Every year – usually sometime between the first appearance of supermarket mince pies (August) and the moment you realise you’ve committed yourself to three separate Secret Santas (November) – someone will ask the literary equivalent of the “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” debate: “But is it really a Christmas book?” Cue the collective groan of readers, writers, and anyone who has ever tried to categorise fiction that simply refuses to sit neatly in a box wrapped with a bow.
Because here’s the thing, Christmas is a season, a setting, a mood, a metaphor, a marketing miracle, and occasionally just a convenient excuse for a plot device involving snow, mulled wine, or emotional breakdowns in supermarket car parks. Not all of these scream “feel-good”. So, what actually makes a Christmas book, a Christmas book?
Some argue that timing alone is enough. If your story happens anytime in December (or, if you’re American, anywhere from Halloween onwards), you’re in seasonal territory. By this logic, anything from cosy romances to serial-killer thrillers qualifies – so long as someone mentions a tree, a turkey, or a tinsel-related incident. But if setting alone makes the cut, then Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie. And that, my friends, is how literary bar fights start.
A more emotional definition insists that a Christmas book should fill you with warmth, wonder, or at the very least a yearning for hot chocolate and knitted socks. But this creates problems. Because some books set at Christmas are uplifting masterpieces of cheer and transformation, and some are about family tension, deep psychological unravellings, or the type of emotional revelations that only happen when you’re trapped indoors with relatives for longer than four hours. Feel-good? Not always. Christmassy? In a strangely cathartic, human, “please-pass-the-brandy” way – possibly yes.
Another camp argues that the festive season must be integral to the story – not just set dressing, not just snowflakes and supermarket soundtracks, but the spark, the pressure cooker, the emotional crucible. Christmas has a funny way of doing this in real life, so why shouldn’t it in fiction? The season can heighten everything – joy, grief, hope, resentment, nostalgia, reconciliation – often simultaneously. It’s why we’re more vulnerable, more reflective, more likely to change, confess, confront, or crumble. If the emotional stakes hinge on the holiday, then yes, it may well be a Christmas book. Even if no one learns the true meaning of Christmas. Even if there’s not a single swoony kiss under mistletoe.
And then there’s the slightly awkward truth that sometimes books wear tinsel ironically. Let’s be honest: writers know exactly what they’re doing when they set something at Christmas. The season comes pre-loaded with atmosphere, symbolism, tension and expectation. Even the happiest families have a festive wobble. And the troubled ones? Well, writers rub their hands with glee. So perhaps the better question isn’t “Is this a Christmas book?” but “What does Christmas allow this story to become?”
So, here’s my whisper-soft verdict on what makes a Christmas book: it is any story that uses the festive season – whether warmly, darkly, ironically or dramatically – to reveal something deeper about the human experience. It can be twinkly or tense, feel-good or far-from-it. It can involve Santa… or sanity slipping away. It can offer joy, catharsis, chaos or clarity. Christmas magnifies who we are, and any book that taps into that earns its place on the festive shelf – whether or not it leaves you humming carols.
Now, if anyone wants to argue about Die Hard, I’ll be in the corner clutching a mince pie and practising noncommittal nodding.