At the age of twenty-three Charlie Mason is endowed with good looks good manners & a happy disposition. Following three years at Cambridge & one in his fathers business he is now looking forward to a jaunt in Paris with Simon Fenimore his oldest friend. Yet Paris is not what he expects. & in just a few days his young eyes are opened to the horror & ugly drama of its underworld. Published before the outbreak of war in 1939 Maughams purpose in Christmas Holiday was to warn the complacent insular British middle-class of the immense upheavals taking place on the Continent.