(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia)
One of the hallmarks of Christmas, and no, we are not talking about the branded festive romcoms, is how wonderful it can often be to gather with family (of the birth and chosen varieties).
It’s especially the case when you are live far apart, and it’s only on major celebrations like this, when time and holidays are on your side, that you’re able to see each other face to face and enjoy the company of people who are closer to you than any other.
But despite the tight bonds and great affection that often exist, getting together is not always without its issues, something on full display in All Together for Christmas by Sarah Morgan which sees all three Balfour siblings heading north to gather at the ancestral home with mum Jenny and dad Martin.
Family means the world to retired nurse Jenny who pulls out the stops each every Christmas to ensure that all the things her children love about the season are well and truly present and accounted for, from favourite foods to decorations to long walks on the nearby beach, which happen no matter how cold it gets.
The child who loves it most is Rosie, an exuberant, bright and bubbly theatre fashion designer, who craves Christmas and closeness to family, most especially to her twin sister Becky, who is taciturn, technically brilliant and more inclined to shrink into the background that seize the limelight which routinely plays home to her sister.
Rosie slumped in her set. She’d been looking forward to Christmas for ages, and now it promised to be a total disaster.
Merry Christmas, Rosie.
While Rosie, with newly-minted husband Declan in tow – he’s an old work colleague and close friend of Becky who introduced them one unremarkable night after work – can’t wait to get back home, Becky is far more reluctant, carrying a huge secret that if it emerges could send shockwaves through the family.
When heavy snow grounds flights less than a week before Christmas at the time as the trains are on strike and there’s not a hire car to be had, Becky reluctantly accepts a lift from her bestie Will, a handsome, thoughtful and highly successful doctor who she’s known since they were both very young kids.
The idea of anything happening between them is ridiculous, reasons Becky, after all they’re more like brother and sister than wannabe lovers – spoiler alert: reader, they are not – so she finally decides that a lift north in Will’s car won’t be all that bad.
While these two siblings, who are usually super close but who have barely seen each other all year at Becky’s instigation (thought she’ll admit to nothing) try their hardest to get home by road, issues and secrets percolating between them and within their couplings, oldest sibling Jamie arrives home with Hayley who is the first person he has been with romantically in years after a nasty breakup with his ex.
Each of the siblings has a secret that’s burdening them, and while they very much want to be together, all that secret keeping is adding some friction to what should be a dream Christmas family holiday.
(courtesy official author site)
And a dream Christmas family holiday is exactly what Jenny is trying to bring about in All Together for Christmas which is all cosy and warm and lovely but also cognisant of the fact that no matter how much you like your family that there can be issues aplenty between you.
Take that fact that Martin is not handling being retired all the well, his departure as the local town’s doctor not sitting easily with a man who was also active to the point of exhaustion and whose inability to transition to retirement is causing issues for his loving wife, who is also keen to ensure her mid-eighties parents, Brian and Phyllis, are included in all the festivities.
It’s a LOT, and All Together for Christmas has it all, and honestly, there are so many moving parts to this story that it could easily have felt overstuffed and far too busy for its own good.
But Morgan, who knows a thing or two about very full-on festive novels, pulls it all off flawlessly with All Together for Christmas giving each and every character enough time alone and with significant others to get their sh*t sorted while also allowing the warmly dysfunctional family dynamics to do their festively warmhearted thing.
It’s a tricky balancing act but Morgan makes it work, letting each of the secrets out as needed while ensuring the flow of this transformative Balfour Christmas is never impeded for a second.
There was so much they’d shared together, so many struggles they’d helped each other through. And she didn’t need something bad to happen to know she was lucky to have him.
And although she knew he couldn’t take the anxiety from her, it made her feel better to know she wasn’t alone in it.
Much of what makes All Together for Christmas work is that family is front and centre.
Jenny works overtime to string up extra lights, to make a slew of festive goods and to ensure that all the Christmas boxes are ticked, and it’s her dedication to making sure it’s the festive season for everyone that gives the rest of the issues at play just the right seasonal context in which to work themselves out.
That’s the crucial thing with festive novels – while they can have all the issues in the world in play, they must feel ultimately like a love letter to the season since it’s that element, that overriding element, that makes all the issues feel dealable.
After all, Christmas is supposed to be the most magical time of the year and that means that no matter the problem or the challenge that it can be sorted, and not just by the skin of its teeth but in ways that feel bountiful, exuberantly festive and good for the heart and soul.
All Together for Christmas well and truly makes it case for Christmas as a time of healing and hope and familial inclusiveness while acknowledging that not everything is always perfect, even in the most loving of families, and that perhaps some openness and honesty, with the healing balm of the festive season readily at hand, might just be what everyone needs, not just now at the most wonderful time of the year, but in the succeeding months where the rubber will hit the road once the tinsel is packed away and the fruit mince pies are no more.