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Do you also get excited to hear all the enchanting stories about Christmas when the week of Christmas arrives? All the different stories of Santa Claus coming on the sleigh and leaving gifts for his children?
As a kid and an adult, my curiosity for knowing all the different stories about Christmas has never ended. Instead, the more I dig in, the more it grows on me, adding a whole new spirit to Christmas, enlightening a fresh perspective every time.
So, I believe that everyone should know about these varied Christmas stories. To add a new light to their decorations of Christmas. Here are some of the stories about Christmas, everyone should read to add more fun to the preparations of Christmas
17 Stories About Christmas You Can Read On Christmas Eve
These are the 17 stories about Christmas that everyone can read:
1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Written by Charles Dickens and published in 1843, A Christmas Carol is a novella written in prose that you should try on this Christmas eve.
A Christmas Carol is a story of redemption. This, one of the stories about Christmas, stars Ebenezer Scrooge, an old miser living a miserable life with all his piled-up wealth. The old miser despises Christmas and refuses to go on dinner if someone gives him an invitation.
Then Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his demised business partner, Jacob Marley, who gives him a chance to change his fate and live a happy life. And by the end of it, Scrooge is a changed old man keeping gifts under the Christmas tree.
This Christmas story is more or less responsible for the tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve.
2. A Christmas Tree by Charles Dickens
In this forty-six-page novel, the old narrator is nostalgic and reminiscing all his past holidays. He is recounting all his old stories about Christmas, almost giving this novella form of a memoir.
A Christmas tree does not contain any dialogues; still, how Dickens has illustrated each memory keeps you engrossed throughout the book.
The haunting memories of childhood illustrated in this book are some of the best Christmas stories you can probably read in a holiday season. This book will urge you to take a trip down your memory lane. And believe, if you will, that will make your holidays a little brighter.
3. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
It is a heartwarming Christmas story written by Hans Christian Andersen about a little girl trying to earn pennies by selling match sticks on New Year’s Eve.
Poor girl has no one looking out for her, except for a father who makes her sell match sticks in the cold outside. And like a twist of the knife in the wound, nobody buys match sticks from the little match girl on that specific day, leaving her to the terror of returning home to an angry father when he sees that she came back empty-handed.
This short story illustrates how the match sticks turn magical, and the little girl celebrates New Year’s eve happily. This touching story is one of the best stories about Christmas, which you can probably read in this festive season.
4. The Burglar’s Christmas by Willa Cather
This short story is about a young man who learns the value of forgiveness on Christmas day.
This Christmas story is set on the arctic cold night of Chicago where two young shabby-looking men, who haven’t eaten a meal in days, decide that they will resort to robbery for filling their guts.
But when a crossing woman drops her bag, Crawford returns it to that woman instead of picking it up and running off. He feels disappointed that he even failed in robbing someone as he had failed in every other aspect of his life.
Determined to do something, Crawford decides to break into someone’s house and then rob everything precious present there.
In the house awaits his redemption in life, and he learns the value of forgiveness. This is one of the most heart-touching stories about Christmas that an individual can read in this holiday season.
5. A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
It is considered one of the most beautiful stories written by Baum.
This Christmas story illustrates Santa Claus’s castle in the laughing valley and then quickly shifts its focus to the five caves of evil daemons nearby. Though in this whole story, these creatures are pagan daemons, not the servants of evil.
The story then revolves around how the daemons are angry at Santa Claus. They think that kids are no longer visiting their caves because of him, so they kidnap Santa Claus. A fascinating war between good and evil is then depicted, which lifts the Christmas spirit for the children.
It is one of the most classic stories about Christmas that you can read to your children and family on the night before Christmas.
6. The Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke
This long short story is related to Three Wise Men of the east, who traveled long distances to share their gifts. It expands the Biblical Magi and introduces the fourth wise man that joins the group of otherwise men.
This man can also see the star in its rising, and so he starts on his journey to see the Christ child on his own.
Since Christmas is mainly celebrated as the birth of baby Jesus, reading this quest of child Jesus Christ proves to be one of the best stories about Christmas that you can read with your family and friends on the night before Christmas.
7. Christmas At Red Butte by L. M. Montgomery
This is one of the most heart-touching Christmas stories written by L. M. Montgomery.
It is about an orphaned young girl, Theodora, who gives one souvenir of her dead family, which she used to preserve, as an offering so that her cousins can celebrate Christmas properly. Things were rough for her uncle and aunt, and they were struggling to make ends meet, so Theodora gave up her most preserved things to help them.
It is one of the stories about Christmas that will fill your heart when you see the selflessness and love being shown by a sixteen-year-old girl. This sweet story lifts the holiday spirit for the young children and, in a way, encourages them to give Christmas gifts to each other.
8. The Dead by James Joyce
The Dead is the last short story of the collection Dubliners written by James Joyce. It is one of the Christmas short stories that are long enough to be classified as a novella.
The story revolves around Gabriel Conroy and covers the themes of loss and love, raising some questions about Irish identity. It discusses the relationship between Gabriel and his wife, and then the story moves on to a Christmas party the married couple was invited to.
Party doesn’t go over well, and then after the party, the couple goes to Gabriel’s wife’s childhood home. There Gabriel learns a crucial part of his wife’s life that he never knew about. About how she has handled the loss of her dear ones so quietly and realizes how dead ones affect the life of living.
And the story ends with Gabriel’s profound affirmation about life. This is one of the stories about Christmas that blends life and death.
9. The Elves And The Shoemaker by Brothers Grimm
It is one of the stories about Christmas in which a poor shoemaker receives help from three elves.
In this story, the shoemaker and his wife are miserable as nobody used to buy shoes from them anymore, and the shoemaker has cloth for just one more shoe left. He leaves the fabric on the table, deciding he will stitch it the following day.
But when he wakes up the next day, he finds that the cloth is already stitched in the most beautiful shoe he has ever seen, and it was not long before a merchant buys it from him.
Happy, shoemaker and his wife decide to stay up the other night to thank whoever helped them and when the night arrives, they find elves working on yet another shoe. And then the shoemaker greets them.
It is one of the stories about Christmas that kids like to hear on the night before Christmas.
10. Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story by Paul Auster
In this short story about Christmas, Paul Auster deals with the theme of fiction versus truth and the relationship between the audience and the creator. It has two narrators and a story within the story about Christmas memory.
Story deals with the writer’s dilemma, who has been asked to write a Christmas story for The New York Times. Now the author doesn’t know how to write an unsentimental tale for Christmas time.
The story ends with quirky things like a blind woman, a lost wallet, and a Christmas dinner. And Auster does a profound job in writing an utterly unsentimental story which is a very affecting tale.
Unlike the usual fairy tales about the arrival of Santa we are used to reading, this is one of the unsentimental, famous Christmas stories you can read in this Christmas season and still enjoy.
11. A Visit From St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore
Also known as The Night Before Christmas and Twas The Night Before Christmas, it is one of the Christmas short stories written in the verses of a poem. It has been classified as arguably some of the best-known verses written by an American.
In this story, the American family has been going to sleep when the father registers some voices right outside their houses. He comes out to see St. Nicholas slowing down his sleigh, which eight reindeer pull.
Father watches as Nicholas enters the house through the chimney and starts filling gifts in the stockings hanging by the fireplace. Nicholas and the father share a conspiratorial moment when Nicholas notices him and then goes back through the chimney. Father then wishes Merry Christmas and good night to all his kids and goes to sleep.
It is one of the most classic Christmas stories, in verses, that you can read to your children.
12. Nutcracker And Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman
It is a story written by E. T. A. Hoffman in which a girl’s favorite Christmas toy comes alive. It is one of the stories about Christmas that children love hearing as this work of fiction takes you to a completely different land.
The story revolves around Marie Stahlbaum’s nutcracker, her favorite Christmas toy. At first, it was just an ugly-looking toy that she adored, but one night, she heard some strange noises when she went to sleep.
And as she got up to search for the noise, she found that her nutcracker had come to life to be a beautiful prince and was defeating the evil mouse king. After that, the prince takes her to the Toyland and makes her his princess there.
13. The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Andersen
Written by the Danish poet and author, it is a tale about a fir tree so desperate to grow up and experience more extraordinary things in his life that he forgets to appreciate the things he has in the present and live in the moment.
The fir tree is very embarrassed when a hare hops over it, an explicit action showing its small size. Little women in the woods call him the baby of the forest, and he wants to grow up and be used for decoration like every other big tree.
To his pleasure, that day comes, and he is cut down to be decorated in the Christmas even though he was still young. People of the house decorate him, and he expects them to do the same the following day. Instead, the fir tree is placed in a dark attic. Sad and lonely.
This is one of the stories about Christmas that makes people realize their worth in the current time that they should focus on what is right in the front instead of what could have been.
14. The Adventure Of The Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
This short story is the seventh of the twelve short stories in The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes collection.
The story revolves around the robbery of the precious gemstone, Blue Carbuncle, near priceless from the hotel suite a few days before Christmas. Detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John Watson are assigned to find the culprit who ran off with the gem.
It is a fascinating and engaging story as Holmes and his friend brainstorms various ideas and thesis that lead them to the culprit.
This is not precisely one of the stories about Christmas but absolutely the best books to read at Christmas. But you can feel the spirits of Christmas from this book, as all the events happen a few days before Christmas.
15. Little Piccola by Nora A. Smith
It is one of the stories about Christmas that might bring tears to your eyes or at the least make your heart feel full.
It is a story about a little girl, Piccola, who lives with her mother. Other than her mother, she has no one in the whole world. The duo lives a tough life, and Piccola always stays alone in her home as her mother goes out to make some pennies.
After a while, Piccola gets new neighbors. She blends with them in little to no time, and they introduce the well-known fact that every little kid gets gifts from Santa every Christmas. In the hope of getting a gift from Santa, Piccola does whatever his neighbor friends had asked her to.
To her surprise, there is a gift waiting for her when she wakes up the next day, but it’s something she could have never dreamed of. Piccola’s happiness knows no bounds after that.
16. Olive, The Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh
This is one of the most endearing and hilarious stories about Christmas. The story revolves around a Jack Russell Terrier, Olive, who sets out to become Santa’s eighth reindeer.
After coming back from town, Olive finds that her owner is sad because there will be no Christmas this time, as Santa’s one reindeer is injured.
Santa conveys his message through the radio about the situation, and Olive mishears it. She thinks that Santa wants her to join pulling her sleigh, and for that, she travels to the North Pole.
Journey of Olive in this book is as adorable as it is hilarious, making it one of the best stories about Christmas that you can read in the festive season.
17. The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is a poem in which Longfellow depicts the story of three wise men traveling from the east to meet the baby Jesus. Along with sharing the remarkable story of the three wise men, Longfellow, in this poem, adds some of his imaginative parts.
It makes the whole story even more engrossing and makes it one of the best stories about Christmas you can probably read in the time of Christmas.
So, these are some of the stories about Christmas that you can read to add more zest and zeal to your Christmas Eve. Feed yourself with a few old-fashioned stories in front of a fire and make your Christmas the best one in years.
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