It's not December yet, but we're reminding you now. If you celebrate Christmas—and even if you don't, but you celebrate great stories—then be sure not to miss these great ways that CanLit is getting with the season.
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Remember The Short Story Advent Calendar, which rocked CanLit for most of last December? Well, it's baa-ack! Editor Michael Hingston and designer Natalie Olsen have teamed up again to create a box of beautiful bookish object and a short story a day, this year with featured authors including Anakana Schofield, Daniel Handler, Sheila Heti...and a whole bunch of others whose identities you shall discover on the appropriate days when you unseal their stories.
Last year the SSAC sold out, so don't miss you chance. Order your copy here!
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Also back for another year after a most successful debut is Biblioasis's Christmas Ghost Stories Bundle, with a brand new bundle. Hearkening back to the 19th-century tradition of ghost stories at Christmas (A Christmas Carol, anybody?) these titles include stories by Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, and Marjorie Bowen. Smartly designed by the award-winning Seth, these books have been specifically sized to fit optimally into stockings.
You can order the whole set directly from the publisher, or you'll find them by the till in all good bookshops throughout the holiday season.
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If your back is hurting from balancing small children on your shoulders for hours in order to catch a glimpse of Santa and his reindeer in the freezing cold this weekend, or you have a similar date coming up on your calendar, then it means you'll probably get a lot out of historian Steve Penfold's A Mile of Make-Believe. It's a history of Santa Claus Parades in Canada, and the Eaton's Santa Claus Parades in particular, which took place in Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg (and less frequently in Calgary and Edmonton) between 1905-1982. Penfold's previous works include The Donut: A Canadian History, and cultural critic Geoff Pevere describes this latest title as "the story of the...parade as a literally moving metaphor of—among other things—a country, a city, a company and an epic pop cultural museum on wheels."