{"id":10521,"date":"2011-09-29T15:42:20","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T15:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=10521"},"modified":"2014-09-29T15:44:27","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T15:44:27","slug":"a-forgotten-classic-the-christmas-angel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/a-forgotten-classic-the-christmas-angel\/","title":{"rendered":"A Forgotten Classic: The Christmas Angel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contributed by Merry Carey<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This little book is a forgotten gem of Christmas<\/a> literature. When it was published in 1910, Living Age magazine reviewed the book by saying, \u201cNot since Charles Dickens laid down his pen forever has there been a prettier Christmas<\/a> story written, one more full of the real spirit of Christmas<\/a> or conveying a more seasonable lesson.\u201d High praise, but well deserved.<\/p>\n

When you first begin to read the story, you may believe that you\u2019re reading yet another variation on Dickens\u2019 A Christmas<\/a> Carol. The main character, old Miss Terry, is a female Scrooge if ever there was one. \u201cWhat is our Christmas<\/a>, anyway?\u201d she scoffs. \u201cA time for shopkeepers to sell and for foolish folks to kill themselves in buying. Christmas<\/a> spirit? No! It is all humbug,\u2014all selfishness, and worry; an unwholesome season of unnatural activities.\u201d She decides that the best way to spend Christmas<\/a> Eve is by cleaning up for the New Year, beginning with getting rid of the toys from her childhood toy box.<\/p>\n

Burning the toys in the fireplace is too tedious, so Miss Terry conceives of a cynical idea. \u201cI will try an experiment,\u201d she decides. \u201cI will prove once for all my point about the \u2018Christmas spirit.\u2019 I will drop some of these old toys out on the sidewalk and see what happens. It may be interesting.\u201d One by one, she drops four of the toys out of her window and secretly watches what happens to each one. The scenes that occur seem to confirm that greed and cruelty are indeed lurking behind a false Christmas<\/a> spirit. She retrieves one toy from the street and places it on her mantelpiece\u2014a pink papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 angel that once topped the Christmas<\/a> tree when she and her brother, from whom she is estranged, were children. Then, the Angel speaks to Miss Terry . . .<\/p>\n

Like Marley and the three spirits in Dickens\u2019 tale, the Angel has a Christmas<\/a> lesson to teach. Here the story takes its own intriguing twist: the Angel informs Miss Terry that she did not see the end of each little scene she witnessed outside her window! He proceeds to show her the true conclusion of each toy\u2019s miniature drama\u2014conclusions that confirm the existence of true Christmas<\/a> spirit. It\u2019s no spoiler to say that there is eventually a happy ending, but the route to that happy ending is a thoroughly compelling story that I\u2019ll leave you to discover for yourself.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, this little book has never been adapted into a movie or a radio<\/a> play. Now that it is in the public domain, perhaps some producer will correct that oversight.<\/p>\n

You can download the book or read it online at Project Gutenberg:
\nThe Christmas Angel by Abbie Farwell Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d rather have the story read to you, you can download it or listen to the stream at Archive.org:
\nThe Christmas Angel by Abbie Farwell Brown<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, \u201cNot 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}