Share Your Free Stories of Winter and the Festive Season

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Free Stories of Winter

Whether you observe Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, or another celebration during this festive season, I invite you to share links to your free family-friendly stories and poems.

They can be about snow, winter (including winter sports and activities), or the festive season itself.

Of course those of you in the southern hemisphere don’t have snow, and I’d like to hear from you, too. How do you spend December?

Here are a few links to get the snowballs rolling and the kangaroos clapping:

Fiction

A Moose’s Tale by Kathy Steinemann

Accidental Allies by Kathy Steinemann

Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck

Christmas Jenny by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Christmas; or, The Good Fairy by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Papa Panov’s Special Christmas by Leo Tolstoy

Serial Slayer (a dark story) by Kathy Steinemann

Snow Angel by Kathy Steinemann

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Brothers Grimm

The Fir-Tree by Hans Christian Anderson

The Last Dream of Old Oak by Hans Christian Anderson

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson

The Meadowlark’s Mission by Kathy Steinemann

The Night Before Christmas: A Morality by William Dean Howells

The Other Wise Man by Henry van Dyke

Now it’s your turn.

In the comments area, please share a link to your free story/poem or one written by someone else.

  • Title
  • A description of twenty-five words or less (optional).
  • URL (the link, which begins with http).
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17 thoughts on “Share Your Free Stories of Winter and the Festive Season”

  2. https://www.dropbox.com/s/17bu97xlhsy22uq/Why%20Jews%20eat%20Chinese%20food%20on%20Christmas.docx?dl=0
    WHY JEWS EAT CHINESE FOOD ON CHRISTMAS
    What makes the holiday season most special are the traditions we create and share; and in that way, make them uniquely our own. Even those of us who do not celebrate Christmas have still found ways to participate in the joy of the season. For us Jews, eating Chinese food on Christmas day has become an international tradition that started in New York in the 1930’s. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Jews looking for a special way to celebrate a day off on December 25th in a friendly place with a welcoming atmosphere featuring exotic food they didn’t normally eat were hard-pressed to find any restaurants open except those whose proprietors did not celebrate Christmas either. In most neighborhoods, Chinese restaurants were the only ones open on Christmas day. And so, as many things in life come to be, out of necessity or by process of elimination, a delightful tradition was born.
    My maternal grandparents were married on December 25th and every year celebrated their anniversary by following this tradition. They in turn, passed it down to my mother who continued it when she married and had children, and passed it down to us. I cannot recall any Jew I knew who did not go out for Chinese food on Christmas day.
    Chinese food was the first foreign food I was introduced to as a small child. I spent the early years of my childhood in Linden, New Jersey a bedroom community southwest of Manhattan. One particularly cold and snowy Christmas day my father was under the weather, so rather than go out to eat in a Chinese restaurant like we normally would, my mother brought in take-out Chinese food instead. We ate Chinese food often throughout the year, and my mother frequented a neighborhood Chinese take-out. We got to know the owner, a kind and generous older Chinese man who always paid me special attention. That evening, I accompanied my mother to pick up dinner. When it was our turn to order, I told the owner I didn’t want to eat his food any longer because he put worms in it. He wasn’t offended, but he asked me to show him the worms. I pointed to some translucent squiggly-looking worms in the chow mein he was about to put into a container as part of our order. He asked my mother if I could come back to the kitchen with him. She said yes. We went into the kitchen, and he sat me on a stool next to him in the preparation area. He showed me how he cut the onions and how he cooked them. When they were done, he explained they were not worms, but the same thin onion strips he just cut that when cooked, only looked like worms to me (I was about 5 years old). When I was still not completely convinced, he gave me one to taste, and then I was sold. He and I were BFF’s after that…I always got extra fortune cookies and almond cookies.
    Since this holiday tradition was such an important part of my life, I was interested to learn more. If you are the curious sort like me, click the link and read a more in-depth history of the love affair we Jews have with Chinese food. https://blog.judaicawebstore.com/why-jews-eat-chinese-food-on-christmas/
    The good news is you don’t have to be Jewish to eat Chinese food on Christmas….but it helps.
    No matter how you celebrate the holiday, may your traditions bring you and yours the joy that comes with the sense of belonging that binds us humans together.

    Reply ↓

  3. Hi Kathy,
    I have nothing to contribute but I wanted to thank you for providing these stories. I look forward to reading them when time allows. What a treat!

    Perhaps I could also take the opportunity to thank you for all of your useful and interesting posts during the last year. Most appreciated.

    Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

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  4. No Ordinary December Day is a short Christmas story I wrote several years ago. It was published in Piker Press. For years I have been writing stories and sending them out instead of cards. Sometimes peace needs a few more words to stay a tad longer.

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  5. Sharing Christmas Joy

    When we moved to our new house, we learned the former owners had a viscous divorce battle. One of their friends, obviously didn’t know this.

    Every single Christmas for seven years, we’d get a sugary sweet Christmas card for the divorced couple from their unknowing friends. One Christmas, frustrated with the shopping and cooking, the school Christmas events and general chaos, here it came, the returning Christmas card.

    I lost it. I sat down and sent them my own card, a lovely Christmas poem, which I advised them, should be sung to the tune of Jingle Bells:

    Ho, ho, ho,
    Ho, ho, ho,
    The Newcombs moved away.
    They let this house
    go to the dogs,
    and left the bills to pay.

    John dumped his spouse,
    They lost the house,
    I don’t know where they are.
    Please update your Christmas list
    and thank you for the card!

    I was pretty proud of myself and enjoyed venting about Christmas. However, this was destined to come back and bite me.

    Two months later, my spouse and I were at a charity ball. For a change, I was on my best behavior. One my husband’s clients approached us and hey, did we know that he dated Julie Newcomb, the former owner of our home? He continued to say recently, she had been informed by a close friend that someone had sent them a Christmas card announcing her divorce. He concluded, “It was quite creative.”

    Sometimes the writer within has to escape. I smiled, sweet-as you-please, and wandered off for another martini before my face turned beet red.

    Reply ↓

  6. Thank you, Kathy. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything holiday-ish, yet, and I can’t think of a link offhand. But I’m grateful for all the wonderful choices you’ve provided.

    Reply ↓