John Updike’s The Twelve Terrors of Christmas announces its intention in the very title. One should dispense with expectations of celebrations of holiday joy. Updike enjoys one of the most prestigious reputations in American literature. He is highly regarded as a novelist, short story writer, and composer of light verse. Interestingly, one aspect that is not foregrounded most significantly among his lofty reputation is that of being a profoundly religious writer.
Despite this, the overarching theme of this short volume very strongly suggests the author’s distaste for the secularization of one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar. This is a collection of short pieces that persistently attack Christmas traditions from a satirical and ironic perspective. Notably, this comically applied outrage is limited to the secular side of the holidays. Nowhere does the sardonic narrator express any negativity toward the spiritual side of Christmas.
On one level, it is an intensely focused rail against the commercialization of the holiday which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. The opening salvo against commercialization appears in the very first chapter which attacks “Santa’s helpers” as being alcoholic cast-offs of polite society. This critique slowly builds through allusive criticisms of Christmas trees, music, TV specials and movies, and decorations until it reaches a four-part climax at the end. The commercialization of Christmas becomes a portrait of psychological damage caused by the fears of not giving good enough presents and not receiving enough presents. The book concludes with the depiction of the ritual of returning unwanted gifts as an action designed specifically to increase one’s guilt for the purpose of humiliation.
Throughout the book, the Christmas season is presented as a holiday that does not inspire joy. The opening chapter compares Santa Claus to Stephen King’s Pennywise the Clown. The very next chapter questions the entire concept of altruism, suggesting the very act of charitable giving to others less fortunate can become a mental illness. Even the delirious joy of building toys in Santa’s workshop turns the elves into slowly simmering revolutionaries biding their time under workshop conditions. Shopping is painted as an especially miserable experience in which the humiliation of returning unwanted gifts is actually preferable to the physical injuries suffered during the gift-buying phase. The incessant repetition of the same Christmas carols has the effect of making us forget when those songs made us happy. The secularization and commercialization of Christmas are staged as being a combination that literally sucks the joy from the world rather than infusing joy into the world.
Ultimately, it becomes evident that what this book is about are those things about Christmas that it does not address. The message is simple, really. Christmas should not be a season approached with dread and terror, but with joy and eagerness. Perhaps it once was, the lack of holiday joy in the book seems to suggest. It may even hint that, perhaps, it never will be again.
