Author’s Preface
These are Christmas stories for adults.
Not because they contain gratuitous sex (they don’t even have non-gratuitous sex). Nor is there any violence to speak of. There are a few instances of colorful profanity, but this is a device employed to add realism to the characters and, hopefully, to the stories. By making the characters and their daily lives as recognizable as possible it makes the magical things that happen to them seem possible in our own lives.
There exist Christmas stories-a-plenty geared towards children. For adults the choices are far fewer, and tend to either be museum pieces or modern works that in their attempt to avoid borrowing from the classic Christmas archetypes stray so far from the celebration we grew up with that the spirit gets lost under ponderous schmaltz (or vicious cynicism).
Aware that the average adult has as much, if not more, to gain from the Season as the children it is now geared towards, I offer up these stories. In these pages the reader will find everyday people, some nice, some not so nice, who happen to be disconnected from the Spirit of Christmas and who through grace (and sometimes fierce grace) find a way to reconnect. May these stories offer you that same gift.
A further explanation must be offered concerning the centerpiece of the collection, My Fellow Americans, God Bless Us, Every one. From that title, and the fact that this is a book of Christmas-theme stories, one would not be surprised to find that Dickens has been used as an inspiration. What may surprise the reader is that the author has taken the liberty of completely rewriting the Dickens novella, A Christmas Carol. What explanation can the author possibly offer to excuse such audacity?
. . . . (Finish Reading HERE)
These are Christmas stories for adults.
Not because they contain gratuitous sex (they don’t even have non-gratuitous sex). Nor is there any violence to speak of. There are a few instances of colorful profanity, but this is a device employed to add realism to the characters and, hopefully, to the stories. By making the characters and their daily lives as recognizable as possible it makes the magical things that happen to them seem possible in our own lives.
There exist Christmas stories-a-plenty geared towards children. For adults the choices are far fewer, and tend to either be museum pieces or modern works that in their attempt to avoid borrowing from the classic Christmas archetypes stray so far from the celebration we grew up with that the spirit gets lost under ponderous schmaltz (or vicious cynicism).
Aware that the average adult has as much, if not more, to gain from the Season as the children it is now geared towards, I offer up these stories. In these pages the reader will find everyday people, some nice, some not so nice, who happen to be disconnected from the Spirit of Christmas and who through grace (and sometimes fierce grace) find a way to reconnect. May these stories offer you that same gift.
A further explanation must be offered concerning the centerpiece of the collection, My Fellow Americans, God Bless Us, Every one. From that title, and the fact that this is a book of Christmas-theme stories, one would not be surprised to find that Dickens has been used as an inspiration. What may surprise the reader is that the author has taken the liberty of completely rewriting the Dickens novella, A Christmas Carol. What explanation can the author possibly offer to excuse such audacity?
. . . . (Finish Reading HERE)