Christmas Stories—a book review

One winter when my siblings and I were young, my mom bought a special book to read us during December. It was one of the Christmas In My Heart series by Joe L. Wheeler. I loved that book. That Christmas collection was actually the beginning of a love for any of Dr. Wheeler’s story collections I could get my hands on. But that’s a whole different topic.

Winters in Alaska are dark, long and cold. But the memories I have of all of us curled up in the living room while the wood stove crackled, listening to our special Christmas stories each December are warm ones. I always determined that I would try to recreate that special memory in our home one day.  It may be well past Christmas time, but Max Lucado’s Christmas Stories caught my eye when I saw it. I hoped it would be something like the Christmas In My Heart Series that I still someday hope to collect in its entirety.

Christmas Stories was a lot different than I expected. Instead of a collection of heartwarming, beautiful old stories from the past, it was a continuing story from the 1800s about a little town and the old, often repeated story of an angel, a candle and Christmas Miracles. It talked about a new Minister, and his introduction to the country people and the story of the candle.

It was, however, a book with two very different, and interesting stories in it. While it might not have been the kind of book I was looking for to read to our little family during the Christmas season, I enjoyed reading about the Christmas Candle and the way it reminded people of our GOD who still works miracles on behalf of His own. The second story is more modern. It is set in Texas and told the story of a German wood carver who made a nativity set and the effect it had on the church and others for years to come.

Maybe some winter, we’ll read it together at Christmas time by our own little fireplace. If not, it was a good step in my search for our next favorite Christmas Story Collection, and a book that did make me smile.

Thanks to booksneeze for a copy of this book for review purposes.