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
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