Christmas is a season of joy, laughter, and abundance. Gifts are given, friendships rekindled, and, on the lucky years, snow is enjoyed by all. The core of Christmas is Christ1, but even when only the exterior facades of joy and generosity remain, the Christmas spirit burns bright in the minds of all Christmas celebrating people, secular, Christian, and others2 alike. Christmas books have, in some sense, an expectation that the Christmas3 spirit, the joy, the generosity, and the kindness, typified by the season triumph and end happily.
Tracy Andreen’s So, This Is Christmas cheerfully keeps this tradition alive, sometimes in boisterous action, but often in subtler, more reflective tones. The characters are imperfect, but lovely just the same, and the plot is built with just enough Christmas magic to twinkle like a quiet star and doesn’t delve too deep into the dark depths of contrivance and coincidence.
Set in the fictional town of Christmas Oklahoma, Andreen4 builds a small yet touching world with problems, and more importantly, solutions. The town of Christmas is (or was) Christmas paradise, with parades and whole town theming, the town was rolling in dough and stacked with tourists during the festive season until the mayor embezzled funds and left the town shattered and still rebuilding. A shadow of its former glory, Christmas, while not quite destitute, appears old, and run down.
Photo by Nadia Jamnik on Unsplash
None of this stops Finley, our protagonist from adding fake and misleading photos of other towns to Christmas’ website in an attempt to impress the rich boarding-school girls that she goes to school with. The illusion is ineffective on the girls who bully her anyway, but for one of her classmates, Arthur Chakrabarti, the trick turns sour when he brings his aunt to Christmas on their annual Christmas trip. As restitution for her misleading web-mastering, she promises Arthur that she’ll give him and his Aunt Esha an “idyllic, perfect, and most [importantly], memorable” Christmas in Christmas.
From there the story spirals into the simple joys of sleigh rides5, cookie baking6, and late library nights7. There’s chaos and calm, and, in the end, everyone gets their happy endings from Grandma Jo to Steve the homeless guy to Finley herself. The story ties itself up in a neat bow that would fit nicely on any Christmas present or bookshelf.
Would I recommend this book? No. For one simple reason: the Andreen chooses to denigrate the French Horn and call it one of the least interesting musical instruments. Say what you will about the horn, but it has never been boring. If you can look past that, the book fits the bill for a comfy Christmas read. The characters are refreshingly likeable, the romance is a bit deeper than love at first sight, and the setting is charming in the most Christmas8 kind of way. I found it at my local library, but it’s also available online on Amazon9 and probably other places where books are sold.
TL;DR if you need a Christmas YA novel, this one isn’t a bad option
P.S. I started reading this book on a road trip, and when I finally made it to this book, the car happened to be in Oklahoma where this story is set. I couldn’t think of a way to organically integrate that into this review, but it’s a fun tidbit and I’m including it.
Footnotes
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Reminder that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, the only Son of God, who died for our sins that we could live forever with him. ↩
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Fascinatingly huge numbers of Americans who follow religions other than Christianity still celebrate Christmas. Can I cite this? Well, I could a long time ago, but leaving windows open on the phone browser is actually a bad way of keeping pages saved, so I lost the link. ↩
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Have I said Christmas enough times yet?
NO! ↩ -
I would have sworn her name was Andersen, but whatever ↩
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on wheels ↩
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if ash counts as cookies ↩
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man, I want those ↩
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No really, are you tired of the word Christmas yet? ↩
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If this thing ever takes off, I need to figure out affiliate links ↩