Christmas cake (noun): 1) a holiday dessert considered stale the day after Christmas; 2) Japanese slang term for an unmarried woman over 25, old maid, spinster, cat lady.

Petra Hanson’s autobiographical short film Xmas Cake—This American Shelf-life premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Fesitval, where it was nominated for Best Documentary Short. It was an official selection of the 2019 Mill Valley Film Festival, then toured the US in 2020 with LUNAFEST, the first traveling festival of films by and about women.

The story…

It’s the early ’90s, and a free-spirited young American is living in Tokyo. She confronts a disturbing suicide epidemic among single Japanese women who’ve been labeled “Christmas cake”—an epidemic that soon claims her close friend, Yuki. She ruminates on the tragedy for years to come. A decade later, in New York City, she forms a low-stakes, Japanese-themed pop band in remembrance of her late friend. Then the band accidentally becomes big in Japan.

This is a true story about Petra, a native New Yorker. She’s a knitwear designer by day and a pop star by night, or whatever time it is in Tokyo. Her band, Gaijin à Go Go, makes history as the only undiscovered American act ever to sign with a major Japanese label, Sony Japan.

Petra goes on an unexpected journey of getting older under the spotlight, where a woman can go from hot to not with too many candles on her birthday cake. She discovers that turning forty while single might be America’s version of “Christmas cake.” Facing spinsterhood dead on, she takes control of her narrative and gives it a positive twist—she marries herself and strides off into the glowing sunset of her future, on her terms.

The film…

You're invited to a virtual private screening of Xmas Cake!

Watch it here: https://www.thebsider.com/private-screening

Password: xcake2022

Running time: 9:57

Petra’s acclaimed short film Xmas Cake—This American Shelf-life is now a full-length autobiographical novel that puts film’s story in its full context. The real title’s a secret so she’s referring to it as Xmas Cake, the Book, for now.

The story…

When a single female New York fashion designer confronts the pressure to have it all as a woman in the twenty-first century, she asks herself: "Why have a wedding when I could have my own band?"

Meet Petra, a native Manhattanite on the cusp of thirty, navigating the cutthroat corporate fashion scene as the clock ticks down to Y2K. Surrounded by brides-to-be in her office, she looks back at her free-spirited past in Tokyo where her friend, Yuki, demystified Japan’s cultural customs and taught her the value of true sisterhood. Yuki lives in Petra's memory and is a catalyst for her non-conventional choices.

Having only ever sung in a middle school musical, Petra creates an amateur Japanese-themed ’60s garage band inspired by her time in Tokyo, and joins the New York music scene of the early 2000s. It’s all fun and fantasy until she stumbles into accidental fame. Inconceivably, her band, Gaijin a Go-Go, lands a record deal with Sony Japan, making history as the only “nobodies” from America ever to score a deal with this major label.

Overnight, she’s launched on the ride of a glittering Japanese pop singer at the dawn of the digital age—a ride that ends abruptly and ultimately sends her spinning toward her unexpected triumph.

Dressed up like mod space-age Barbie, Petra embraces the stage. But once the makeup comes off, she struggles to come to terms with her dysfunctional childhood in New York City of the ’70s and ’80s—from being raised by a single mom in a basement apartment, to living in a borrowed Fifth Avenue palace and sneaking out to Studio 54.

We see her attempt new romances, build a chosen family with her bandmates, and learn that pop fame has a shelf-life. But turning forty in America is what deeply tests her resilience.

When her high-octane life crashes, Petra loses it all: her band, her fiancé, her fashion job—everything she’s built in order to not end up alone. Starting over at forty is her worst nightmare, and yet it imbues her with a new perspective. For all its bad PR, she actually likes spinsterhood! The freedom to heal herself, grow whole untethered, and find her own uniquely empowered path is, in the end, her happily ever after.

The message…

In a world that covets The Bachelor and romcoms that celebrate marriage and children as the ultimate goal for a woman’s fulfillment, Petra’s story offers a much-needed, aspirational alternate narrative. Xmas Cake, the Book has a liberating message for single female and LGBTQ readers who aren’t seeing themselves reflected in the stories told about modern life outside the traditional family-style margins. With a pitch-perfect voice and sharp knitting skills, Petra’s story spins all the disparaging, outdated labels meant to diminish women over forty…into inspirational gold.

Petra's novel crosses cultural gender biases from New York to Tokyo, channeling Lost in Translation and Jake Adelstein's memoir Tokyo Vice, all gone rock ’n’ roll and told through the voice of a complicated woman reminiscent of Fleabag. Her story turns back the clock twenty years to a pre-smartphone-era New York City, where a generation of women raised on feminist ideals struggled to persist in a culture that wasn’t ready to handle them.

Petra cleverly dances around the era’s backlash of sexism and discrimination. Xmas Cake, the Book tackles these heavy issues with glitter, a wink, and a groovy soundtrack. It readily challenges a world still designed to limit a woman's autonomy. This is the story of a female protagonist who’s followed her dreams and found success, yet her life still ends up, according to many, a cautionary tale. Xmas Cake, the Book delivers an updated twist for womankind—self-fulfillment, self-care through real estate, and finally, an exuberant catharsis.

Xmas Cake, the Book is a "coming of middle age" story that speaks loudest to single women over thirty, and to parents of Millennial and Gen Z daughters. But it's also for anyone who’s ever felt the pressure of an expiration date in America.

Fans of Sex and the City and And Just Like That will love Petra, a protagonist who speaks fluent fashion as her rock ’n’ roll story unfolds at the height of Y2K. Viewers of HBO’s Tokyo Vice will appreciate her look back to ’90s Japan.

Xmas Cake, the Book will also reach out to everyone in the childfree movement. According to Melanie Notkin’s book, Otherhood, there are nineteen million single, non-moms living in America. Kate Bolick’s New York Times bestseller, Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, nails this demographic with her title and theme. So does Glynnis Macnicol’s acclaimed 2018 book No One Tells You This, about the glory of not settling down after forty.

We’re once again in an era of questioning harmful patriarchal norms. The terms "spinster," "cat lady," and "old maid" are meant to diminish women who don't conform to a more traditional lifestyle. Despite all the socio-cultural revolutions in our midst, we still don't have a better name for a woman who’s living her life freely and unhitched. Petra wants to change that. Given the success of her short film and two sold-out shows for The Moth Mainstage, she has already shown that a vast audience is waiting to read her book.

“I want to move the needle because it's stuck. I want to live in a world where a woman's value isn't only measured by her youth, hotness, or status as a mother, but on the richness of her life experience and full personhood. I wanted to write a story that ends refreshingly, with a different happily-ever-after, and to inspire the next generation to write theirs, too.”

Petra J Hanson