Charles Dickens, The Christmas Carol

There is a reason this is a classic. G. K. Chesterton, who loved Dickens, said Dickens’s strength was that he was a democrat; his weakness, that he could be a demagogue. He works his readers like a stump speaker or a stand-up monologuist works his audience. When he is calculating for effect, he is meretricious; when he feels what he is prompting us to feel, the effect is as if we had no skin. Bob Cratchit cries at the death (we learn later, avoided) of his son. So do I, every time.

John Cheever, Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor

Given Cheever’s habits and subjects, this story about a New York City elevator operator should be compared to a cocktail: stimulating, warming, with a dash of bitters. Special bonus: a vignette of the still-not-so-distant past — elevator operators, Irish-American poor.

Anon, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

A 14th-century masterpiece. Arthurian setting, magic, mystery, sex, shame, comedy. The Middle-English dialect in which it was written, unlike Chaucer’s, was a linguistic dead end, so it needs to be translated, and has been numerous times. My favorite is still the first I read, by Burton Raffel.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

At first the only thing Christmas-y about this, one of the very best Sherlock Holmes stories, seems to be the time of year in which it occurs: A stolen jewel appears in the crop of a Christmas goose. But, after many twists, it becomes a tale of guilt and repentance, with Holmes as secular priest.

Joseph Brodsky, Nativity Poems

Brodsky (d. 1996, too young) wrote a poem every year at and about Christmas. As the years passed, they shifted from reflections on his own life at the moment to meditations on the Nativity. Cool, serious, appreciative.

And finally:

Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush

Technically a New Year’s poem, though with Christmas touches. I wrote about it here.