stories to read aloud at Christmas

our favorites and some classics

Welcome back readers, and welcome, new readers –

Happy Advent! For us on the Bruderhof, the Advent season starts on the evening before the first Sunday of Advent (which fell this year on December 1) when the community’s youth group, dressed as angels, appears to sing in the Christmas season.

Sing, choirs of angels

The following morning the community gathers, not for a church service, but for a festive breakfast. Walking into Advent breakfast is one of the great events of the year: the dining room is beautifully decorated for Christmas, a brass band welcomes you into the hall with carols, the smell of coffee, sausage, and freshly baked pastry mixes with the scent of pine, and everyone is wishing everyone else a Happy Advent. After we’ve eaten, prophesies of Jesus’ coming are read and then it’s open season for the children to suggest their favorite songs: there are dozens of children in each community, so we sing for quite a while.

Reading the prophesies and the story of Jesus’ birth in Scripture is an important part of Advent, and there are many seasonal devotionals to read as well. But Christmas is also a time to read stories, best of all aloud on the long dark evenings. In this post, we’ve listed some of our favorites in case you’re looking for a recommendation.

(You can read more about Bruderhof Advent celebrations in the post we wrote last year.)

Norann - in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia

As a Christmas treat for my highly motivated Year 7 and 8 Literature class (they just romped through David Copperfield), I’ve invited my mother-in-law Nancy, a legendary literature teacher in her own right, to select and read aloud her favorite Christmas stories to them.

So, in the middle of each week of Advent, she’s sitting down with my class and introducing, reading, absorbing, and discussing four of her best-loved Christmas stories. Besides being able to inspire these students on a literary level, Nancy is the best reader ever, hands-down.

After their first session with her last week, where they read and discussed O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, my students complained that one story a week was not enough…. they want more!

Here’s Nancy’s list of unmissable stories that should be part of everyone’s read aloud Christmas experience:

1. The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry

2. A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas

3. A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote

In addition, here’s an original and poignant short story penned by my husband, Chris, which captures an Australian angle on Christmas in detailed, memorable, and redemptive ways: The Final Round: A Christmas Story by Chris Voll.

Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York

My recommendations come in two parts: books that are Christmas books, and books with a Christmas episode.

Christmas books:

• Pete and the Manger Men by Rudolf Otto Wiemer. Pete lives with his grandfather outside the city on Trash Mountain and dreams of the “manger men” he’s seen in a department store catalog. Each chapter is narrated by a different character: Pete himself, the saleswoman Auntie Slipper, intelligent Irks the Magpie, and the Manger Men themselves as they arrive one by one to tell the Christmas story as well as the story of how Christmas comes to Pete. Our current family read-aloud, even though we also read it last year.

• A Tree for Peter by Kate Seredy. Easily confused with Pete and the Manger Men because it’s also about a little boy called Pete living in a hovel on the edge of town. This is a lovely story about how a living tree changes a neighborhood.

• The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden is about a little girl, a doll, and Christmas wishes that come true. Worth re-reading every year (with a six-year-old girl in the house, we do, multiple times).

• I Saw Three Ships and Sister of the Angels by Elizabeth Goudge. Sarah Clarkson, in her excellent list of Advent recommendations, describes the appeal of Elizabeth Goudge perfectly – “The lively and eccentric characters, the humour, the spice of mystery, the presence of the sacramental in the lovely” – and this is especially true of her books set at Christmas.

• The Flying Classroom by Erich Kästner is set at a boarding school; the “Flying Classroom” is the name of an absurdist Christmas play the students are putting on which includes many comic and unexpected elements. It’s a beautiful book about friendship and bravery and the weeks leading up to Christmas.

• The Children of Green Knowe by LM Boston is about a boy (Tolly), an ancient manor house (Greene Knowe), and a Christmas celebration that is joined by all kinds of mysterious and kindly beings.

• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Actually no need to list it, but no list is complete without it.

A lot of my favorite books have Christmas episodes, and most of these work as stand-alone stories for reading aloud:

• Tidings by Ernst Wiechert begins memorably: “So that was how a man walked when death had touched him between the shoulders.” It’s the story of the search for redemption of a man returning from a concentration camp, a search that takes him to his ancestral past in the chapter called “The Night the Grandfather drove the Christ Child”.

• On a less serious note. Chapter XXVIII of The Pickwick Papers is described as being “A Good-Humoured Christmas Chapter, Containing An Account Of A Wedding, And Some Other Sports Beside: Which Although In Their Way, Even As Good Customs As Marriage Itself, Are Not Quite So Religiously Kept Up, In These Degenerate Times”. If that’s not enough, the chapter also includes a Christmas ghost story (The Story of Gabriel Grubb) and the unforgettable Fat Boy.

• You could do worse than to re-read the Christmas chapters (1, 2, and 22) of Little Women.

• Ditto the “Dolce Domum” chapter of The Wind in the Willows.

• Damon Runyon has some Christmas chapters mixed in with his stories of 1920s Broadway. The best are “Dancing Dan’s Christmas” and “The Three Wise Guys” featuring the wonderfully named Miss Clarabelle Cobb.

• The last chapter of Kate Seredy’s masterpiece The Good Master happens at Christmas. This is an incredibly satisfying read-aloud for both children and parents, with the bonus of Seredy’s memorable illustrations.

• Probably my favorite Christmas chapter is the final section of Elizabeth Goudge’s The Herb of Grace. It’s an incredibly festive account of an extended family’s Christmas celebration featuring people returning home, plans for and making of a feast, carol singing and amateur dramatics, more feasts, an engagement, and various poorly behaved children. Written in 1948, it’s about broken people piecing their lives back together, forgiving each other, and welcoming strangers.

Since I notice that Norann and Trudi have both put stakes in the ground on this subject, I’ll mention that my dad is actually the best reader-aloud.

Trudi – in Spring Valley, southwest Pennsylvania

This time, you’ll hear from my mom, Veronica. She has a story collection and a husband who reads with wonderful expression—if it’s a story he enjoys, that is. I remember many evenings of story reading. If a story bored Dad, despite his best efforts, his voice would slow and his head would begin to nod until a feminine chorus of “Daaaad!” jerked him awake.

So here’s from my mom:

We never meant to make it a tradition, but reading a good Christmas story after a meal has become a treasured part of Christmas for our family. Even now when the children have flown, and only one or two visit for the holiday, bringing a friend or two in tow, someone is bound to say: “Have you read ‘Christmas with the Chrystals’ yet?” "or ‘London Snow’?”

This year, however, my husband and I find ourselves visiting England to welcome our youngest grandson, Nicolas Tobias, to the world. His two older siblings are delighted at having a Christmas baby of their own, and we are just as thrilled to share their joy. In between bathing the baby, sweeping under the beds, folding the laundry, and making honey cookies to hang on the tree, there is time for visiting the library, hauling home a heap of books, and reading aloud old favorites, Christmas and more. We raced through The Happy Orpheline, and then A Brother for the Orphelines , followed by The Family under the Bridge. I suppose we should give Natalie Savage Carlson a break now, but I have to say I am partial to her children’s books, and The Letter on the Tree is a must for next Christmas. Maybe Rumer Godden’s The Story of Holly and Ivy should be next, but oh dear, it was already signed out when I looked for it on our last week’s library visit, as was Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

In our communities, a new song learned or a story typed up and shared is a valued gift because a story, just like singing or good food, gathers. Isn’t that what Christmas is about? All, starting with the humble animals, the lowly Shepherds, followed by the wise and wealthy Magi, were drawn irresistibly to the Child in the manger. Surely, this Child is still gathering us today.

Veronica with her new grandson.

Things we’re doing and enjoying

Trudi

Last week I went to the library and pulled out a few Christmas story collections. I needed a story to blog about, I thought. Soon I found a few titles I recognized, so I sat down and read them—quickly, but it didn’t matter. Immediately I felt as though a key were turning in a long-locked door. The stories, whether fictional or true, stirred something in me.

This year will be my eighth Christmas as a single, so Christmas is no longer defined by my warm childhood memories. I’ve had a variety of Christmases, one in Australia, two in Korea, and the rest in Pennsylvania. I don’t anticipate it for its cozy, familial aspect—it is special in other ways, and I am grateful.

But after revisiting some Christmas stories, I realized they are gems not limited to childhood, home, and family. They have value and impact at any age, in any setting. A good storyline can convey deep meaning: peace, divine love, suffering, healing, compassion, redemption, and more. So although I don’t intend to make a collection of my own, I do plan to look for Christmas stories, read them, and let their message light my heart.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt

• Angels and Other Strangers by Katherine Paterson

• Broken Windows by Katherine Paterson

• Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck

As for what I’m enjoying, it’s the recent snow falls. Beautiful.

Marianne

Christmas cookies!

(made by the community kitchen)

and cookie houses!

(made by Oma Veronica)

Norann

I come from a family that decorates for Christmas right after Thanksgiving on the First of Advent.

But when Chris and I married 26 years ago, I realized that it was very important to him that our Christmas tree was cut, set up, and decorated only on Christmas Eve, so that’s how we’ve done it ever since….in fact, it suited the Australian climate better, and quickly became a time-honored tradition for us and the boys. Christmas afternoon was always an adventure: dodging storms, flies, heat, bushfires (one year) to find the perfect tree, cut it down, haul it home, set it up, and feast on nibbles and drinks while decorating it with a full house of friends and neighbors.

Well, that’s all changed. Chris has a daughter in his life for the first time. (Our oldest son, Jordan, announced his engagement to Maddie last month.)

Maddie is from an early decorating family and loves to have the tree up early.

The other evening, on the 5th of December, Chris found, set up, and decorated a Christmas tree for Maddie.

Yes, we’ll still go and get a real tree together on Christmas Eve, but in the meantime this tree is glowing in the corner of our living room - a daily reminder of the new and young love in our house and lives, and the promise of new seasons of celebration to come.

And every day, fresh ornaments are being added, the most beautiful so far being this Lebkuchen cookie couple from one of Maddie’s former students….

…and the other from my dear friend in the UK, Gillian Hatter, who prays for me every day and encourages me in more ways than she will ever know. This ornament acknowledges my empty nest and my very full heart at the same time:

That’s all for now folks. Happy Advent! Enjoy the season you’re in!