I’m sure this has been done before , but 'tis the season and so on, so … what stories do you know that are related to Christmas ?
*A Christmas Carol *
*Christmas on Ganymede * by Isaac Asimov, mentioned in a recent thread and the inspiration for this one. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Arthur Conan Doyle .
*Hercule Poirot s Christmas *, Agatha Christie
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding *, Agatha Christie .
*The Shepherd *, Frederick Forsyth . (RAF pilot flying home for Christmas gets lost over the North Sea).
*The Gift of the Magi *, O. Henry.
Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” and David Sedaris’ “Holidays on Ice” are my favorites. Most recently, I got a real kick out of Wally Lamb’s “Wishin’ and Hopin,” a wonderful slice of life coming of age novel.
I reread these two every year, along with Memory of a Large Christmas, by Lillian Smith, Foxfire Christmas, and the Christmas chapters from the Little House books.
Frank O’Connor has always been one of my favorite short story writers, and his “Christmas Morning” is a classic. Hilarious until the very end, when it becomes heartbreaking.
Connie Willis has an anthology of stories called Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. In addition, many of her other stories have Christmas time as a setting.
Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions Christmas in just about every one of her books, I believe. I’m trying now to think of any book that doesn’t have a Christmas in it.
The medieval epic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight takes place between one Christmas to the next, detailing Sir Gawain’s encounters with a series of enchantments and tests (elaborately allegorical, but the story is terrific just on its own).
My favorite version is the Burton Raffel translation; others are available. Children’s versions of the story often stray from the original text; the few films are even worse.
A collection of (mostly academic) Gawain and the Green Knight essays and links:
I think it’s more of a memoir than a story, perhaps a blend of both, but my favorite is A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. Such vivid word pictures!
Cherry Ames: Student Nurse, Senior Nurse, and Cruise Nurse, all by Helen Wells. (All juvenile mysteries which take place (at least in part) around Christmastime, although only the last focuses on it.) Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, by Margaret Sidney (Victorian juvenile, with extensive section devoted to how a poor family celebrates Christmas.) Rest You Merry, by Charlotte MacLeod (Another mystery, this one’s for adults.)
*On Your Toes, Susie! *by Lee Wyndham (Another juvenile.)
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents…”
The opening line of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
Also, Christmas is important in Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, who also wrote something called The Birds’ Christmas Carol.