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Old 12-10-2012, 05:05 AM   #1
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Favorite Christmas Reading!
Anyone reading any good Christmas or Holiday stories? Just wondering. I'm reading the christmas train by Baldacci, I just started it. Anyone else read any holiday stories that they loved and recommend?
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Old 12-10-2012, 05:31 AM   #2
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Ever year I reread the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum. My parents used to read it out loud to us kids when we were little. I just love Baum's take on the legend, what with the old school magic and the fairies. I really don't care for what I call Mall Santas, but the idea of a more rustic, woodworking Santa is oddly very heartwarming to me.
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Old 12-10-2012, 06:41 AM   #3
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I imagine there are still copies out there, maybe even reprints. If so, you need to find The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, starring the Herdman gang.
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Old 12-10-2012, 07:18 AM   #4
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The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.

Oddly enough, although it's clearly Christmas oriented, the book is really about how to kill the Tooth Fairy...
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Old 12-10-2012, 09:40 AM   #5
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I imagine there are still copies out there, maybe even reprints. If so, you need to find The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, starring the Herdman gang.
How could I forget this! I actually got to play Imogene Herdman my senior year of high school. It was so fun being so mean!
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Old 12-10-2012, 01:13 PM   #6
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The Fir Tree, Hans Christian Anderson

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"Only that one," answered the Tree. "I heard it on my happiest evening; but I did not then know how happy I was."
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Old 12-10-2012, 02:56 PM   #7
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I don't read Christmas stories, but I'd never go a Christmas without watching The Snowman
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Old 12-10-2012, 05:26 PM   #8
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I confess, the idea of seasonal reading is alien to me. It's like when the publishers start advertising their great summer reads. I think, why would I read something different just because it's summer?

Then again, we used to have a small tradition where we'd each write a ghost story and read them to each other on Christmas Eve. That was fun.
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Old 12-10-2012, 05:45 PM   #9
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why would I read something different just because it's summer?
My thoughts exactly

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Then again, we used to have a small tradition where we'd each write a ghost story and read them to each other on Christmas Eve. That was fun.
Aww, that sounds cool. None of my family are remotely into storytelling, although my grandad could always be relied upon to mark any festive occasion by randomly launching into a reminiscence about the war. He was pretty much Uncle Albert, and many many looooong, butt-numbing epics started with the famous words 'During the war...', or 'when I was stationed in Palestine...'

He died this September though, so no war stories this Christmas
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Old 12-10-2012, 06:26 PM   #10
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I like the Christmas chapter of The Wind in the Willows. Also, Mr. Woodhouse's daring Christmas Eve visit in Emma. Also the ghost stories M. R. James wrote to entertain friends at the Christmas fireside.
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Old 12-10-2012, 07:30 PM   #11
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I imagine there are still copies out there, maybe even reprints. If so, you need to find The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, starring the Herdman gang.
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How could I forget this! I actually got to play Imogene Herdman my senior year of high school. It was so fun being so mean!

"Hey! Unto you a child is born!"

I LOVED that book!
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Old 12-10-2012, 07:59 PM   #12
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Old 12-10-2012, 08:16 PM   #13
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Also, Mr. Woodhouse's daring Christmas Eve visit in Emma.
One egg, lightly boiled, is not harmful.
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Writing from a female point of view seems to be generally regarded as something more like writing from the perspective of a deer: you might get points for novelty, but it'd be impossible to get right, and who really wants to hear a deer narrate a story, anyway? Jennifer duBois

Damn the prologue, full speed ahead! Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary
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Old 12-10-2012, 09:13 PM   #14
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One egg, lightly boiled, is not harmful.
Only if it is very small, and only if it comes from a Hartfield hen, whose eggs are not like other eggs. But nothing is better than a nice dish of gruel, not too thin, not too thick.
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Old 12-10-2012, 10:33 PM   #15
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That Frank Churchill is not at all the thing.
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Writing from a female point of view seems to be generally regarded as something more like writing from the perspective of a deer: you might get points for novelty, but it'd be impossible to get right, and who really wants to hear a deer narrate a story, anyway? Jennifer duBois

Damn the prologue, full speed ahead! Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary
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Old 12-10-2012, 10:45 PM   #16
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A Chritsmas Carol. I read it every year. It ain't about seasonal reading. I don't read about winter. It's about Christmas, and what Christmas means.
Quite apart from the book's literary merits, my copy of A Christmas Carol spent twenty years in my long-dead grandparents' old house. All I have to do to be transported back there is to sniff gently as I read it every Christmas! I have nothing against Kindle/Nook but they can't provide you with the olfactory aspect of reading...
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Old 12-10-2012, 10:54 PM   #17
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Then again, we used to have a small tradition where we'd each write a ghost story and read them to each other on Christmas Eve. That was fun.
I heard on a podcast recently that this was common in the Middle Ages, something about the Three Wise Men as sort of zombies or gory ghosts. The speaker speculated that was where Dickens got the idea for The Christmas Carol.

A favorite Christmas book of mine is The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn. It's a little historical fiction, a little religion, and a lot of fun.
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Old 12-10-2012, 10:58 PM   #18
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Going to echo love for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever! My local community theater group just did the stage version (also written by Robinson, who also wrote the screenplay to the Made for TV movie).

I try and read Baldacci's The Christmas Train every year, it doesn't break any new ground but it's good. Kind of like Grisham's Skipping Christmas (which I also try and read every year)

A Christmas Carol of course
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Old 12-14-2012, 06:03 PM   #19
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I'm reading a dark fantasy by Maria DeVivo called THE COAL ELF. It's about an elf-girl who mines coal for all the naughty children. It's really good. Check it out if you want an un-holiday story!
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