Christmas Short Stories Anthology

From an unexpected visitor on Christmas Eve in "The Christmas Mouse" to an unwanted change of plan in "No Holly For Miss Quinn", Miss Read recounts some of the most memorable Christmas events where often, despite best-laid plans, things do not always go as expected.For heart-warming reading there is no writer to rival Miss Read, and this charming collection of Christmas tales is packed with unforgettable characters, enchanting stories and festive cheer.

"A Christmas Dinner" is a perfect demonstration of Dickens' attitude towards the redemptive power of Christmas and the Christmas spirit. This is a lovely short story well worth listening to alongside his more famous writings about the holidays.

A stay-at-home mom, Ruth has been busy steering her family toward Christmas. All of this comes to a screeching halt, though, when she hears words she would never have thought possible coming over her phone.

Turn down the lights, throw a log on the fire, and settle down with this enchanting collection of feature-length Christmas tales. From a dizzying adventure in the snow to a chilling Victorian ghost yarn, Christmas Tails delights, frights, and amuses in equal measure. Inside you'll find four bite-sized stories full to the brim with Christmas cheer. Warm up the mulled wine, take the phone off the hook and prepare for a yuletide treat!

This is a set of three stories, all of which are true. The first one was just a pleasant childhood memory that recalled better days and memories, but the second one "The Gift" is just as true as the first. The third one "The Clock" is about a serious heart surgery I had just about Christmas time. After you listen to "A Christmas Miracle - Keep Your Eyes Open!", you'll better understand why I stress that this story is true, just as it was written. It asks for your faith in miracles and maybe, just maybe, your faith in a kind and loving God.

A Charles Dickens Christmas story about remembering the poor, forgotten, and overlooked once a year by the Christmas fire. This grand story sets up the bickering Big Wig family as a guide to the laboring Nobody family, led by a man named Legion, and nothing good comes of it. Legion's master discusses his losses in term of the poor and their habits and diseases. Legion points out it is one world: "What happens to us happens to you."

When her beloved dog passes away just before Christmas, Gloria isn't sure about her best friend's advice. Holiday hilarity ensues when a new cat shows up on her doorstep each day. Who's leaving the cats? And why? Will Gloria's Christmas go up a poof of pet fur, or will it prove to be the most purrfect holiday ever?

Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters, are with us every day. Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas seem amplified; we seem more tender to their touch, their words. In this volume we take the verse and poems of our classic poets and put them alongside our short story masters to reveal a Christmas that everyone remembers and that everyone wants to be part of.

These are adult stories of Christmas. Hope, joy, love, and friendship swirled together in a wassail bowl as a potion against the bone-chilling cold of winter, and the soul-chilling despair of being alone. Come drink the warmth of the magical draft and recapture that feeling of a contented Christmas.

Listen to a collection of classic stories by the world's most beloved writers. Here are the complete stories, unabridged, for you and your family to enjoy together this Christmas and for many Christmases to come. Family favorites and remembered treasures are in this collection, as well as a few light-hearted surprises.

How far should Viviana’s family go to avoid being thirteen at the table? Should Melina and Tanino attend a New Year’s party hosted by Melina’s old flame? Why do Don Pericle’s clients want a Christmas wedding at all costs? Ten humorous and heart-warming short stories shining with the Sicilian sunshine, fragrant with red wine and ringing with Christmas bells, perfect for the festive season.

Celebrate Second Christmas, a treasured, lighthearted time of community, with four Amish romances. This collection includes “When Christmas Comes Again” by Beth Wiseman, “Her Christmas Pen Pal” by Ruth Reid, “A Gift for Anne Marie” by Kathleen Fuller, and “The Christmas Aprons” by Tricia Goyer.

In Joy to the World, three popular romance authors come together to offer a heartwarming collection of holiday regency romance. Based on lines from a beloved Christmas carol, these three novellas have depth, faith, and satisfying stories all packed into the perfect length for listeners to curl up and take a brief break from their holiday busyness.

"The Holly Tree" is a warm Christmas story by Charles Dickens and a listening treat for adults during the holiday season or almost any time of year. Full of wonderful Dickensian words, phrases, and irony. The story contains a strain of great truth, and love for Americans, who Dickens depicts over-friendly but warm, kindly, generous, and warm hearted.

Betsy Seymour finds she isn’t quite up to gay chatter and a staff full of holiday cheer as Christmas approaches, but duty calls at the cemetery where she works. Then she experiences a strange sighting amongst the fog-shrouded graves, and a few minutes later, she lies injured upon the ground, alone and unsure, only a few feet away from her husband’s grave. This time, though, can love save her?

While some are nestled cozy in their traditions, others are lost in darkness. An unkindness of ravens lurk like a warning above them while they try to escape their inner demons and fight the dragons they've been trying to avoid. There's no enjoying fatal amounts of pie because their minds are slipping, slipping into a twisted delusion. They are the murderers, the disturbed, the unfortunate, and the misunderstood. These outliers are imprisoned by their circumstances until they slowly fade into the icy landscape, smothered by the forged façade of a perfect Christmas.

Few winter stories are more affecting than Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Written in 1848, and strictly speaking a New Year's Eve story, it showed so clearly then, as it does now, that the Christmas holidays do not represent fireside, food, and presents for all. This story never fails to move, yet it somehow avoids serious sentimentality.

Plongez dans un monde de merveilles hivernales avec ce recueil captivant de 25 histoires spécialement conçues pour émerveiller les enfants pendant la période des fêtes. Chaque histoire, soigneusement écrite, invite le lecteur à explorer les facettes les plus magiques de Noël, de la joie des premiers flocons de neige à l'émerveillement des rencontres au cœur de la forêt enneigée.

Rumpole and the Health Farm Murder finds the corpulent barrister spending a most untypical Christmas at a health spa, where he is gloomily trying to survive on a not-so-festive diet of yak's milk and steamed spinach. He is soon enlivened, however, when a murder is committed and he is asked to represent the chief suspect. Bill Wallis reads this special seasonal story starring Horace Rumpole, scourge of all QCs and friend of the criminal classes.

Twenty new and original short stories and poems filled with Christmas magic. From a heartfelt tale of a soldier who might be more than he seems, to the touching tale of a young boy who finds a fantastical creature while picking out the perfect Christmas tree, to the misadventures of a lost fairy, these stories and poems, appropriate for all ages, will kindle the joy of Christmas in new and magical ways. All inspirational reminders of the importance of Christ's birth, the stories will enrich your holiday and warm your heart.