A Lot Like Christmas

Metaphorosis Reviews
4 stars

Curiously, I like Connie Willis' short stories much more than her novels. They're friendly, intimate, and largely calm, with an enchanting sense of humor. That's especially true of this collection of Christmas stories, most of which were new to me.

Christmas legitimately means different things to different people. No one ‘owns' it - not the Christians who named it, not the Germanic people whose traditions were coopted, not a horned guy with a bag of coal, not a bunch of elves and reindeer. Connie Willis, though, is squarely in the Christian religious camp. The stories here are heavy on religious symbolism, though often in a light-hearted way. They're equally heavy on religious philosophy, and there they're more heavy-handed. I found the moralism a bit of a slog at times. I know - complaining about the Christian message of Christmas stories - but see above.

Willis is equally heavy on references to popular culture. While in places it works well - e.g. in the homage to Miracle on 34th Street (which which I heartily disagree) - it becomes wearing after a time. On the whole, though, it's a fun, uplifting collection by a very talented writer. The best stories in the book were:

• Miracle - in homage to Miracle on 34th Street


• Inn - explaining what happened to Joseph and Mary on the way to Bethlehem


• Adaptation - the least Christmasy of the bunch, about an aging actress and an ingenue


• Epiphany - sometimes divine messages leave a little to be desired

If repetition, poor attempts of sounding geeky, imaginative and funny and all-around boredom is the writer's vision of a well-composed book, then I'm sorry but I was clearly the wrong reader for...this. The way I see it, this doesn't even deserve a full review, sorry:(

Disclaimer: I received this book from NetGalley, but my review has not been impacted by this.

It felt just like Christmas to see this book on NetGalley. A new Connie Willis book! Well, it's not 100% new - it's a new and expanded version of the book Miracle and Other Christmas Stories - but that's OK, as I love reading that book!

Miracle and Other Christmas has the stories Miracle, Inn, In Coppelius's Toy Shop, The Pony, Adaptation, Cat's Paw, Newsletter, Epiphany, A Final Word, and as an afterword, adds 12 things to read and 12 things to watch.

A Lot Like Christmas adds All About Emily, All Seated on the Ground, deck.halls@boughs/holly, Now Showing, Just Like the Ones We Used to Know, and adds more recommended movies, books, and TV shows.

I was trying to think of how to describe the book and the stories, and possibly it's caring is the commonality. It's about what the Christmas season is supposed to be like - love, and caring, and changing. As she puts it in the introduction: “But Christmas is about someone who believed, in spite of overwhelming evidence, that humanity is capable of change and worth redeeming.”

We see that in many ways - perhaps it's about an artificial human who wants to be a Rockette, or a Christmas designer trying to manage other people's Christmas's, and the client who wants to change her, or the aliens who glare disapprovingly, the choir director, and the Hallelujah chorus, or the alien parasites and the Christmas newsletters, or Kris Kringle and the office staplers and the black sequined dress, or the British murder mystery with the gorilla butler... I could go on for ages. We even see Mary and Joseph, having lost their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem, ending up in a current day church in America. As Reverend Wall says, “Though we know nothing of their journey, we know much of the world they lived in. It was a world of censuses and soldiers, of bureaucrats and politics, a world busy with property and rules and its own affairs” - just like our world, with concerns about homeless people and church property.

And it's so wonderful to find out all these other books, movies, and even TV shows from this book. A Chorus Line, The Drowsy Chaperone, the Little Princess, Dickens, how the Muppet adaptation of A Christmas Carol is one of the best, how Miracle on 34th Street (the original) is so much better than It's a Wonderful Life... so many references to other wonderful things. Connie Willis refers to discovering Three Men and a Dog through reading a Robert Heinlein book when she was young, and she passes on the wonder of discovering other favorites through the book she writes.

Not only do I recommend reading this book, I recommend re-reading this book regularly, whenever you are in need of some Christmas spirit.