What do you think?
Rate this book
Big Finish Short Trips #15
Doctor Who Short Trips: The History of Christmas
Doctor Who Short Trips is a series of themed short story anthologies of new Doctor Who fiction, featuring the Doctor in all of his first eight incarnations. They feature stories written by some of the leading names in Doctor Who, past and present, including Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts, Christopher H. Bidmead, and Paul Magrs. Christmas is the busiest time of year for the mysterious Doctor, whether he's caught-up in the violence of ancient Rome, taking Leonardo da Vinci on a day-trip to the stars, or popping in on the very first Christmas on the moon. Spend Christmas with the Doctor. If you dare.
231 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2005
4 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Simon Guerrier
168 books61 followersSimon Guerrier is a British science fiction author and dramatist, closely associated with the fictional universe of Doctor Who and its spinoffs. Although he has written three Doctor Who novels, for the BBC Books range, his work has mostly been for Big Finish Productions' audio drama and book ranges.
Guerrier's earliest published fiction appeared in Zodiac, the first of Big Finish's Short Trips range of Doctor Who short story anthologies. To date, his work has appeared in the majority of the Short Trips collections. He has also edited three volumes in the series, The History of Christmas, Time Signature and How The Doctor Changed My Life. The second of these takes as its starting-point Guerrier's short story An Overture Too Early in The Muses. The third anthology featured stories entirely by previously unpublished writers.
After contributing two stories to the anthology Life During Wartime in Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield range of books and audio dramas, Guerrier was invited to edit the subsequent year's short story collection, A Life Worth Living, and the novella collection Parallel Lives. After contributing two audio dramas to the series, Guerrier became the producer of the Bernice Summerfield range of plays and books, a post he held between January 2006 and June 2007.
His other Doctor Who work includes the audio dramas, The Settling and The Judgement of Isskar, in Big Finish's Doctor Who audio range, three Companion Chronicles and a contribution to the UNIT spinoff series. He has also written a play in Big Finish's Sapphire and Steel range.
Guerrier's work is characterised by character-driven humour and by an interest in unifying the continuity of the various Big Finish ranges through multiple references and reappearances of characters. As editor he has been a strong promoter of the work of various script writers from the Seventh Doctor era of the Doctor Who television series
Guerrier's earliest published fiction appeared in Zodiac, the first of Big Finish's Short Trips range of Doctor Who short story anthologies. To date, his work has appeared in the majority of the Short Trips collections. He has also edited three volumes in the series, The History of Christmas, Time Signature and How The Doctor Changed My Life. The second of these takes as its starting-point Guerrier's short story An Overture Too Early in The Muses. The third anthology featured stories entirely by previously unpublished writers.
After contributing two stories to the anthology Life During Wartime in Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield range of books and audio dramas, Guerrier was invited to edit the subsequent year's short story collection, A Life Worth Living, and the novella collection Parallel Lives. After contributing two audio dramas to the series, Guerrier became the producer of the Bernice Summerfield range of plays and books, a post he held between January 2006 and June 2007.
His other Doctor Who work includes the audio dramas, The Settling and The Judgement of Isskar, in Big Finish's Doctor Who audio range, three Companion Chronicles and a contribution to the UNIT spinoff series. He has also written a play in Big Finish's Sapphire and Steel range.
Guerrier's work is characterised by character-driven humour and by an interest in unifying the continuity of the various Big Finish ranges through multiple references and reappearances of characters. As editor he has been a strong promoter of the work of various script writers from the Seventh Doctor era of the Doctor Who television series
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Read
December 24, 2012Like any anthology, a mixed bag - but even the weakest stories only feel a little generic, and there are no outright stinkers (it's a Christmas miracle). And the best are amazing - there's a timey-wimey one about the first Doctor meeting someone he possibly shouldn't, another with Leonardo da Vinci on Oxford Street, and a very sweet return to Cheldon Boniface and the Timewyrm. The closing story, by Philip Purser-Hallard, may be the best of all, taking a mere 12 pages (many of the stories are pretty short) to come up with an epic riff on the rebirth symbolism of the Christmas tree.
December 24, 2016
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2761098.html
Christmas is a fairly narrow theme, but here it is taken pretty broadly: My friends Marcus looks at Roman-era astrology (not the only author to go for that time period), and there are a number of good short tales here - 25 in 231 pages, so about 9 pages each - and for once no real stinkers. I guess the ones that stick in my mind most are "Christmas on the Moon" by Simon Guerrier, "She Won't Be Home" by Joseph Lidster, and "Saint Nicholas's Bones" by Xanna Eve Chown. But in general it is a good seasonal entertainment.
Christmas is a fairly narrow theme, but here it is taken pretty broadly: My friends Marcus looks at Roman-era astrology (not the only author to go for that time period), and there are a number of good short tales here - 25 in 231 pages, so about 9 pages each - and for once no real stinkers. I guess the ones that stick in my mind most are "Christmas on the Moon" by Simon Guerrier, "She Won't Be Home" by Joseph Lidster, and "Saint Nicholas's Bones" by Xanna Eve Chown. But in general it is a good seasonal entertainment.
December 26, 2025
Following on from last Christmas' Doctor Who short story anthology, A Christmas Treasury, I wanted to do the same this year, and so I read the next Christmas-related anthology that had released. I was rather looking forward to it; however, the overall idea of "The History of Christmas" wasn't too interesting to me. For one story or two about Christmas being celebrated in the far-flung past, that could be nice, but 24 seemed like overkill.
It's a shame to give this anthology such a low rating, but while the stories within were readable, very few of them stood out to me as notable. I had written mini reviews for each story, and of the 24 in this anthology, I counted 9 that tickled my fancy. I know with anthologies that they're not all going to be equal in terms of enjoyment, but to have so many "okay" and "alright" stories was quite a pity.
I'd say the best story here was "She Won't Be Home" by Joseph Lidster (once again, a tremendous writer for these anthologies), where the 6th Doctor meets Linda Grainger and saves her from toe-harvesting aliens on what she deems her "worst Christmas ever".
All being said, I will still be reading the 3rd Christmas anthology next year, amongst many other anthologies within this series, as I currently have every volume, apart from volumes 19, 24 and 28.
It's a shame to give this anthology such a low rating, but while the stories within were readable, very few of them stood out to me as notable. I had written mini reviews for each story, and of the 24 in this anthology, I counted 9 that tickled my fancy. I know with anthologies that they're not all going to be equal in terms of enjoyment, but to have so many "okay" and "alright" stories was quite a pity.
I'd say the best story here was "She Won't Be Home" by Joseph Lidster (once again, a tremendous writer for these anthologies), where the 6th Doctor meets Linda Grainger and saves her from toe-harvesting aliens on what she deems her "worst Christmas ever".
All being said, I will still be reading the 3rd Christmas anthology next year, amongst many other anthologies within this series, as I currently have every volume, apart from volumes 19, 24 and 28.
January 26, 2023
Another in the series of short stories featuring various Doctor's and companions....the theme of this one of course being the Festive period.I really enjoyed this one more than most of the other collections but that's largely down to the fact that I myself love Christmas.Saying that there are some really enjoyable stories amongst this bunch with only I think one or two that were not too enjoyable for me.I definitely recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who....of any era really.
January 13, 2026
Rating by story…
Set in Stone: They should adapt this into a tv Xmas episode. 5/5
The Feast: Poorly written, couldn’t hold my interest. 2/5
Saint Nicholas’ Bones: Not the best, but fun. And the ending is really sweet and appropriately Christmasy. 3/5
The Revolutionaries: Annoyingly written. 2/5
The Thousand Years of Christmas: Pretty sweat. Though the implication that the Time Lords engineered this is absurd. 4/5
The Lampblack Wars: Awesomely educational, quirky, and even manages to be a good transition, tone wise, between the third and fourth Doctor eras. 4.5/5
Set in Stone: They should adapt this into a tv Xmas episode. 5/5
The Feast: Poorly written, couldn’t hold my interest. 2/5
Saint Nicholas’ Bones: Not the best, but fun. And the ending is really sweet and appropriately Christmasy. 3/5
The Revolutionaries: Annoyingly written. 2/5
The Thousand Years of Christmas: Pretty sweat. Though the implication that the Time Lords engineered this is absurd. 4/5
The Lampblack Wars: Awesomely educational, quirky, and even manages to be a good transition, tone wise, between the third and fourth Doctor eras. 4.5/5
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews