A trip to Wales in search of a Dylan Thomas holiday sheds light on one family’s typical balmy Christmas at home in California.

The 1995 film Home for the Holidays, starring Holly Hunter, about a comedic (both dark and light) trip back home for Thanksgiving, inspired our essay roundup. Eight essayists tell stories from a child’s eye to the mind’s eye, from poignant family lore to lighter fare. Each of these literary lights takes us into the season with moving, funny, irreverent moments in time.

I used to look forward all year to summer: to my three boys getting out of school, to the lazy...

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,” wrote William Shakespeare in Sonnet 18. His comment on the intensity of summer is a theme taken up by our Bay Area bards this month as they describe a near-drowning, an awkward houseguest, teenagers on vert ramps, poignant slices of lemon meringue pie and so much more.