Long nights and the need to huddle by the fireside, literally or metaphorically, may explain why Christmas has been such a fertile subject for fiction.

Whether it was in the Middle Ages or our own times, there is something a bit eery, even inimical, about the year as it draws to a close. As Christmas approaches, darkness presses in until it seems we have become moles, seeing daylight for only a few moments each day as we surface briefly from our tunnels.

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Between now and the time when one notices lengthening hours of light, an atavistic sense of anxiety hovers, for me at least. No wonder pagans turned the seasonal nadir into a festival of fire, torches, wassailing and warmth. Little surprise either that the Church was happy to dovetail with that inviolable celebration. It knew it had no choice.

Lack of light is the bane, but also the blessing of the north. Were this season bathed in daylight rather than sodium streets lamps and cheery decorations, bookshelves would be thinner, as would writers' imaginations. Readers too, I suspect, would be less eager to become immersed in imaginary worlds. There is nothing like darkness at the windows to make one appreciate that while common sense tells you something that is made up is not real, instinct strongly disagrees. At this time of year it feels as if we are closer to our primeval, superstitious and fearful origins than at any other.

That probably explains why fiction aimed at the Christmas market is so often presented to look cosy, unthreatening and heart-warming. One such landed on my desk recently. An attractively quaint-looking hardback collection of festive stories, Round The Christmas Fire (Vintage Classics, £12.99) is the twin of Vintage's earlier publication, Dickens At Christmas, which extracts chapters from his Christmas novels and reprises his short stories and opinion pieces about the holiday he so powerfully shaped to suit his theatrical imagination and tender heart.

Round The Christmas Fire has a wider reach, encompassing the likes of John Cheever's classic and amusingly cynical tale Christmas Is A Sad Season For The Poor, Edith Wharton's decidedly creepy Afterward, PG Wodehouse, Truman Capote, a sprinkling of Dickens, and various others, including my all-time favourite Christmas scene, 'Dulce Domum', from The Wind In The Willows (hence the mole analogy above).

An engaging selection, many of its choices are familiar but enjoyably so, and one could pass a happy winter afternoon in its company. Yet since the stories included are all old, one can't help wondering if Christmas is losing its allure as a fictional hook. Jenny Colgan's recent Christmas At Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop (Sphere, £12.99) might seem to refute that idea, but I wonder if beyond the realms of romance the festive season has been wrung dry, or that publishers at least think so.

And yet, as Dilys Rose and Brian McCabe's haunting short story today shows, the power the season holds remains as potent as ever. You could even argue that since for many the date has lost all religious significance, its thrall and potential for storytellers has grown. Family and its tensions are the crucible for the majority of novels, old and new, and modern families are a particularly rich source of plots, being more fractured, dispersed and complicated than ever before. Beyond rites such as weddings and funerals, I doubt any event better highlights the strains, secrets or sorrows of parents, siblings, partners and relatives than the obligatory rigours of this season.

Often fuelled by drink or by claustrophobic confinement as the front door closes and the tribe is shut in, people are particularly vulnerable, and volatile, on Christmas Day. That is not to suggest fiction set around the 25th should be miserable or revel in discord. Kindness and compassion feature too, as does comedy. I just find it interesting that as the holiday grows less spiritually meaningful, it appears to be more lavishly and enthusiastically marked in every respect except, sadly, in print.