Christmas Short Stories Anthology

Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

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.

"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.

Charles Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. After the success of A Christmas Carol in 1843 Dickens continued the series throughout the 1840s, maintaining what he called "the Carol philosophy" to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated, and repressed.

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."

It wasn't easy for Phillip Lark to single-handedly raise his rambunctious teenage daughter. But the girl had hatched a plot to find her father a wife, and lovely Carrie Weston seemed to fit the bill. Phillip claimed he wasn't interested in remarriage, but would the magic of the holiday season - and Carrie's wonderful charms - help him change his mind?

Three classic tales of Christmas and love, together for the first time, from New York Times best-selling author Lynsay Sands - All I Want, Three French Hens, and The Fairy Godmother. In All I Want, Lady Prudence's father gambles away the family’s savings, and all she wants for Christmas is to haul him away from London’s most notorious gaming hell. Yet the wickedly handsome proprietor, Lord Stockton, refuses to let a lady enter his establishment. Now, Pru needs a Christmas miracle to make her wish come true.

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.

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 this extraordinary collection of holiday novellas, vampires turn to Angelina Ricci - vampire matchmaker extraordinaire - to help them find that special someone to curl up with under the mistletoe....

"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?

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.

Five fun cozy mystery books with pet-sitter Polly Parrett.

Many writers used Christmas as a backdrop for their stories: among them none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This delightful Sherlock Holmes story is one of the first that he authored, appearing in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It is, fittingly, a wild goose chase through London!

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.