narration seems to be done by an elf hiding around the edges of the panels. That doesn’t have any bearing on the story, though. It’s okay, I guess, although the little snippets of characters unconnected to the story are more interesting than the story itself, and the villain seems awfully annoying. Generation X Holiday Special (1998) Joseph Harris, Adam Pollina, et.al. The same super-lame villains strike again, this time trying to kidnap a kid on Christmas Eve who’s only wish for Santa is to not be a mutant. The art is stronger in this one, and there’s some interesting snippets of character stuff early on when all the young mutants

The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas Madeline L’Engle, 1984 Premise: Vicky Austin is always excited in December, but there’s a lot more to be excited about this year, since she’s been cast as an angel in the Christmas Pageant, although her Mother is very pregnant, and who knows whether she’ll be home for Christmas! This little short story was.... fine. Cute, even. It’s all from little Vicky’s perspective, so the drama is very small and the solutions are very black-and-white. Oh, no! Mommy might be in the hospital over Christmas! Oh, now she’s being sensibly reassured. Oh no! Vicky is too clumsy to be an angel! Oh, Mom just taught her how to walk with a book on her head, so she’ll be fine. Well, good thing there wasn’t any tension. The title alludes to the Austin family’s habit of doing something “special” every day leading up to Christmas. However, since some of those “special” things are as simple as opening Christmas cards and there isn’t even a list of all the activities for ki

Deck the Halls Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, 2000 I found this book on a list of books tagged “Christmas” on goodreads. Apparently the Clarks, mother and daughter, have written a list of novels together all set at Christmas. Premise: Two successful novelists decide to cram all their popular characters together in the space of 200 pages. For Christmas. This book was an absolute mess. As I said above, it appears to be that both women took the protagonists of their successful suspense series and put them in a book together. This book is so short that you don’t get a sense of any of the characters, just told “this is person X and they are a Y” and the fact that you should care about them is assumed. The villains are petty and boring, the heroines sort of useless and bland. There are really useless, dull red herrings, and none of the sundry investigators do anything productive that actually leads to the resolution. On a certain level, there was something a little cr

I’m going through my collection of holiday-themed back issues, looking at two issues every week until Christmas! The Tick’s Big Yule Log Special 1999 Concept: Ben Edlund, Writer: Marc Silvia, Penciller: Gabe Crate, Inker: Tak Toyoshima In this holiday story, The Tick and Arthur head to New York for a Christmas party at the Superheroes-only Comet Club. Meanwhile, Barry (the wannabe Tick) hires a villain to crash the party so he can ‘save’ everyone and show up the Tick. This is a funny story, although I could have used maybe a couple more pages; it felt quite short. It was a great read though, with a downright heartwarming-ish speech from Tick, and ninjas hiding in the party decorations. The Tick’s Big Yule Log Special 2000 Concept: Ben Edlund, Story: Clay and Susan Griffith, Pencils: Gabe Crate, Inks: Tak Toyoshima The story in this one is called It Came From Outer Space to Ruin Yet Another Christmas . Tick brings Tunn-La (not of this Earth) home for the holidays, and Arth

The Battle for Christmas Stephen Nissenbaum, 1996 Premise: Non-Fiction book tracing the origins of American Christmas traditions, with emphasis on the shift from a more public-focused carnival Christmas to a more child-focused domestic holiday. I found this book really interesting, if a bit long. Nissenbaum is a little too enamored of his own narrative, and sometimes doesn’t completely back up his proposals with evidence. That said, all of the stuff that is corroborated is really interesting. I most enjoyed the accounts of how Puritans fought the celebration of Christmas and then later, in the early 1800’s, how gift-buying became fully central to the expectations of the season. It was fascinating reading about the creation of “Gift Books”, which became popular very quickly in the mid 1820’s. They may be one of the first products produced specifically to be purchased as a gift, and one of the first items sold to specific demographics created by marketing. What I mean is, you might b

The Christmas Basket Debbie Macomber, 2002 Premise: Girl met boy, lost boy, left hometown in a terrible snit, returns years later successful but lonely career woman to face boy, their feuding moms, and Christmas. Wow. Romance is silly. I mean, anyone who says otherwise is just deluding themselves. It's not necessarily bad, but it is darn silly. Particularly this light bit of fluff from noted romance author Debbie Macomber. Apparently Ms. Macomber writes a Christmas book every single year, so a friend suggested she'd be a good choice to spotlight for Mainlining. Why did I read this one? It was available at my local library and it won an award. Simple as that. I flew through this book in a single evening, and most of the details have left my brain already, but for romantic fluff, it wasn't bad. Sure, every single character was a sitcom-level moron and they all deserved the stupid pits they’d dug themselves into, but it was still okay to read. The main problems w

2011 Bonus! The BEST holiday comic experience this year is the delightful one-page piece over at Mike Maihack's blog. Click HERE! In my quest to experience as much Christmas as possible, I picked up a couple of holiday-looking issues during a sale at my local comic shop. The Larfleeze Special I got when it came out last year. These are all really fun issues. Happy Holidays and Merry Reading! JLA #60 (Released 2001) Writer: Mark Waid, Pencils: Cliff Rathburn, Inks: Paul Neary, Colors: David Baron “Twas the Fight Before Christmas!” This is an incredibly silly little one-shot story, in which Plastic Man tries to convince a kid that Santa is on the Justice League. His explanation of how this came to be involves Neron, demon elves, evil gingerbread men, and Santa's surprise super-powers. The kid often knows more about the League than Plastic Man, and corrects the hero, like any good comic nerd. It's extremely zany, and I definitely enjoyed it. DCU Infinite Holida

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus L. Frank Baum, 1902 Cross-posted at Blue Fairy's Bookshelf This is a rather unique little... novella, I guess I would call it by the length. Probably one of the earliest attempts to really codify a “logical” life story for Santa Claus. I found it interesting, though, that even given a few animated specials that adapt this story directly, very little of this story has directly migrated into the popular conception of Santa. This could be one of the things that pulled the idea of Santa into the framework of “fairy tale” rather than “religious/mythic figure”, but I couldn't find out much about its original reception or effect. Eschewing any references to Saint Nicholas, the historical figure, this Santa is a foundling raised by wood nymphs and fairies, called Claus because it means something like “small one”. Most of the story is pretty cute: the fairies raise Claus, and since all manner of immortal spirits are his friends and prote

Lindsay bought this for me last Christmas, and - having taken a year to recover from the holidays - I recently cracked it open for a read. Like most books about the holidays, this was marketed as a Christmas present. The writer, John Grossman, is apparently a collector specializing in printed cards, promotional publications, and the like. Here, he's brought together some fascinating images demonstrating a darker side to the season. As a collection of images, the book is awesome. As a look at history, it's less impressive. In the chapter introductions and image blurbs, Grossman makes some grand claims about how Christmas used to be, but he offers little context to back this up. The images certainly display some fascinating depictions of the holidays from the past, but he avoids addressing whether these represented the normal iconography of their respective eras or if they were outliers. None of this impacts the book's value as something to flip through, of course. Imag

The Solstice Evergreen is a collection of myths and stories related to evergreen trees, which together are ostensibly supposed to make some sort of point about their prominence during the holidays. In her introduction, the writer, Sheryl Ann Karas, explains that she wasn't raised Christian but was fascinated by the existence of the Christmas Tree. The book is kind of about coming to terms with that. It's an interesting premise, but I think this could have been done better. There are a few components to this book. Each chapter begins with a short essay about evergreens, Christmas, or mythology, then abruptly shifts to a bunch of very short myths and/or stories. These are taken from all over the world, with a disproportionate number originating from indigenous people whose stories (we assume) were neither influenced by nor had any influence on the custom under discussion. To her credit, Karas doesn't claim otherwise. The stories are included due to thematic and topica

Hogfather Terry Pratchett, 1996 Crossposted at Blue Fairy's Bookshelf. Premise: It's winter on the Discworld, so it's time for the Hogfather to bring presents to all the children. Except the Hogfather is missing. It's up to Susan, Death's granddaughter to save the day. She would really like to know why Death is climbing down chimneys, why new gods and fairies seem to be appearing, and what all this has to do with an Assassin with an unique view of reality. I love many of the Discworld books, but this is one of my very favorites. It scratches all my holiday itches: the power of belief, ancient pagan roots, mocking "picturesque" holiday stories, and saving the world. I love it from the very start. Here's page one: Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.  But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things. They wonder aloud how the snowplow driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictio

Wreck The Halls Jen Yates, 2011 I just finished reading through the new Cake Wrecks book, and Erin can vouch for the amount of giggling, laughing and snickering which escaped me as I did so. If you enjoy Cake Wrecks the blog, you know what you're in for: photos of embarrasingly bad professional cakes and amusing, often punny commentary. This collection is tied together by holiday themes, starting with Thanksgiving and running through New Years. There's an enjoyable side trip to sci-fi cakes, as well, but by far the most number of photos are of terrible Christmas cakes. Scary santas, misshapen reindeer, unidentifiable lumps of 'snow'; all are well represented. I especially liked the chapter which 'illustrates' ' Twas the Night Before Christmas. You can verify with a quick trip to cakewrecks.com whether this style of humor is up your alley. It's not necessarily for everyone, and the use of exaggerated fonts in the book sometimes pushes the jo

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King E. T. A. Hoffman, 1816 Translation by Joachim Neugroschel Crossposted at The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf So, after watching several different versions of the Nutcracker Ballet for Mainlining Christmas, I wanted to go back and read the original story. That proved to be harder than it sounds, but I finally got access to a Penguin classics edition at the library. (This volume also included the slightly sanitized retelling of the tale by Dumas that the ballet is technically based on, but I'm only looking at the original.) As a work this story seems to consciously evade categorization. The story is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fairy tale, a surrealist fantasy, with a story within a story that seems to want to mock the conventions of fairy tales but is still a fairly classic example. I found it intriguing throughout, but a bit exhausting to read. The basics of the story are the basics of the ballet: Marie becomes obsessed with the Nutcracker tha

Reading this book was an odd experience for me, kind of like overhearing a conversation where you're familiar with the subject matter, but are coming at it from a drastically different point of view. I started out really disliking the book for reasons I'll get to in a moment, but ended on a more positive note. Since it's the Christmas season, I'd like to start with the negative, which is easily done since it means starting at the beginning. The book is billed as a history of the holiday, and indeed it opens with pre-Christian festivals. However, right from the start, Forbes defines Christmas as a Christian holiday which was inspired by pre-existing celebrations. While he's open about the significance of Roman festivals like Saturnalia, he's fairly dismissive of them. The term he uses for pre-Christian celebrations is "party," and he never explores a spiritual side to these events. The reason, it seems, is that the book is written by a Chr

Cross-Posted from The Blue Fairy's Workshop Hercule Poirot's Christmas Agatha Christie, 1939 I find Agatha Christie to be an acquired taste that I've never quite acquired. I enjoy her work, usually, but it takes me a long time to get into each book. This was no exception. Once the story got going I quite liked it, but there were a lot of character introductions to get through first. Once the extended family was all together at the manor house, they got right down to the business of Christmas: acrimonious backstabbing, awkward flirting, and murder. Poirot is brought along to assist the local police when patriarch Simeon Lee is found dead in a locked room. He'd assembled his clan of children together for the holidays to emotionally torment them, then threatened to make a new will. So everyone has a motive, but only Poirot can peel through the misdirections and lies to figure out what happened. I especially enjoyed Poirot's amusement at the very British natu

Because I know you can't get enough of reading me prattle on and on about Christmas HERE, I thought it would be a good time to remind you that I've written a novel about Mr. Claus. You can get my fantasy novel, For Love of Children, in print or for just about any e-format you need. And that's not all. I've marked the electronic versions down for the holidays. That's right - you can buy For Love of Children for Kindle, Nook, or... what the hell's Sony's reader called again? Oh, who cares - no one owns one of those anyway. So, yeah. Kindle, Nook, whatever: it's yours for a measly 99 cents. Less than a buck. Here's where you can buy it on Amazon . Here's where you can get it for, well, anything and everything on Smashwords (recommended if you own multiple devices and want more than one format). If you own a Nook, you can get it at Barnes & Noble's online store here . All of the above sites offer free samples, but Smashwo

Cross-Posted from The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens, 1843 With all the different adaptations I've been watching recently, I thought it was time to re-read  A Christmas Carol. I remember reading this in grade school, although I think that we read the dramatization, not the prose. The most striking thing to me is how little is different. There are plenty of cute turns of phrase, clever bits of writing, but most adaptations of the story really do hit all the high notes. Particularly having just recently seen the Muppet Christmas Carol, I didn't think I added much to my understanding by reading the actual text. A few nice moments are missing from the films. I liked the sweet moment between Scrooge and his sister in the past, it really pushed the early softening of the character. There is a good comedic moment in the narration that precedes the second spirit. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing;