‘Tis the season for stocking stuffers, caroling…and romance novels? Last year, when LJ expanded its romance reviewing to six times a year, one reason was to make sure we could provide early coverage of the flood of titles we always anticipate for Valentine’s Day. This year’s December column includes a few little red-hot treats, but, like the October 15 column, it is piled high with a veritable sleighload of Christmas romances. In addition, the October 15 issue featured our second roundup of general Christmas fiction, with titles ranging from mystery (Anne Perry’s A Christmas Secret) to humor (Dave Barry’s The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Dog) to biblical retellings (Elizabeth Berg’s The Handmaid and the Carpenter). So why is the Nativity so hot? Perhaps it is the success of Richard Paul Evans’s seasonal fables, starting with The Christmas Box; or the holiday’s high profile in our consumer society; or, alternately, and especially regarding romance, the neat parallel between the reclamation promised by Christmas as holy day and the reclamation promised by love. Or maybe Valentine’s Day had worn out its possibilities. In any case, as we anticipate the spring season, with titles like Christopher Moore’s You Suck: A Love Story on the horizon, here’s betting that the next big holiday for romance is Hallowe’en.