Christmas Days

By Jeanette Winterson

(Jonathan Cape, £14.99)

Review by Allan Hunter

EVEN the most indefatigable Christmas celebrant must have reached the stage of wanting a comfy seat, a reviving mince pie and a soothing blast of Bing Crosby. For many 'tis the season to be frazzled. The cake is baked, the pudding is steamed, the cards are dispatched, the tree is trimmed and the presents may well be wrapped. If the desire to embrace the spirit of the season has still not been fully satiated then Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Days is the perfect companion to see you through the final countdown to the big day.

Billed as “12 Stories And 12 Feasts for 12 Days”, Winterson’s handsomely produced volume is almost a modern-day equivalent of the bumper, end-of-year annuals that were a staple of many a Christmas childhood.

It now seems hard to recall a Christmas morning without The Broons or Oor Wullie annual to devour while raiding a selection box and trying not to make yourself ill before lunch was served.

Everyone has their own Christmas traditions – from never decorating the tree before Christmas Eve to always catching a performance of the James Stewart classic It’s A Wonderful Life at the Glasgow Film Theatre. Winterson’s book offers tales of comfort and joy but it is also packed with information, noting that a good deal of what we think of as traditional is fairly modern and often commercially driven. Did you know that Santa typically sported something fetching in green until the 1930s when Coca Cola commissioned Swedish artist Haddon Sundblom to create a Santa who dispensed good cheer and fizzy drinks throughout the world in a deep blush of red? The advertising might of Coca-Cola means that Santa’s wardrobe has remained a jolly shade of red ever since.

The twelve short stories throughout the book are very much in a literary Christmas tradition with Winterson doffing her cap to the distinctive worlds of some illustrious predecessors. The Snowmama is in the manner of Raymond Briggs with a dash of Lewis Carroll for good measure. Dark Christmas, spent in the gloomy, isolated Highfallen House, has the feel of something that MR James or Shirley Jackson might have written. Christmas In New York blends Dickens and Patricia Highsmith as the spell of miserable Christmases past is finally broken by the most persistent and charming of guardian angels. The Silver Frog evokes Hans Christian Anderson and A Ghost Story, set in an eerie Swiss ski resort, has more than a measure of Stephen King’s The Shining.

There may be a mention of Donald Trump along the way but there is something appealingly old-fashioned about all of the stories. Wrongs are righted, humbug is banished, revenge is delivered in a lethal mistletoe berry brew; wishes are granted, broken hearts are mended and all is well with the world. Winterson seems determined to offer stories that warm the heart and celebrate the very merriest aspects of the season.

The guiding spirit behind the book is a combination of Dickens and Hollywood perennials from the 1940s (The Bishop’s Wife, Miracle On 34th Streets etc). The stories constantly underline the versatility and acuity of Winterson’s writing – little morality tales are delivered in tasty, bite-size morsels filled with wit, wisdom and some snappy banter. Informed that he never celebrates Christmas, one character reacts by asking: “Is your family Jewish?” “No," comes the reply. “Just unpleasant.”

The moral lessons can seem a little banal and obvious but it is hard to argue with the wistful sentiments of “why are the real things, the important things, so easily mislaid underneath the things that hardly matter at all?", or Winterson’s heartfelt confession that “the things I regret in my life are not the errors of judgement but failures of feeling”.

What makes Twelve Days more than an opportunity for Winterson to dip into a dressing-up box of literary styles is the very personal anecdotes and recipes that are folded into the volume like plump fruits into a Christmas pudding. Ruth Rendell’s red cabbage recipe and Kathy Acker’s New York Custard allow Winterson to recall fond friendships. She dips into family history for Mrs Winterson’s Mince Pies and Dad’s Sherry Trifle, a confection that has to be adorned with a liberal sprinkling of hundreds and thousands. If you need an explanation of what hundreds and thousand are then perhaps the book is not for you. There is the gentle tug of nostalgia in its pages, a yearning for a time before M&S could provide all you needed for a feast and Amazon would ensure you could shop for presents without ever leaving your own home.

There is fondness and forgiveness in the pages and a sense of joy in the happiness Winterson has found with her wife Susie Orbach and the new Christmas traditions that they have established together. In the end, this delightful cornucopia has exactly what you want for Christmas – a genuine sense of peace on earth and good will to all.