"Connie Willis - Miracle and Other Christmas Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories

CONTENTS
Introduction
Miracle
Inn
In Coppelius's Toy Shop
The Pony
Adaptation
Cat's Paw
Newsletter
Epiphany
A Final Word
Twelve Terrific Things to Read
Twelve to Watch




TO CHARLES DICKENS AND GEORGE SEATON,
who knew how to keep Christmas


Introduction

I love Christmas. All of itтАФdecorating the tree and singing in the choir and baking cookies and wrappin
presents. I even like the parts most people hateтАФshopping in crowded malls and reading Christmas newsl
and seeing relatives and standing in baggage check-in lines at the airport.
Okay, I lied. Nobody likes standing in baggage check-in lines. I love seeing people get off the p
though, and holly and candles and eggnog and carols.
But most of all, I love Christmas stories and movies. Okay, I lied again. I don't love all Christmas st
and movies. It's a Wonderful Life, for instance. And Hans Christian Andersen's "The Fir Tree."
But I love Miracle on 34th Street and Christopher Morley's "The Christmas Tree That Didn't Get Trim
and Christina Rosetti's poem "Midwinter." My family watches The Sure Thing and A Christmas Story
year, and we read George V. Higgins's
"The Snowsuit of Christmas Past" out loud every Christmas Eve, and eagerly look for new classics to a
our traditions.
There aren't a lot. This is because Christmas stories are much harder to write than they look, partly be
the subject matter is fairly limited, and people have been writing them for nearly two thousand year
they've just about rung all the changes possible on snowmen, Santas, and shepherds.
 Stories have been told from the point of view of the fourth wise man (who got waylaid on the w
Bethlehem), the innkeeper, the innkeeper's wife, the donkey, and the star. There've been stories
department-store Santas, phony Santas, burned-out Santas, substitute Santas, reluctant Santas, and d
Santas, to say nothing of Santa's wife, his elves, his reindeer, and Rudolph. We've had births at Chris
(natch!), deaths, partings, meetings, mayhem, attempted suicides, and sanity hearings. And Christm
Hawaii, in China, in the past, the future, and outer space. We've heard from the littlest shepherd, the li
wise man, the littlest angel, and the mouse who wasn't stirring. There's not a lot out there that hasn't al
been done.
In addition, the Christmas-story writer has to walk a narrow tightrope between sentiment and skepti
and most writers end up falling off into either cynicism or mawkish sappiness.