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SPILL IT! December, 2019
Do Holiday Stories Always Need
to Be So Sappy?
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Elyse Hauser discusses whether there is space for stories that show the holidays as just another season without the mushiness and melodrama.
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Pick up a holiday-centered novel or short story (or movie, or play) and you’re likely to get one of two things. One, you’ll get Hallmark-channel-worthy mushiness about family, true love, and life lessons learned. Or two, you’ll get a tragic tale of a holiday tainted by diagnosis, divorce, death, or some other unforgettable misfortune.
Consume enough of these stories, and you’ll start to see that they’re two sides of the same sappy coin. On one side are the warm, fuzzy, love-bloated holiday feelings of kinship and romance. On the other side are difficult or tragic experiences that forever change one’s perspective of this “happy” time. But both hinge on the same thing: the idea that the holidays are a deeply emotional, meaningful season.
This seems like an odd claim for a time of year that’s characterized by tinny, annoying music and vapid invocations to shop ‘til you drop. While I love a good party and welcome any reason to take a day off work, I have a hard time buying the idea that the winter holidays are particularly meaningful. It’s just another part of the year, albeit one that surrounds you with inescapable songs and decor.
If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself in an unusual camp of holiday-neutral people. You neither love the holidays, nor do you hate them. But every story about them insists that you must have strong feelings one way or the other about this most wonderful time of the year. Is there any space for stories that show the holidays as just another season—one that can be funny or strange or annoying, but not necessarily deep?
Very much so. In fact, one mark of the most powerful storytelling is the ability to make the mundane compelling.
It’s easy to make the tale of a dramatic emotional experience seem meaningful. But the stories that tend to stick with us most are the ones that hinge on some small, yet relatable, truth of being alive. Even the most extreme of cloying holiday tales only work because of these tiny moments of realism.
I won’t call out specific books or short stories here, because that would be mean. But think about this: you’ll probably never be a struggling small-town business owner who crosses paths (and falls in love) with a preposterously attractive big-city lawyer at Christmastime. That stereotypical Hallmark movie plot hinges on a dramatic, saccharine experience that most of us will never have.
But the unrealistic, sappy bits aren’t what keep people coming back to those movies. It’s the universally relatable elements—stress about work, the feeling of a new crush—that make the story enjoyable.
In that kind of overblown plot, though, the enjoyable bits get buried under all the schmaltz. So I propose this: a better holiday story would be one in which the mundane, everyday, silly, relatable things about the season get magnified instead.
Holiday stories can be done well, without the emotional drivel. While there should be a place for stories that talk about the highs and lows of feeling that the season can bring, they shouldn’t be the norm. What holiday storytelling needs is a healthy dose of realism.
Most of us don’t go into the season expecting to find the miracle of love or experience a horrific tragedy. But we’re sure to face the annoyance of Christmas Eve deadlines, the frivolity of a few excessive parties, the embarrassment of a botched family recipe, or the weird miasma of navigating the days between Christmas and New Year’s.
Stories that talk about these realities are more worthy of our rapt attention, and in the end, more interesting—don’t you think?
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Elyse Hauser writes about a variety of topics, from politics to fashion, but she describes herself as a lifestyle writer because she is in love with the idea that lives can be styled.
To Elyse, the lifestyle concept means that each day is like a block of marble, poised to be carved into the shape that pleases you most. And creative content, whether it’s a beautifully curated outfit or a set of tips presented in thoughtful prose, can help us carve out our best days.
She also writes creative nonfiction, which, in a way, offers the flip side of the lifestyle writing coin. She has a Master’s in Writing Studies from Saint Joseph’s University, and was awarded a 2017 Writing Between the Vines residency for her creative work.
When she's not writing, she's exploring her passions for dance, travel, fashion, and history.
Visit Elyse: elysehauser.com
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