Almost every year, our family gathers around at Christmas time and reads a new Christmas story together. Over the years, we have gathered a large collection of favorites. Here are a few more beautiful Christmas stories for the Christian family, perfect for reading together.
A Stranger for Christmas by Carol Lynn Pearson is a precious story about the true meaning of Christian love and generosity. Two elderly women, Florence and Myrna, wonder if anyone would open up their home to a complete stranger for the Christmas season. Myrna insists that one of her grown children would certainly be willing, and so begins their trek through Myrna’s address book, calling each and finding out whether they had truly learned what Myrna once tried to teach them.
There is a fictional story in this, developed for the purpose of the test, which may be construed as lying. If reading to children, you may wish to address the point of how appropriate their methodology was. Other than this point, the story is free of objectionable material, full of wonderful characters, and a beautiful message for Christmas.
Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo is a short but poignant story of a little girl with a big heart who sees and worries about a street performer. She invites him into the joy of Christmas. The art in this book is beautiful and the vocabulary level is suitable for very young children.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson opens with the outrageous Herdman children burning down a toolhouse, then progresses through a colorful tale of how these bullies end up arriving at Sunday School in hopes of free refreshments and instead take over the Christmas pageant, down to every major role in the traditional play. This book is laugh out loud delightful and full of awful behavior from the Herdmans that is called out for the awful it is. The first part of the book invites us to judge them, but then the second half opens up compassion and understanding and the true meaning of the Christmas story, even to children like the Herdmans.
The Christmas Miracle by Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski, which has also been adapted into a movie, is a sweet story of how a gruff, grieving woodcarver’s life is turned gently upside down by the arrival of a widow and her son’s order for a new Nativity set to replace one they have lost. The transformation is slow and filled with beautiful descriptions of each character in the Nativity’s place in the Christmas story as the little boy brings warmth to Jonathan Toomey’s life with his open caring and love of the story of the Nativity. This is a delightful and highly recommended book to enjoy with the family. Suitable for young children.
— Megan Payne
