This year I may read
The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday by Stephen Nissenbaum. Not exactly romantic, but it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist!
Afterwards, there is the unmissable
The Onion Presents: Christmas Exposed, with such heart-warming stories as "Emotionally Distant Family Spends Holidays Watching Touching Family Dramas Together" and "Book Given as Gift Actually Read" (my favourite).
To my shame, I have never gotten all the way through Dickens'
A Christmas Carol, though I have watched the Muppets film adaptation many times with the younger children in my family... as well as alone. I just learned that Agatha Christie wrote a retelling of the First Christmas called
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories. Who knew? Maybe I'll try that.