Stars Across Canada at Christmas

Stars Across Canada at Christmas is historical fiction and autofiction. It combines real Canadian places, documented history, living Christmas traditions, disability, faith, grief, and love with invented characters, dialogue, letters, journeys, a wedding, and a family life that did not happen exactly as written.
For most of the cross-country journey, the central character uses the fictional name Elena Vale. In British Columbia, she returns to the name Tina. Harry was a real person in the author’s life, but Tina and Harry appear in this novel as separate autofictional characters. Their Christmas wedding at Our Lady of Good Counsel, their ten children, their marriage, and Harry’s imagined final homecoming are fictional expressions of a life and farewell that did not occur as written.
The real Harry died on November 17, 2017, while Tina was in Calgary. She could not attend the funeral or say goodbye in the way she wanted. For emotional distance, the novel tells even this painful part in third person before beginning its final dream journey.
No single tradition represents an entire province or country. Indigenous histories are not treated as background, and immigrant, Christian, non-Christian, and secular experiences are acknowledged as part of a plural Christmas story.