3 Tips for Writing Memorable Holiday Stories

By JPC Allen

It’s not as if I planned it, but my YA mystery series always ends up built around a holiday. The short story that kicks off the series, “A Rose from the Ashes,” is a Christmas mystery. My second novel, A Storm of Doubts, starts on Memorial Day and ends on Father’s Day. I’ve written a Halloween mystery, and my release this year, A Threat at the Feast, is a Thanksgiving one. I love writing about a specific time of year and want to share with you 3 keys for writing memorable holiday stories.

Take advantage of what the holiday has to offer.

Each major holiday has its own themes and setting. Christmas brings with it family, secrets, and a sense of wonder–to name just a few themes–along with winter weather, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. Thanksgiving also emphasizes family as well as travel, comfort food, and fall weather. The Fourth of July has themes of community, fun, patriotism, and heat, bugs, and storms. One way to make holiday stories memorable is to tap into these themes and settings.

In my Halloween mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, I thought the month of fake fears would be the perfect time of year for my Christian characters to explore real-life fears. The beloved uncle of my amateur sleuth Rae Riley is fighting for his life after a riding accident. Her family deals with this fear while Rae also has to confront her fear of asking her boyfriend to go to church with her.

Because major holidays are so well-known, I can also play with themes that oppose the typical ones associated with a particular holiday. Mysteries have a long tradition, going all the way back to Sherlock Holmes, of setting crimes during the Christmas season. In my Thanksgiving mystery, the boyfriend of my amateur sleuth Rae Riley has several estranged family members descend on him in November. Not the kind of relatives you want to invite to share the turkey.

Make the holiday integral to the plot.

The most memorable holiday stories make some aspect of the holiday so integral to the plot that the story won’t work at any other time of the year. In the mystery novella, Christmas Party, by Rex Stout, the fact that a person can hide almost their entire body in a Santa Claus costume is a crucial part of the mystery. 

In my Halloween mystery, Rae is working weekends at the ticket booth of an outdoor Halloween attraction. The property may be the hiding place for the lost inheritance Rae hopes to find for her great-aunt. Inventing this seasonal event provides several benefits. First, the attraction provides a spooky vibe that I used to set the mood for the mystery of a hidden fortune, rumors of Bigfoot, and later, a murder. Second, since the attraction is public, it allows me to bring in any characters I need Rae to meet. The public nature of the event gives me a realistic way for Rae to run into characters that would be very hard for her to have any contact with during the course of her normal day.

The most memorable holiday stories make some aspect of the holiday so integral to the plot that the story won’t work at any other time of the year.

Look to your own holiday traditions.

Another way to make holiday stories linger in the minds of readers is mining your family’s traditions for inspiration. Does your family observe a Christmas tradition that’s unusual? Do you have a unique way to celebrate birthdays? At the end of A Threat at the Feast, Rae and her family make cookie turkeys to hold the name tags at each place setting. And for the reporters massed on their road after the solution to the mystery. For decades, I’ve made these turkeys from a striped cookie, an Oreo cookie, a Rollo, and a piece of candy corn for my own name tags. It was fun to include my tradition in my novel. (By the way, I have never had reporters mass on my road for any reason, so I haven’t had a chance to see how offering cookie turkeys would work in real life.)

If you’ve written a holiday story, let me know. Or if this article has ignited inspiration for a story, please put it in the comments.

JPC Allen started her writing career in second grade with an homage to Scooby-Doo, and she’s been tracking down mysteries ever since. Her Rae Riley Mysteries series for teens combines faith and family with brain-busting puzzles and has won Selah and ACFW Kidlit awards. She also teaches writing workshops, online and in-person, encouraging every kind of writer to discover the adventure of writing. Coming from a long line of Mountaineers, she’s a lifelong Buckeye and sets all her mysteries in fictional Marlin County, Ohio.