For several years now I've seen Joe Webber's small holiday books, Christmas in My Heart, on bookshelves in December; these paperback-size hardbacks each have about a dozen Christmas short stories in them. I tried not to look at them--the going price for the darn things is $16.95 each!--so I wasn't acquainted with their content: were these modern inspirational essays or stories?
Well, Borders had the second and third books on the bargain table, $3.99 each, plus 50 percent off all Christmas books, so I bought them. I'm still not going to pay full price, but if I see books one and four at a reasonable price, I certainly will purchase them: Wheeler has gone searching through old journals, magazines, and other publications, some as early as 1910, and picked out stories, some of which he remembers hearing as a child, for these volumes. Some are from Christian publications, some from non-US sources, all of them emphasize, although Santa Claus may make a brief appearance occasionally, the joy of giving to someone rather than getting gifts and gluts of presents and little elves and reindeer.
One of the stories in the third volume, in fact, is an old-fashioned favorite of mine, "The Fir Tree Cousins," which I believe I first read in the 1921 Christmas issue of St. Nicholas. It's about a woman who could care less about giving holiday gifts and entrusts the wrapping and addressing of family presents to a friend. The friend confuses the costly trinkets she buys for her parents and siblings with the sensible gifts (thinking that people who live on a farm would only like useful gifts) she sends to her husband's "fir tree cousins" in Maine.
If you like heartwarming Christmas stories and can find these books at a reasonable price, I heartily recommend them.
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