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5 CLASSIC CHRISTMAS STORIES features five popular and heartwarming holiday stories, including THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING, THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER, THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, and ’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
1. THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING by E. T. A. Hoffmann
“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” tells the story of a girl named Marie who receives a wooden nutcracker on Christmas Eve, which comes alive to battle the evil, seven-headed Mouse King and his army of mice. A surprise ending leads Marie to a magical kingdom of dolls.
CHAPTER 1 - The Day Before
CHAPTER 2 - The Gifts
CHAPTER 3 - The Surprise
CHAPTER 4 - Magic
CHAPTER 5 - The Battle of the Sugar Bullets
CHAPTER 6 - The Pleasant Surprise
CHAPTER 7 - The Fairy Tale of the Hard Nut
CHAPTER 8 - Continuation of The Fairy Tale of the Hard Nut
CHAPTER 9 - Conclusion of The Fairy Tale of the Hard Nut
CHAPTER 10 - The Victory
CHAPTER 11 - The Kingdom Of The Dolls
CHAPTER 12 - The Candy Capital
CHAPTER 13 - Conclusion
2. THE GIFT OF THE MAGI by O. Henry
“The Gift of the Magi” is about a young couple, Della and Jim, who are struggling to afford Christmas gifts for each other due to their poverty. The story’s irony lies in the fact that their gifts are rendered useless by their mutual sacrifices, highlighting the depth of their love and the true meaning of giving.
3. THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
“The Elves And The Shoemaker” introduces us to a poor shoemaker and his wife who find themselves in financial ruin until a pair of perfectly made shoes appears each morning, leading to prosperity. Who has been making them?
4. THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL by Hans Christian Andersen
“The Little Match Girl” concerns a poor, barefoot girl who is selling matches out in the freezing winds on New Year’s Eve. Huddled in an alley for warmth, she lights matches to see visions of a warm stove, a festive meal, and a beautiful Christmas tree.
5. ’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Clement-Clarke Moore
“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” is a classic 1823 poem that describes the excitement on Christmas Eve. As the family settles to sleep, the narrator hears a commotion and sees St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) arriving with his flying reindeer and sleigh. Santa enters the home by going down the chimney, fills the stockings with toys, and then departs, leaving the family in wonder and joy.
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O. Henry (1862–1910), born William Sydney Porter in Greensboro, North Carolina, was a short-story writer whose tales romanticized the commonplace, in particular, the lives of ordinary people in New York City. His stories often had surprise endings, a device that became identified with his name. He began writing sketches around 1887, and his stories of adventure in the Southwest United States and in Central America were immediately popular with magazine readers.
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist, and mythologist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm’s law (linguistics), the co-author with his brother Wilhelm of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm and the editor of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.
Clement Clarke Moore (1779–1863) was an American professor of oriental and Greek literature, as well as divinity and biblical learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York City. He is the author of the yuletide poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” which became famous as “The Night before Christmas.”
James Fouhey is an actor and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator living in New York City. He received classical training at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He has recorded more than 150 audiobooks across a variety of genres, including science fiction, romance, young adult fiction, and children’s fiction.
Noelle Dupuis is an accomplished voice actor and audiobook narrator based in Ontario, Canada. For Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre, she has read children’s classic stories, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Beatrix Potter Collection, Thumbelina, The Wild Swans, The Princess Collection, and The Hans Christian Andersen Collection, to name a few. Blackstone Publishing distributes all these titles. Noelle teaches drama and music at her local Elementary School when she isn’t narrating audiobooks.