Low-Angst? Check! Queer? Check! Holiday? Check!

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Hey all! December 15th always feels like rounding the last major corner towards Christmas to me, and I don’t know if it was all my years in retail (it was totally all my years in retail) but at this point in the year, I’m snuggled down with comfort reads. Low-angst comfort reads. Low-angst, holiday-themed, queer holiday reads. Often novellas (just something about the season that fits snugly into novella length for me), a few favourite re-reads, and listening to audiobooks while I walk the husky.

Now, if you’re here, you already know I’ve got three holiday novellas out there, and it all started with Handmade Holidays, my chosen-family, multiple-year, such-a-slow-burn-it’s-nearly-just-smoke queer romance. Handmade Holidays is based so very much on one of my own holiday traditions: Christmas Tree ornaments. Like my main character, Nick, I got a tree the first year I had space for it, and also like Nick, I forgot ornaments. That first year, it had candy canes and a single ornament a friend gave me, and it started a tradition: adding to that tree. It’s the same for Nick and his circle of chosen family, and though I imagine if you’re here, there’s a very good chance you’ve already met Nick and company, I have joined in with a group of wonderful authors of over fifty low-angst queer holiday romances again this year, and you can check out all the offerings by clicking that image above, or this link, right here. Go check them out, and maybe find a new favourite!

One of three of my titles available among the 50+ Low-Angst Queer Holiday titles! Check ’em all out!

At nineteen, Nick is alone for the holidays and facing reality: this is how it will be from now on. Refusing to give up completely, Nick buys a Christmas tree, and then realizes he has no ornaments. A bare tree and an empty apartment aren’t a great start, but a visit from his friend Haruto is just the ticket to get him through this first, worst, Christmas. A box of candy canes and a hastily folded paper crane might not be the best ornaments, but it’s a place to start.

A year later, Nick has realized he’s not the only one with nowhere to go, and he hosts his first “Christmas for the Misfit Toys.” Haruto brings Nick an ornament for Nick’s tree, and a tradition—and a new family—is born.

As years go by, Nick, Haruto, and their friends face love, betrayal, life, and death. Every ornament on Nick’s tree is another year, another story, and another chance at the one thing Nick has wanted since the start: someone who’d share more than the holidays with him.

Of course, Nick might have already missed his shot at the one, and it might be too late.

Still, after fifteen Christmases, Nick is ready to risk it all for the best present yet.

Handmade Holidays, by ‘Nathan Burgoine

Ornamental

Speaking of, our tree also went up, and as it’s an annual tradition here to share a couple of snaps, but I also wanted to note that something incredible happened this year with our tree. This year tipped a balance: as of this year, there are more years of ornaments on the tree than there were in life before it. I’ve come further than where I began, and as we decorated it this year, the little gasps of memory and laughter were all the sweeter for it. Making your own traditions, especially as a queer person, has been so important to me.

As always, the first ornament to be added to the tree for the year involves our rescue husky, Max. He’s definitely a character—sometimes an antagonist, like when he blew all the tendons in my left arm—but he’s always just adorable enough to get by. And while he can be very photogenic, sometimes the results are more amusing than not, and those are the ones we tend to pick for immortalizing him on the tree, given his goofy anti-gravitas. This year was no exception, as he threw this look at me while I was trying to take some lovely pictures of fall foliage.

See what I mean about anti-gravitas? That is not a patient puppy. He was so very done with me doing clicky-things with my phone. Still, you have to love him. I’m serious, he does just enough to be loveable, every time, no matter what else he’s done beforehand. It’s incredible.

Then there’s this. My husband went to the Rijksmuseum this year, while on a business trip, and while he had the sublime experience of seeing Johannes Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid,” he didn’t want me to feel left out, so he went to the gift-shop at the museum and purchased… this.

I can’t say I feel sublime about it, but I can say those dead eyes do follow you throughout the entire room no matter where you’re standing, so that sure is something!

I jest (somewhat). We have a history of also loving to find less-than-gorgeous ornamentation for our tree, and honestly, dead-eyed Milkmaid bunny fits right in alongside our Rainbow unicorn, Santa in his big-horn Texas mobile, Winky the one-eyed Fox, and all the other denizens of our tree that—it’s probably horrible to admit this—seem to end up on the far side of the tree most years. They always make us laugh, though, and remind us of the year we got them. I’m sure dead-eyed Milkmaid bunny will bring us her version of joy for years and years to come.

Do you do a mixed-ornament tree? A themed tree? No tree at all? I’d love to hear about any other traditions you have—especially how you’ve made the holidays your own if you, like me, spent a lot of time feeling like you’d never enjoy the holiday at all. And don’t forget to take a visit to the Low-Angst Queer Holiday reads page, and maybe find yourself a new favourite to snuggle up with!