A Christmas Book

[osprey_archer]

Every year, I think “I should write a Christmas book,” and every year, when it’s August or whenever I ought to be getting started, it’s too hot outside to even listen to Bing Crosby, let alone drink hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire and otherwise get into the Christmas spirit.

This year, it finally occurred to me that I could get around this problem by writing my Christmas book actually during the Christmas season (for release next year, December 2021), and as we put up the Christmas tree today, obviously now is the time to knock out a book idea.

I’m envisioning an f/f novella, preferably with magic, lots of snow and ice and snugness, the warm glow of the windows showing through the sleet, hot mulled wine by the fire, thick soft sweaters and knitted mittens and snowflakes like stars on dark hair. MAXIMUM COZE.

I was originally thinking Snegurochka retelling, but upon reflection the whole thing where she melts is anti-coze, so that might be best for another year. However, perhaps a snow spirit? Maybe the heroine is in a long-term relationship with a snow spirit, but the snow spirit doesn’t return each year until, you know, it snows, so there’s some INTENSE yearning for a white Christmas right there…

And the book interweaves memories of past years together with a present day storyline about our human heroine preparing for Christmas alone and just HOPING and ofc snow arrives just in time for a happy holiday together. The snow spirit arrives in a scarlet sleigh, sleigh bells jingling, the sleigh pulled by her trusty reindeer or possibly pony if the whole sleigh + reindeer thing sounds too Santa-Clausy.

...If I really want to kick myself in the face, she could be preparing for Christmas 2020, so the snow spirit is going to be her only Christmas companion, IF it snows of course. This is exactly the sort of document historians salivate for, but I’m not sure it will resonate with Jane Reader in 2021. Maybe I should fudge the dates.

Although the 2020 setting could provoke some really interesting thoughts about the difficulties of committing yourself to a long-term relationship with a supernatural being who only exists three/four months of the year… “A human girlfriend could be baking with me right now,” Amanda thought, wiping a floury hand over her forehead and gazing wearily at the snowless trees beyond the kitchen window. In normal years she invites friends over if her snow spirit isn't back in time for festivities, but… well…

Comments

[littlerhymes]

“A human girlfriend could be baking with me right now,” Amanda thought

This is why your mother said never date a snow spirit, Amanda. Where are they when you need to be doing spring cleaning? Or quarantining during a pandemic? NOWHERE!!!! And they never want to go to the beach.

[osprey_archer]

MAYBE MOM HAD A POINT, Amanda thought, as she took another loaf of pumpkin bread out of the oven and ripped off a chunk with her bare hands, unable to wait till the bread was cool enough to cut. MAYBE I SHOULD NOT HAVE BUILT MY LIFE AROUND A WOMAN WHO EXISTS ONLY THREE MONTHS OF THE YEAR.

Possibly this is too grim a storyline for Maximum Coze, though? There's nothing cozy about "should I break up with my longterm girlfriend because she is unable to meet my emotional needs on account of only existing in winter."

[littlerhymes]

Maybe the arc is Amanda thinking she needs more but discovering actually, this is the right balance for her. A couple that loves to do their own thing! Pandemic is hard but beauty in solitude! Sexy reunion times every year! Domestic lovingness that never gets stale! Boring old married couple? COULD NEVER BE THEM!

[osprey_archer]

Maybe it's a matter of balance. In the first chapter she's thinking, "A human girlfriend could be kissing my neck as we ate pumpkin bread RIGHT NOW," but then we segue into memories of their time together and she's like "Nah actually we're good"... It's a gripe rather than a deep-seated discontentment with their relationship.

[asakiyume]

I mean there's **kind** of a tension between maximum coze and a snow spirit because actual physical warmth is dangerous? But I'm assuming you're going to exempt your spirit from that so long as snow is on the ground or something. Anyway, I'm all for finding a way to make it work.

I COULD LOVE A WOMAN I ONLY SAW THREE MONTHS A YEAR. Seriously I think I was born to be a whaler's wife** or some equivalent, because yearning is one of my most natural modes.

**except for hunting whales is sad ... unless you're an indigenous person in which case it's okay

[osprey_archer]

Yes, the snow spirit definitely can do sitting by the fireplace as long as there's snow on the ground. There might be a time for a snow spirit romance with a snow spirit who actually does melt from physical warmth, but 2020 is not that time!

Maybe Amanda* loves the yearning, too! Like, there are moments when it's hard, but there are also moments when having someone around all the time is hard? 2020 has just brought the hard parts to the fore because she no longer has her usual Snow Girlfriend Is Gone social outlets.

*She will not be named Amanda in the book, haven't picked a name yet. Probably can't get away with Amaryllis.

[asakiyume]

Why not re: Amaryllis?

[osprey_archer]

Does anyone name their child Amaryllis these days? I suppose I shouldn't let that stop me. The sky's the limit!

[asakiyume]

There are definitely parents who name their kids oddball names! It's not a common name, but she had idiosyncratic parents!

[asakiyume]

I love this idea! I feel like I've even lived this, kinda sorta, because when I was a little kid, I was deeply emotionally committed to a friendship formed with the daughter of friends of my parents who visited from England for three days. SHE WAS MY SOUL SISTER ... but she was very far away. So I like the emotional complications you describe.

I have no clue about Jane Reader, but I would read a pandemic-inflected story in 2021.

[osprey_archer]

When I was a child, my best friend moved away, and I remained deeply emotionally committed to the friendship for like three years after any normal person would have realized that she wasn't answering letters because she had moved on. OH PAST SELF WHY. The nice thing about the snow spirit is that she's committed! (Maybe she should be a winter spirit rather than specifically a snow spirit? I feel like the melting thing becomes a more urgent question if she's a snow spirit, whereas with a winter spirit, cozy evenings in front of the fire are part of winter just as much as cold...) She always comes back, she's just... not in existence for nine months of the year.

[asakiyume]

I think making her a winter spirit definitely solves that problem, because then she can be the spirit of, precisely, warming yourself by the fire and making cocoa--and also of ice and frost and snow. You could still have it be that she won't arrive until snow falls, though.

--Yeah, I had the same thing with my friend (eventually: we both kept up the relationship through another meeting when we were 11 or 12. It was after that).

[osprey_archer]

I think I could get some mileage out of the fact that she has this cozy, warming, very human side, but also this ice and snow and cold very inhuman side. (Not inhuman as in cruel, but inhuman as in vast and impartial.)

[asakiyume]

I LIKE IT, YES

[osprey_archer]

The winter spirit cannot recall Trump's name. She's existed as long as there's been winter ("So you're immortal?" "No. There was a time before winter, and there will be a time after," she tells Amaryllis) and he's barely a blip on the radar.

[asakiyume]

the immortal mortality--THE beautiful hopeful thing about life. WAY TO JUST LAY IT ON ME IN AN OFFHAND COMMENT!

*collecting myself*

Yes! exactly! Make more of this please.

[evelyn_b]

LOVE IT.

[osprey_archer]

If I decide the world just isn't READY for historical fiction set in 2020 in December 2021, I can always sit on it for a few years before I release it.

[brigdh]

I love this idea! I think 2021 might be the perfect time for a book about 2020, actually? By then, the pandemic will be over (I mean, fingers crossed, but the vaccine data is looking good) but it'll still be recent enough that everyone will identify with the feelings of loneliness and pining. I think a lot of people would rather read about the quarantine in Christmas 2021 than in Christmas 2020, when it's too much!

[osprey_archer]

I'll know that I succeeded when I get a review that's all "This is TOO REAL and it HURTS me and everyone needs to read it."

[lokifan]

This!