But things are never quite that simple on the Tipping House Estate.Festive fervour takes over and it isn’t all seasonal peace and goodwill as expectations rise and it soon escalates from cosy dinner for two, to all the trimmings for ten!With missing turkeys, loose horses, troublesome terriers and randy huntsmen, Lottie is hard pushed to find time for a kiss under the mistletoe, let alone find the opportunity to woo Rory with her sexy Santa costume.But there is only one thing Lottie really wants for Christmas, and only one man can deliver it…

    But what is American democracy? In America (The Book), Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff offer their insights into our unique system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and exploring the reasons why concepts like one man, one vote, government by the people, and every vote counts have become such popular urban myths. Topics include: Ancient Rome: The First Republicans; The Founding Fathers: Young, Gifted, and White; The Media: Can it Be Stopped?; and more!

    Their stern grandmother, who owns the holiday resort, is not known for her warmth and good humor. But when shy, straight-laced Tess meets Christopher in the lobby, things are suddenly looking up. And when she decides to get out of her comfort zone and create a bucket list of things to accomplish before the New Year-like singing in public and skiing a black-diamond slope-Christopher is happy to help, even as he keeps a secret that could turn everything upside down. When the ball drops, will Tess and Christopher share a magical kiss-or will Tess start the new year off alone?

    Sublime and ridiculous, sentimental and searing, Christmas at The New Yorker is a gift of great writing and drawing by literary legends and laugh-out-loud cartoonists.Here are seasonal stories, poems, memoirs, and more, including such classics as John Cheever’s 1949 story “Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor,” about an elevator operator in a Park Avenue apartment building who experiences the fickle power of charity; John Updike’s “The Carol Sing,” in which a group of small-town carolers remember an exceptionally enthusiastic fellow singer (“How he would jubilate, how he would God-rest those merry gentlemen, how he would boom out when the male voices became King Wenceslas”); and Richard Ford’s acerbic and elegiac 1998 story “Crèche,” in which an unmarried Hollywood lawyer spends an unsettling holiday with her sister’s estranged husband and kids.Here, too, are S. J. Perelman’s 1936 “Waiting for Santy,” a playlet in the style of Clifford Odets labor drama (the setting: “The sweatshop of Santa Claus, North Pole”), and Vladimir Nabokov’s heartbreaking 1975 story “Christ-mas,” in which a father grieving for his lost son in a world “ghastly with sadness” sees a tiny miracle on Christmas Eve.And it wouldn’t be Christmas—or The New Yorker—without dozens of covers and cartoons by Addams, Arno, Chast, and others, or the mischievous verse of Roger Angell, Calvin Trillin, and Ogden Nash (“Do you know Mrs. Millard Fillmore Revere?/On her calendar, Christmas comes three hundred and sixty-five times a year”).From Jazz Age to New Age, E. B. White to Garrison Keillor, these works represent eighty years of wonderful keepsakes for Christmas, from The New Yorker to you.From the Hardcover edition.

    Completely without funds or family, Travis finds celebrating Christmas is the last thing on his mind, but there’s no escaping the holiday spirit in this close-knit little town—not with Branding Iron’s longtime Santa retiring, and sweetly stubborn Mayor Maggie Delaney determined to find a replacement. When her no-nonsense façade slips to reveal the sensual, vulnerable woman beneath it, Travis realizes Maggie just might be as lonely as he is—and that this holiday season, love could be the gift that heals them both.

    Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired “the gray hairs,” put the managing editor in a supply closet, stopped using the landlines, and hired a bevy of manicured and questionably attired underlings who text and tweet their way through meetings. Imogen, darling of the fashion world, may have Alexander Wang and Diane von Furstenberg on speed dial, but she can’t tell Facebook from Foursquare and once got her iPhone stuck in Japanese for two days. Under Eve’s reign, Glossy is rapidly becoming a digital sweatshop—hackathons rage all night, girls who sleep get fired, and “fun” means mandatory, company-wide coordinated dances to Beyoncé. Wildly out of her depth, Imogen faces a choice—pack up her Smythson notebooks and quit, or channel her inner geek and take on Eve to save both the magazine and her career. A glittering, uproarious, sharply drawn story filled with thinly veiled fashion personalities, The Knockoff is an insider’s look at the ever-changing world of fashion and a fabulous romp for our Internet-addicted age.

    Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends—and that’s before she even puts on a bra.For the past ten years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences. She writes about a world of hourly-wage jobs that require absolutely no skills, a mother who hands down judgments more forcefully than anyone seated on the Supreme Court, horrific high school reunions, and hangovers that leave her surprised that she woke up in the first place.The misadventures of Laurie and her fellow Idiot Girls (“too cool to be in the Smart Group”) unfold in a world that everyone will recognize but no one has ever described so hilariously. She delivers the goods: life as we all know it.

    Me too.And yet, here we are. This isn’t even the most unprofessional thing that’s happened between us in the past couple of weeks.The first was when I agreed to let her have Christmas Day off, but only if she goes with me to three family gatherings as my fake girlfriend.The second was when she caught me belting out a Christmas song on stage in the awful hotel bar.The third was the hot, drunk, angry sex that followed, but I do not regret it.And she hasn’t even found out the real reason I need her by my side this holiday season.I need to pull it together before I do the dumbest, most unprofessional thing of all—fall head over heels in love with the only assistant who’s lasted more than a month at the job and claims to hate me and my moods more than she hates eggnog. And I’ve seen how much she hates eggnog.

    A story of love, loss and finding oneself again. The story of a young military widow and her son finding themselves again after the loss of their husband and father. The proceeds of this book go to Operation Military Kids. A charity that helps military children while their parents are deployed.

    The biggest and best tree in the lot should make her mom and her new stepdad happy–and forget how she’s neglected to visit them in their tiny town of Crystal Cove.Three nights before Christmas, and all Nick Bennington needs to do is to pick up a Christmas tree. The one saved for him that he should have picked up weeks ago for the charity event at the historic mayor’s mansion on Christmas Eve.That task his mother, Mayor Bennington herself, entrusted him with. Now the biggest and best tree in the lot is gone.After a slip off the icy roads sends Megan, her car, and her prized tree into the ditch a rescuer in the form of Nick Bennington quickly arrives. A rescuer with ulterior motives, Meghan discovers, as he angles to take the pesky tree off her hands.Falling for the country boy is not part of her holiday plans. But for Nick, stumbling upon this city girl might be just the wake-up call he needs.

    In A Typical Irish Christmas, a grieving widower heads for a holiday in Ireland and finds an unexpected destination not just for himself, but for a father and daughter in crisis. . . . In Pulling Together, a teacher not yet out of her twenties sees her affair with a married man at a turning point as Christmas Eve approaches. . . . And in the title story, This Year It Will Be Different, a woman with a complacent husband and grown children enters a season that will forever alter her life, and theirs. . .

    With all the commercialism, stress and chaos, there are a lot of people who feel the same way. But Jessie has more reason than most for hating it. She’s been robbed, dumped, caught pneumonia, broken her leg, and this year she ran over Santa Claus with her truck.Tom Dunham’s holiday is turning out to be pretty awful. Not only is he suddenly responsible for a six-year-old daughter he hasn’t seen since infancy, but Amy holds him personally responsible for uprooting her, making it impossible for Santa to find her on Christmas morning.Things go from bad to worse when Tom’s car breaks down on a freezing mountain road, but he gets a reprieve when a young woman who looks more like a Victoria’s Secret model than a tow truck driver comes to his rescue. Suddenly things are looking up—until she runs over an old man with an eerie resemblance to St. Nick.

    But fate seems to have different plans.On a snowy evening in March, 30-something Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car, without food, drink, or a working charger for her phone. All seems lost until Sam Attwood, a handsome American stranger also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. What follows is eight perfect hours together, until morning arrives and the roads finally clear. The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again, but fate, it seems, has a different plan. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another, they begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence. With plenty of charming twists and turns and Lia Louis’s “bold, standout voice” (Gillian McAllister, author of The Good Sister), Eight Perfect Hours is a gorgeously crafted novel that will make you believe in the power of fate.

    The perfectionist TV star heads to a mountain retreat for a restful, relaxing holiday. But when she gets caught in a blizzard and crashes her car, Jennifer is left with more than a wreck; she’s left with amnesia. John, a small-town veterinarian and single dad, finds the confused Jennifer wandering on the road. He’s used to taking care of others; he’s built for this. When he takes her in, he and his children give her more than shelter…they try to help her figure out who she is. As Jennifer and John make new memories, their connection to one another grows. But how can they even think about romance when they don’t know her true identity? This heartwarming romance comes with a Hallmark original recipe for Holiday Roast Beef with Root Vegetables.

    Right to walk through the door for as long as she can remember. When Marcus Klein comes into her family's florist shop two weeks before Christmas, it seems like love at first sight. Has God finally brought love to Lindsey this Christmas season? And why is Jason, her best friend from childhood, suddenly acting so weird?