A Christmas story does not need to be true to be a great story. But all true Christmas stories are the greatest.
Editor’s Note: On December 1st, 2017 seven Christmas podcasters came together to share the 1912 short story The House of Seven Santas. MyMerryChristmas.com participated by providing the concluding segment of the story as can be heard via the player below. https://mymerrychristmas.com/mlp/mlpepisode22.mp3 To start at the beginning, please visit the Christmas Past Podcast hosted by Brian […]
(Editors Note: This guest blogger wishes to remain anonymous. Over a period of three weeks of July 2017 I met with her by phone as she told me her story and explained how she wanted it told. It has been through many revisions. This is a true story, difficult in parts to read. But at […]
The presents are all unwrapped. Santa’s stockings are emptied. Signs of yet another great Christmas celebration are everywhere. And my husband and children are asleep. The lights on the tree still shine and this is my time for my private Christmas. It is private because most don’t understand it. I didn’t understand it at first. […]
The best Christmas we ever had was the Christmas when we had nothing. A series of events during a difficult year led to that best Christmas. In early April I was diagnosed with breast cancer. A rush of doctor visits, a surgery, and months of recovery led to an extended period of time away from […]
As a boy one of my secret adventures was to scour the bookshelves at my grandmother’s house for books I could not find anywhere else. Grandma and I were a match made in heaven – I was a bookworm and she was a school teacher. I read not only from her vast collection of Reader’s […]
Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carol backwards and forwards. Pick a version by decade and you’re bound to find one you love. Everyone can claim to have seen a big or a small screen version of it. But have you ever read it? I confess it never passed in front of my eyes […]
By B. Francis Morlan Editor’s Note: Every December the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia sends a Christmas tree to the City of Boston, Massachusetts. This story explains how that came about. December of 1917 was a time when the world was in transition. The horrors of World War I were known and the prospects of […]
Contributed by LoiS-sez Note: This is actually the first chapter in the book by the title of The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin in 1886, but it’s both an explanation of the book’s title and a wonderful Christmas story…especially for anyone born at Christmas time. It was very early Christmas morning, and in […]
Contributed by LoiS-sez This is actually a ballad with lyrics by Thomas Haynes Bayly. I’ve never been able to find the music by Sir Henry Bishop, but I use the refrain for my own re-telling as it’s said to be based on a traditional legend. The mistletoe hung in the castle hall, The holly branch […]
Contributed by Merry Carey Here is a fine old Christmas story from 1914 about Calliope Marsh, a woman determined to gather her entire neighborhood under one Christmas tree. A Great Tree From Neighborhood Stories by Zona Gale (1914) I never had felt so much like Christmas, said Calliope Marsh, as I did that year. “I […]
Contributed by LoiS-sez Note: Helen Hunt Jackson is a 19th century author is best known for Ramona, but her other writing often included cats including this lovely tale written in 1876. When I was a little girl, I knew two old maids who were so jolly and nice that I am always ready, beforehand, to […]
By James Keefe If you’re like most people chances are you have heard the annual holiday reference to Good King Wenceslas but you have never quite understood his story or what it has to do with Christmas. Out now from Deseret Book.com is a new illustrated children’s volume that beautifully tells the story in word […]
Contributed by Merry Carey This little book is a forgotten gem of Christmas literature. When it was published in 1910, Living Age magazine reviewed the book by saying, “Not since Charles Dickens laid down his pen forever has there been a prettier Christmas story written, one more full of the real spirit of Christmas or […]
Christmas Gifts, Christmas Voices is a short novel written by John Allen about one man’s Christmas experience after suffering a devastating personal tragedy. “It was a perfect life. And it was hard for Eric Sanders to imagine how things could be any better…” So begins the story and the reader knows right away the author […]
