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CHRISTMAS CAN be a trying subject for writers. The saccharine frivolities, rampant materialism and regimented cheerfulness do not naturally lead to the creation of great works of art. Many books about the holiday itself fall into the category of stocking-filler–the literary equivalent of a pair of socks. But others acutely satirise Christmas’s excesses or movingly convey its capacity to inspire beauty and grace. The six books we recommend here, whether soft-hearted or Scrooge-like, brim with curiosity and wit. They promise to entertain readers long after the Boxing Day leftovers have entered the freezer.
The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday. By Stephen Nissenbaum. Penguin; 401 pages; $18.95 and £16.99
Christmas is supposedly a time of kindness and forgiveness—something forgotten by the sects and salesmen who have fought to control it. In this rollicking social history, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer prize in 1997, Stephen Nissenbaum, a historian, charts the surprisingly fierce battle for Christmas’s soul. In early modern Europe, Christmas was a time of bacchanalia: rowdy wassailers celebrated with pints in the tavern rather than carols in the church. Puritans, inevitably, suppressed and even, in Massachusetts, outlawed it. Christmas was merely a “pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer”. The Bible gives no date for the birth of Jesus, the Puritans pointed out. No less inevitably, the holiday revived. In the 1820s Christmas morphed into its modern form as a celebration of domesticity—an evolution inspired not by religion, but by capitalism. Mr Nissenbaum’s book is replete with historical detail, funny and irreverent: it is the literary equivalent of a knowing wink.
Christmas with Dull People. By Saki. Daunt Books Publishing; 48 pages; £4.99