Johanna Basford draws with a pen, not a mouse, and this is her Christmas book. Thirty seven scenes of holly and ivy, bauble laden trees, gingerbread houses, reindeer led sleighs and mountains of wrapped presents, all waiting for whatever you want to do to them.

The paper is the part people underestimate. Every image is printed on one side of the sheet only, so nothing bleeds through onto a drawing you have already finished, and every page is perforated, so a piece you are pleased with comes out cleanly and goes into a frame. Penguin prints it on an ivory stock with a medium tooth, chosen to hold colored pencil and chalk pastel and still let a pen run smoothly across it.

The photographs here are of this edition's own pages. Three nutcrackers stand shoulder to shoulder in red, green and blue pencil beside their uncolored twins. A polar bear balances a stack of presents taller than he is. Two circular wreaths pack trains, baubles, snowmen and gingerbread into a perfect disc, one finished in color and one still bare. Robins and leaping reindeer frame a hanging ornament.

Paperback, 80 pages, 10 by 10 in. Penguin Life, 25 October 2016. ISBN-13 9780143129301. Penguin Random House files it as an adult coloring book.

Color flowers instead with Bloom See the Brambly Hedge festive coloring book Give The Nutcracker as a keepsake