Christmas Cakes and Blue Carbuncles

I have to mention two more favourite Christmas stories. Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Blue Carbuncle' is the most fun of all the Holmes stories. It makes me think of dashing about, very last thing before Christmas, as Holmes and Watson tear all over the place in this story of goose clubs and greed. Sherlock's at his best in this: solving problems seemingly for the fun of it, and tying his opponents up in knots.

Another favourite is Truman Capote's 'A Christmas Memory', about a woman and her nephew who set out to make thirty-odd Christmas cakes for neighbours, favourite film stars and the President and his wife each year as soon as they scent 'fruitcake weather' on the air. The story's set during the Depression and during the very year that Buddy, the nephew's life is about to change forever, and he gets sent off by his other relatives, to military camp. It's about the last Christmas of childhood, in many ways. I'm always amazed by this story. Capote sometimes wrote about grotesques and his work borders on the cruel. But there are these pieces of his that are filled with... sweetness, I suppose. Just a vast amount of good nature and humour.

There are tv movies of both of these stories. Jeremy Brett stars in the best version of the Blue Carbuncle, of course, though the BBC Peter Cushing episode from twenty years earlier is pretty good. The Hallmark afternoon movie of the Capote story starring Piper Laurie is heart-wrenching. Call me soft.