By Laura LaVelle, Wonder Shuffle Culture Editor:

Christmas Days really epitomizes the holiday--strong work, Jeanette Winterson! It begins with a brief cultural history of Christmas and the Christmas story, highlighting Saturnalia, Yule, St. Nicholas, Queen Victoria, the Coca-Cola Company, Charles Dickens, Martin Luther, the Puritans, Odin, and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

It includes twelve recipes and stories about the rituals of cooking, eating, and drinking, and personal history about her family and friends.

It includes twelve fairy tales, about the Spirit of Christmas personified, a magical SnowMama, haunted houses, romance, revenge, the Christmas Fairy, a dog (or maybe a Christmas miracle), ghosts, orphans, frogs, a donkey, angels, heartbreak, regret, and love.

And here's how it ends:

Sometimes the thing we long for, the thing we need, the miracle we want, is right there in front of us, and we can't see it, or we run the other way, or, saddest of all, we just don't know what to do with it. Think how many people get the success they want, the partner they want, the money they want, et cetera, and turn it into dust and ashes - like the fairy gold no one can spend.

So at Christmas, I think about the Christmas story, and all Christmas stories since. As a writer I know that we get along badly without space in our lives for imagination and reflection. Religious festivals were designed to be time outside time. Time where ordinary time was subject to significant time. What we remember. What we invent.

So light a candle to the dead.

And light a candle to miracles, however unlikely, and pray that you recognise yours.

And light a candle to the living; the world of friendship and family that means so much.

And light a candle to the future; that it may happen and not be swallowed up by darkness.

And light a candle to love.

Lucky Love.

BOOK: Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days

AUTHOR: Jeanette Winterson

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2017

IMAGE: book cover, Grove Press

About Me

Laura LaVelle is Wonder Shuffle's Culture Editor. A fan of the great indoors, you can find her in her native NYC, her home in Connecticut, or at a concert, play, library, bookstore, or museum just about anywhere in the world.