A Scandinavian Christmas

'Tis the season to be reading. And here comes my very first new Christmas reading suggestion thus year. A Scandinavian Christmas: Festive Tales for a Nordic Noël. An anthology of Christmas stories by Scandinavian writers, old and contemporary, famous and less famous. There's so much to love in there. Classic tales, some with tragic endings (you know the ones), you also take a detour via Ancient Rome with the Nativity as seen by Emperor Augustus in a mystical experience (Selma Lagerlöf's The Emperor's Vision). But my favourite Vigdis Hjorth's Christmas Eve, about a alcoholic mother trying to satisfy her addiction and hide it at the same time. Showing the dark side of the season in all its bleak simplicity, it is a haunting piece. Anyway, the Scandinavians pretty much invented Yuletide, so you can't go wrong with this one.

Preparing my Yuletide reading

We recently went to the Wallingford Bookshop for a short visit. I had promised my wife that I would behave and not go on a big spending rampage. She was very skeptical at first, but I mostly behaved. In fact, the one and only book I bought it was entirely her fault. We were checking around and her eyes fell on A Scandinavian Christmas: Festive Tales for a Nordic Noël. It is of course an anthology. And she foolishly told me what she'd found. So I had to buy it. That's going to be for my Yuletide reads. Well, we have a bit more than a month until Christmas, better be prepared. For me, Christmas is all about Scandinavian folklore and imagery anyway. My wife was not enchanted, but she was resigned. When she saw me taking the book, she told me, deadpan: "I know you too well." Which I think deserves to be a great unknown line. Anyway, I got my reading all planned for the upcoming month. Yay!