Christmas Stories and Legends Classic Tales to Uplift the Heart and Bring Light to a Cherished Winter Holiday

Christmas Stories and Legends is a collection of tales to restore "the real spirit of Christmas" to the jaded world of . . . 1916. Even then, editor Phebe A. Curtiss worried children, especially, might get lost in the day's creeping commercialism. She aimed the book at schools and Sunday schools, and assembled twenty bits of Christmas lore to teach a proper observance. She includes, of course, the Nativity story, but other parts of yesterday's Christmas will be much less familiar to modern readers. The song, "White Christmas," hadn't been written yet, and the expression meant something more than snow. People gave white gifts to symbolize purity. Children might have had visions of sugarplums, but the book includes the unsweetened versions of two weepers from Hans Christian Anderson: "The Little Match Girl" and "The Fir Tree." (The tree learns too late to appreciate Christmas -- on the bonfire afterward.) And little Tom has to learn he is lucky to receive new skates for Christmas, even if they're the wrong brand. The book brings back great-grandfather's Christmas as a gift for today's worriers. Christmas always came with problems. But it always came, anyway. Table of Contents FOREWORD THE LEGEND OF THE "WHITE GIFTS" HER BIRTHDAY DREAM THE FIR TREE THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL LITTLE PICCOLA THE SHEPHERD'S STORY THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS THE LEGEND OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE LITTLE JEAN HOW THE FIR TREE BECAME THE CHRISTMAS TREE THE MAGI IN THE WEST AND THEIR SEARCH FOR THE CHRIST LITTLE GRETCHEN AND THE WOODEN SHOE THE LITTLE SHEPHERD BABOUSCKA THE BOY WITH THE BOX THE WORKER IN SANDALWOOD THE SHEPHERD WHO DIDN'T GO PAULINA'S CHRISTMAS UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN THE STAR