Enchanting, tragic, and hilarious fairy tales for adults and children grace these pages. An initial glance might lead you to assume that these are satirical versions of classic Christmas ghost stories. However, beneath the humorous stories involving ghosts, repentant sinners, miracles, and good peasants who find well-deserved happiness, lies a psychological undercurrent that sharpens the sense of intrigue and plot movement. Often this is aided by the unrelenting social exposure of the authors who always understood how intangible the “bourgeois paradise” truly was. Even today, idyllic dreams of tolerance, equality, and the triumph of justice have failed to materialize. Perhaps that is why people continue to read these classic stories while the snow falls outside and the lights glow on the Christmas tree. Contents: Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol The Chimes G.K. Chesterton A Christmas Carol L.M. Montgomery The Red Room A Christmas Mistake A Christmas Inspiration The Josephs’ Christmas Aunt Cyrilla’s Christmas Basket The Osbornes’ Christmas Bertie’s New Year Ida’s New Year Cake The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road Clorinda’s Gifts The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner The Unforgotten One Christmas at Red Butte Uncle Richard’s New Year’s Dinner L. Frank Baum A Kidnapped Santa Claus Little Bun Rabbit Mark Twain A Letter from Santa Claus Louisa May Alcott A Merry Christmas Leo Tolstoy A Russian Christmas Party Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Christmas Bells The Three Kings Nikolai Gogol Christmas Eve William Dean Howells Christmas Everyday The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express Joseph Rudyard Kipling Christmas in India Elizabeth Harrison Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Hans Christian Andersen The Fir Tree The Little Match Girl Selma Lagerlof The Holy Night Clement Moore The Night Before Christmas Henry van Dyke The Other Wise Man Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester Anton Chehov Vanka O. Henry The Gift of the Magi Hesba Stretton The Christmas Child Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows Robert Louis Stevenson Christmas at Sea Walter Scott Christmas In The Olden Time Alfred Tennyson Ring out, wild bells Abbie Farwell Brown The Christmas Angel Anthony Trollope Christmas at Thompson Hall Thomas Hardy The Oxen William Butler Yeats The Magi William Makepeace Thackeray The Mahogany Tree Charles Kingsley Christmas Day Ella Wheeler Wilcox Christmas Fancies C. W. Stubbs Twas Jolly, Jolly Wat Eugene Field Jest 'Fore Christmas Paul Laurence Dunbar A Christmas Folksong William Topaz McGonagall A Tale of Christmas Eve Emily Dickinson The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman