O’Brien’s First Christmas by Jeanette Winterson
Book: The World and Other Places
Author: Jeanette Winterson
Publication Year: 1998
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Short story, Fairy Tale
Jeanette Winterson’s “O’Brien’s First Christmas” is witty, playful, and delightfully absurd: a modern fairy tale set amid department-store consumerism, compulsory Christmas cheer, and the exhausting social expectation that every single woman must urgently find romance before the decorations come down.
O’Brien is a young woman working in a department store’s pet section. She is single, dissatisfied, and emotionally unconvinced by Christmas. Then a fairy appears and offers her love or adventure, because apparently fairies also enjoy forcing people to make major life decisions with no preparation.
The story’s central message seems to be “Be yourself”, but Winterson complicates this by changing O’Brien’s appearance. She becomes blonde, other people suddenly respond to her differently, and a more confident version of O’Brien begins to emerge.
This creates an interesting contradiction. Is she finally becoming herself, or is she being rewarded for looking less like herself? Does the transformation reveal confidence that was already there, or does society simply become kinder once she fits a more conventional idea of attractiveness?
The story never completely resolves this tension, which makes it more interesting than a simple makeover fairy tale. O’Brien does not necessarily become a different person. Instead, the transformation gives her permission to experiment with another version of herself: one who is more open to pleasure, possibility, and perhaps romance.
Still, I reserve the right to raise an eyebrow at any “be yourself” story that begins by changing the heroine’s hair.
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