The Five Best Christmas Stories

Opinion Journal Online ^ | 12-22-07 | MICHAEL DIRDA

[paul in cape]

1. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (Late 14th century).

Full of make-believe and festivity, this wonderful narrative poem possesses a Mozartean lightness and wit. Luckily, several modern versions, particularly those by W.S. Merwin and Simon Armitage, deftly replicate much of the feel and rhythm of the Middle English original.

2. "The Pickwick Papers," by Charles Dickens (1837).

No Victorian novel re-creates the cheery holiday spirit better than these bustling misadventures of kindly Mr. Pickwick, his Cockney valet, Sam Weller, and their friends (including the "fat boy" who famously whispers: "I wants to make your flesh creep").

3. "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1892).

Christopher Morley--the 20th-century American journalist and founder of the celebrated Sherlockian society, the Baker Street Irregulars--once called this "a Christmas story without slush." Originally collected in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and sometimes available as a stand-alone title, "The Blue Carbuncle" opens two days after Christmas, when the now married Dr. Watson visits cozy 221B Baker Street to wish his old friend "the compliments of the season."

4. "The Box of Delights" by John Masefield (Macmillan, 1935).

Just before Christmas, English schoolboy Kay Harker is traveling home by train to Tatchester. En route, he encounters a mysterious Punch-and-Judy showman, who asks him to take a message--"The wolves are running"-- to an old woman who wears a certain strange ring.

5."A Christmas Story" by Jean Shepherd (Broadway, 2003).

Set during the Depression in an Indiana steel town, "A Christmas Story" is the funny, nostalgia-laden tale of Ralphie Parker's quest for the greatest of all Christmas presents: a Red Ryder carbine BB gun.

[Billthedrill]

The Gift Of The Magi was perfection. Nothing else I've ever read comes close.

[Hebrews 11:6]

It appears there is a demand for ten or twelve favorites. By the way, how Dickens' A Christmas Carol was left off that list is beyond me.

Anyway, another popular one to add to the list of a dozen is Home Alone.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I had Dim Sum today at the restaurant featured in the Christmas Story. Went to the school shown in the movie. The cars in the film were late very late 30’s automobiles, and were clearly old and rather worn. The 32 ford body in the alley was totally rusted out. I’m saying the movie was meant to take place post war, ‘49-50
Then again, Jean Shepherd was born in 1921, so it’s more likely that the movie props are misleading, and a case of artistic license.

[Thunder 6]

The number “1940” is inscribed on the Secret Decoder ring, and the discussion of the Chicago Bears being “Monsters” versus “Chipmunks” of the Midway always led me to believe it was 1939-40, pre-war...

Regards,

[Bommer]

“The Three Trees” was always my favorite!

[Vision]

A Christmas Story is one of the best movies ever made. It was not set during the depression though.

[Gigantor]

bump

[Joe 6-pack]

A little independent research on my part indicates that the Little Orphan Annie radio show was only on air from 1931 - 1940...so that narrows it down substantially.