Festive, Frazzled, and Related

You love your family. You just weren't planning to spend Christmas defending every decision you've ever made.

The invitation sounds innocent. The family group chat suggests otherwise. Before long, you're buying presents for people who want "nothing," negotiating competing expectations, and explaining your relationship status with a mouthful of potatoes.

Welcome to family Christmas.

Festive, Frazzled, and Related is a funny Christmas book for adults who enjoy the season but could do without quite so much of it happening at once.

Across twenty sharply observed chapters, Emrick Donvell explores the familiar absurdities of festive family life, with affectionate humour and practical suggestions for getting through the gathering with some goodwill remaining.

Inside, you'll encounter:

• Invitations that arrive with an attendance requirement.
• Gift shopping for people with exceptionally unhelpful preferences.
• Returning home and becoming seventeen again.
• Hosting duties that expand every time you finish one.
• Questions about marriage, children, money, and everything else you hadn't offered to discuss.
• Dinner-table debates, compulsory games, and photographs that require several rehearsals.
• Goodbyes that continue long after you have put on your coat.

There is warmth here too, including a gentler chapter about missing people, changing traditions, and making room for a Christmas that feels different.

Read it before the relatives arrive, dip into it between festivities, or give it to the person who always catches your eye across the table when somebody starts.

An affectionate, gently sarcastic gift for friends, siblings, partners, parents, and exhausted hosts, it makes a thoughtful Secret Santa present or stocking filler for someone who appreciates relatable humour.

Because "lovely to see everyone" and "ready to go home" can both be true.