119. Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season

KIM ASKEW: Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of Lost Ladies of Lit. I'm Kim Askew here with my co-host and writing partner, Amy Helmes. And wait, I think I hear something. Could it be... jingle bells?

[sound of jingle bells] 

AMY HELMES: Oh my gosh. Ha ha ha. Or is it ho, ho, ho? Honestly, I think you were an elf in a previous life. You're way too... she's sitting here, you guys, with a Santa hat on. There is a fully lit Christmas tree behind her, even though we celebrated Thanksgiving like literally a hot second ago.

KIM: I'm not embarrassed. I love the entire holiday season. We celebrate Hanukkah at my house too, so that and Christmas and New Year's. I mean, I love all of it, which is why I was so excited when we received a copy of the new edition of the British Library Women Writers Series: Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season. I actually read it at the beginning of November in order to prep for this episode, so maybe that's why I'm already in the mood. Um, listeners, you should know also that Amy is rolling her eyes right now. . 

AMY: Yeah. This totally epitomizes you and I, right? Like and our personality, but I, I think you told me that that's one of the great things about this story collection is that they're not too sugary sweet, right?

KIM: No. They actually run the gamut of what the holiday season encompasses from a woman's perspective, which is really cool. Our past guest, Simon Thomas, wrote the introduction, and in it, he explains that in order to put together this collection, he and his collaborators searched through published collections of stories and delved into Christmas editions of old magazines where they would find lesser known works by well known writers, and also stories by once popular writers whose work has kind of faded into obscurity. Amy, I hadn't read even one of these fantastic stories before I cracked open this book. You know, many times I'll read a collection of stories that'll be one or two or more that just aren't that good. They're kind of sandwiched in the middle of the collection, but that's not the case in this anthology. I found each of the stories unforgettable in their own way. 

AMY: Okay. That's really good to hear. But if you had to pick a favorite, could you? 

KIM: I did think a lot about which one was my favorite and honestly it was hard to choose. But there's this one story, it's by the Canadian writer Alice Munroe, and I will never forget it. Obviously she's not a lost author, but I'd never read this story by her. So it's the first story in the book, the opening story in the collection, and it really sets the tone and lets you know right away you're in for something different. It's called “Turkey Season,” and it was actually first published in the December 29th, 1980 issue of The New Yorker. Have you read “Turkey Season?” 

AMY: It doesn't sound familiar at all, no. 

KIM: Yeah, I would think that it would've been familiar to both of us after I read it, but it's not. So, um, often you see workplaces in a Christmas tale. So think of the office where Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchett work in A Christmas Carol. And the story we talked about in last year's Christmas episode, “A Wicked Editor's Christmas Dream.” And then there are those holiday Christmas party scenes in Love Actually and The Holiday, right? Mistletoe, there's too much champagne. Mm-hmm. , that whole vibe. Holiday party. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna read a bit of “Turkey Season” for our listeners to give them a feel for this holiday workplace story: All I could see when I closed my eyes the first few nights after working there was turkeys. I saw them hanging upside down, plucked and stiffened, pale and cold with the heads and necks limp. The eyes and nostrils clotted with dark blood. The remaining bits of feathers, those dark and bloody too, seem to form a crown. I saw them not with aversion, but with a sense of endless work to be done.

So fa la la la, la to you, too.

AMY: I was gonna say, can we get a Christmas carol? uh, Jimmy Mercer or whatever? 

KIM: Yeah. I mean, is it Stephen King or is it, uh, a holiday?

AMY: Right? Oh my gosh. 

KIM: I will tell you, nothing truly horrific happens, so don't worry.

AMY: It'll turn us all vegetarian is what it’ll do for starters. 

KIM: Yeah, yeah. Right. Simon says in the introduction about this, story, it's an early reminder that Christmas isn't all twinkly lights and beautiful ribbons because it's told from the perspective of a 14-year old turkey gutter at the turkey barn, and it's actually set in the 1940s because it's an older woman remembering a time in her past. You know, the themes are small community poverty, workplace dynamics, and gender issues, and it's dark, but as I said, really unforgettable. 

AMY: Yeah, well, if it was a New Yorker story, I'm sure it's great. 

KIM: Yeah. Yeah. How do we not know it?

AMY: I know. Yeah. All right, so what else do we got? 

KIM: So lest you think this collection is all “Scrooge” and gloom, don't worry, it's not. The darker stories are really balanced out. For example, our beloved E.M. Delafield is included in the book. 

AMY: Oh, love her. So that's the author of The Diary of a Provincial Lady, which we did an early episode on when we first started this podcast.

KIM: Right. And her piece in the collection is called “General Impressions of a Christmas Shopping Center.” It's light, yet witty and insightful at the same time. It's from 1933, but it has this timeless feel to it. I'll read a quick few lines. You can get a feel for it 

 [she reads]

AMY: So relatable! It's like they went inside my brain. That's why I love E.M. Delafield. Yeah. I feel like she and I would've been great friends. That sums up 90% of what I hate about Christmas, right there. I love it. I love it. 

KIM: Oh, you gotta read this because the piece is just all little vignettes with different shoppers and it's, it's hilarious. Yeah. 

AMY: Because I agonize like that, and then I'll have an idea and I talk myself out of the idea because I'm too pragmatic and logical about everything and it's like, “No, that'll take up too much space in their closet,” or, you know, whatever it is.

KIM: I mean, I always wait till the last minute, unfortunately, yet I also want the perfect present. So there's like that tension between the perfect present and also, okay, this is the last store that I have time to go to. 

AMY: Yeah, because then you're like panicked of “What if I buy this and then I, the very next place I look, or tomorrow I find a way better present?” 

KIM: Yeah. So anyway, then there's a 1968 story by American writer Barbara Robinson, and it's called “The Christmas Pageant.” And there's a raggedy group of wild children that everyone kind of looks down on and they end up turning the Nativity play on its head. They make everyone stop and really think about what the Christmas story is all about.

AMY: Okay. That's the Herdmans! I know that story! That's taken from a children's novel called The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, I think, unless she wrote a short story that was separate. Um, maybe it's an excerpt from that book, but, uh, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever… I love, love, love that book. And I also own a DVD of the film adaptation. It's such a cute movie if you're looking for something a little different than the usual classic holiday flick that we've seen over and over and over, you have to watch The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

KIM: I wanna see this, it sounds appropriate for Cleo, so it sounds cute. 

AMY: Yeah, She might be too young for it. Yeah, it's probably elementary school age. Um, but we mentioned this book and Robinson in our episode a few years ago on “The Bird's Christmas Carol” by Kate Douglas Wiggin, because Wiggin has a very Herdman-like family in that story, you know, that kind of rough around the edges that you'll also fall in love with. 

KIM: Yes, totally. You go back and listen to that, we'll put a link to that one in the show notes. And speaking of familiar lost ladies, I want to read from the one by Stella Gibbons.

AMY: Ah, okay! There's a number of people coming up here. Yeah, she famously wrote Cold Comfort Farm, but then we did an episode on her lesser known novel Nightingale Wood, which was great.

KIM: Exactly. And this story, “The Little Christmas Tree,” is actually the opening story from her 1940 collection Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm and Other Stories. She did a couple of books that had the Cold Comfort Farm name on them.

AMY: Oh yeah. What was that family's name? I forget. 

KIM: I can’t remember, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna read an excerpt from this. Um… 

AMY: Starkadder. That's the name of the family. 

KIM:Oh, that's so good. Yeah. What a great name. So brilliant. Okay. All right, so here we go. Ms. Harding is our heroine in this story, and she decides to move to the countryside and then she decides to have her own Christmas by herself. Her very own Christmas. Um, so she goes into town to buy a few things and buy her own Christmas tree, and she's thinking back on how the shopkeeper responded to her having her own Christmas: Ms. Harding escaped, aware that the old lady, far from being embarrassed by her mistake, was taking her in from head to feet with lively, curious eyes and thought her a queer one. That Ms. Harding was sure that her wildest guesses at the reason why the toys had been bought would come nowhere near the truth in the circles in which the old lady's tubby person rotated, unmarried females did not buy Christmas trees, decorate them and gloat over them in solitude, however natural such a proceeding might seem in Chelsea. 

AMY: It's kind of like, you know, a little “Bridget Jonesy” there. But she's fine about it? Or is she like [singing} “Allll byyyy mysellllf”?

KIM: Well, here's the thing. She's fine about it until she's not, but it is a romantic story, so… 

AMY: Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds good. 

KIM: Okay. Yeah. And there's also one from 1924 that's really sweet. It's called “Christmas Bread.” And it's really interesting because it's about a widowed surgeon, but get this she's a woman and she has a daughter. It's really unusual and really lovely and it's about family misunderstandings and reconciliation. And I should also mention, Amy, something I forgot to say: that the stories are in order of celebrations, not by the years they were published. So the collection actually concludes with another story from a working woman's perspective, but it's on New Year's and it's by a different Alice this time, Alice Childress. The story is called “On Leavin Notes,” and it's about a day worker standing up for herself. 

AMY: Hmm. Okay. Well, I mean if Simon Thomas helped write the intro for this and put it together, I know that I'm gonna love pretty much every story in it, so I can't wait. You're gonna have to let me borrow this, and actually, hearing about this book kind of inspires me with a really wild idea. I'm thinking if I buy a bunch of copies now, hang onto them, then I'll have 'em my next year shopping, like, some of it, out of the way. This sounds like a great thing to give people next year. 

KIM: That is a great idea. And maybe some of our listeners would want to do the same or purchase it this week as a last-minute gift. Okay, so we have one more mini episode for you next week and then we're going to be going on a month-long hiatus for January. (That's not too long.) And we're gonna be re-airing some of our early, full length episodes each week while we're on hiatus.

AMY: Yes, but never fear, we'll be back on February 7th, which will be our 126th episode, if you can believe that! And we have a full calendar of amazing women writers and guests already lined up for the coming year.

KIM: If you want to stay up to date, visit lostladiesoflit.com and you can subscribe there to our newsletter. You'll never miss an episode if you do that. And also, if you love this podcast, our Christmas wish is that you'll leave us a five star review wherever you listen. It truly helps us find new listeners, and it also makes us feel good.

AMY: Yes, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and see you next week. Our logo was designed by Harriet Grant, and our theme song was written and recorded by Jennie Malone. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.