Cruel Yule: A new book of stories casts the holiday season in a more candid, realistic light

Christmas can stir up powerful memories for many of us, not all of them good. A new book looks at what, for some, can be the least wonderful time of the year. Upon a Midnight Clear: More Christmas Epiphanies is a collection of 12 stories that explore feelings of alienation, abandonment, and loss that are all too common during the festive season.

“I teach non-fiction, and I talked to a lot of people about their memoirs and their memories,” said editor J.J. Lee. “And I kept on getting people’s really horrible or interesting, fascinating, difficult Christmas or holiday experiences, and I just felt that I could collect them at some point.”

Lee was approached by Tidewater Press, which led to the publishing of Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies in 2023.

“The publisher one day called, literally out of the blue, and said, ‘Hey, you know that book you’ve been talking about for years? Do you want to do it?’ And we just ran with the idea of collecting people’s true memories of not-so-good, even worst-case-scenario Christmases, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.”

Upon a Midnight Clear is the second in what Lee hopes is an ongoing series.

Lee says of the 48 stories submitted, 12 made the cut. While he is the editor, Lee sees himself as more of a mixologist.

“An anthologist’s job isn’t just to pick the 12 best stories. It’s not a contest,” he said.

“So, we’re looking for themes or ideas that don’t collide or clash or overlap too much, that we’re providing a variety of stories, that there’s moments of humour, there’s moments of heartbreaking sorrow in some of these. All of them are moving.”

“So, when we select, we’re looking for that combination just the way a producer might help a band select cuts on an album. So, we’re trying to build an album of stories that will reach people when they read it during the holiday season and will mean something to them.”

The book opens with “The Gift” by Michael McClean, a story about the kindness of a neighbour that changed a young boy’s view of the season.

“It’s so meaningful, it covers so much ground in terms of all sorts of issues far beyond Christmas, and there’s just an incredible amount of love in it,” said Lee.

“And it just shows the power of generosity. And it’s not only the generosity that the writer as a younger person received, but the generosity that the story offers from the author to the reader. It makes my season just to think about that story.”

While Lee couldn’t be pinned down to pick one story in the book as his favourite, he did single out “Arviat” by Lillian Au for praise.

It takes its name from a hamlet in Nunavut where the protagonist, a broadcast journalist, finds herself spending Christmas with her then-fiancée, a politician eager to be seen by his constituents. An old sewing machine she had lugged with her takes on a new symbolism.

“She just really went for it,” Lee said. “It was very brave of her to uncover her feelings about her parents, the simple act of dropping off a sewing machine as a donation had all this sort of familial drama tied to it, and she finally acknowledged it in the essay. So, it was an incredible journey, and I think it’s a terrifically funny story.”

Lee hopes the reader is inspired to reflect on and write down their own holiday memories and share them with their loved ones.

“I hope people are mindful, that when people ask for your story, especially a younger generation, that you take the time to unfold it. Find a way to expand and bring out the life of that detail, because it means so much to other people, your children, your grandchildren, if you’re able to expand and really share your story in full,” he said.

“Be okay with having a past and be okay with letting it bleed into the present and understand how it’s informing what you’re doing with your family now during the season.”

Upon a Midnight Clear: More Christmas Epiphanies is published by Tidewater Press.