Merry Czech Christmas

What if the famous song by Zdeněk Borovec, Vánce, Vánoce přicházejí (Christmas, Christmas is Coming), were turned into a book? We'd get festive snippets full of bittersweet humour and sweet nostalgia, convincingly proving that although Christmas should theoretically be a time of peace and quiet, in practice it's often a period when our nearest and dearest can delight us just as much as they can drive us mad. The main narrator, Tereza, will have to cope not only with her teenage children testing her nerves, but also with the well-intentioned, yet sometimes maddening, advice of her own parents. Although the characters are fictional, it's virtually impossible for the reader not to identify with their experiences, humour and conflicts, because anyone who has ever celebrated Christmas the Czech way (i.e., most of the population of our country) has surely experienced something similar. The story takes us through a typical domestic Christmas, from baking biscuits and preparing carp and potato salad, to watching a brand-new fairy tale and the iconic film Cosy Dens (Pelíšky) on Christmas Eve. In addition to family escapades, the book also offers historical gems, interesting facts, ancient traditions, and even travel observations–for example, a journey through Šumava in the footsteps of the Angel of the Lord. This novel promises not only entertainment, but also the realisation that you are not alone in the Christmas “chaos-calm”!