Austen Variations 2025 Advent Calendar

Welcome to the 2025 Austen Variations Advent Calendar, where our amazing authors will bring you a new gift every day from now until December 24th.

Winslow: It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Darcy

Only 2 weeks left until Christmas. Time to get your cards in the mail! Oh. Wait. Most people don’t do that anymore, do they? But I’m not ready to give up the tradition quite yet.  Every year I create my own cards, featuring some of my artwork on the outside and a newsy letter on the inside (see this 2014  post if you’re interested).

Last year, it occurred to me that the cover of my newest book (a short novella entitled It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Darcy) could make a great Christmas card with a little modification. Part 1 of today’s Advent Calendar fun is to put together a puzzle to see how the card turned out (follow this link to Jigsaw Explorer). You can modify the number of pieces to make it more or less challenging.

All done? I hope you had fun solving the puzzle, and also that you will consider it my personal Christmas greeting to you, despite the incorrect date.

Part 2: In the spirit of giving, I’ve reduced the Kindle price on It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Darcy to $.99 for a limited time! (It’s also available in audio, narrated by Harry Frost, and the paperback makes a nice little gift for the Jane Austen lover in your life.) Find all three formats at Amazon.

Part 3: Whether you read the book or not, I thought you might enjoy this opening scene – Christmas at Pemberley – as told by Darcy himself. And Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas evening – my first of many happy Christmases with Elizabeth, God willing – and we have dear friends gathered at Pemberley to share it with us. Georgiana is here, of course, and Colonel Fitzwilliam. Mr. Bingley and Jane have come, as well as the entire Gardiner family.

I glance at Elizabeth, who sits by my side, her hand tucked in mine. We exchange contented smiles, and I know I am the most fortunate of men.

It has been a full and satisfying day.

We woke to a blanket of white resting an inch or two thick on the ground – enough to delight everybody but not enough to create much inconvenience. So we were still able to safely reach Kympton to attend divine services on this holy day. Afterward, the Gardiner children played on the lawn, throwing snowballs and building what they could with the limited supply of the white stuff. Some of the adults braved the chilly air again as well, joining in the children’s play or just strolling about in the wintery scene, all of us bundled up in our warmest clothing.

Indoors, there have been games and conversation, along with good things to eat morning, noon, and night: hearty but simple fare for the most part, much of it prepared yesterday to lighten the load on the servants today. A few of them volunteered to remain on duty. But most – anybody with family in the area – have gone off for their own Christmas celebrations.

Now I can see through the drawing room windows that the sky is painted with more pink and orange hues than blues. The candles are lit, and the day is coming to a close. As I look about myself, at my comfortable home and the happy faces of my dear ones, I could wish to remain in this present moment forever.

And yet my thoughts refuse to do so. Without warning, the cheerful Christmas scene is now changed for something entirely different. Images from a much darker period suddenly appear, unbidden, before my mind’s eye. Familiar sensations, both frightening and exquisitely painful, clutch at my heart.

I resist the temptation to blink them away at once. Instead, I briefly allow the powerful recollections to wash over me again, as they so often have done since the event took place. It is good to remember, so that I never take Elizabeth and all my other blessings for granted. And so, for just a minute or two, I give myself over to reliving that wonderful, terrible time.

It happened eight months ago, in April, just after Elizabeth refused my first dismal proposal. That was a devastating blow indeed, and it must have in some manner brought on the strange episode that followed. I can conceive of no other explanation. This is the question which still lingers, however; was it real or only some kind of extraordinary dream? One could rightly call it a nightmare except for what I learnt by it. A painful event, once survived, may be counted a treasure if it proves to have been of tremendous value in the end.

The experience to which I refer certainly was – a valuable treasure, I mean. In truth, I count it a great gift, one I shall never forget. Christmas is a time of gift giving, is it not? Perhaps that is why the peculiar episode comes back to my mind again now. But if not a mere dream or even a nightmare, what shall I call it?

It was a visitation.

Check back tomorrow for your next gift. 

To see each day so far, visit austenvariations.com/2025-advent-calendar/