Writing Blog Number 2 (continued)

20251222 Christmas Tales

Christmas Tales

So, it is Christmas time. And there are more stories featuring Christmas than nearly any other holiday. Even people in non-Christian countries know Christmas; even non-Christians celebrate it in some way. In modern times, Christmas has come to mean a time for family and supporting one another.
         So, what do Christmas stories involve?
         Surprisingly, there are four main ones. Yes, I know there are so many more than four, but the stories that sell, the most popular ones, involve four main… themes? Tropes? Clichés? Let’s see…

1) Correcting the error of their ways
This tends to be the main theme for Christian-based Christmas stories. When someone has the time of the season used to make them realise they are being something of a douchebag, or they have made or are about to make a poor choice. The classic in this style is It’s A Wonderful Life, the 1946 film.

2) The truth of Santa
These are stories where Santa Claus is either proven to be real, or is real and proves his reality to others. Very simple, really. The classic is Miracle On 34th Street (1947 film) where the truth of Santa is proved in a court. This also covers the film The Santa Clause (1994) and CC Moore’s poem ‘A Visit From St Nicholas’ (1823). Santa is true and these tales relate that.

3) Getting together for Christmas
This is the modern trope, the whole “family” entertainment thing. Someone has to get to the family in time for Christmas, a family needs to be reunited at Christmas, and similar other tropes. This is just emphasising the whole family concept, and we just need to look at the films Home Alone (1990) and the schmaltzy I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1998… and not a personal favourite) for examples. Also included here are tales about getting the desired Christmas present at the last minute, as in Jingle All The Way (1996).

4)Christmas Ghosts
And we come to something that was exceedingly common in Victorian penny-dreadfuls, and which has never really gone away – the Christmas ghost story. MR James did a heap, Dickens did many, and I really recommend The Woman In Black by Susan Hill (1983). Ghosts can lead to either of numbers one and three on this list, or can just be a means of making someone understand Christmas and all it encompasses. For example, Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol (1843) is a combination of this trope and the first one.

Now, there are also stories about the birth of Jesus, but those are just reinterpretations or transformatives or interpolations, and really do not sell that well and are not generally popular outside of niche communities.

Anyway, those are the four main types of Christmas tales that sell. Maybe something here will inspire you!