Books like Christmas Stories

These are NOT the Christmas Books of Ebenezer Scrooge and other volumes which put the winter holiday on the map. These are the annual holiday-themed stories Dickens published in his Household Words journal. These stories made Mr. Dickens the prophet of home life. He brought imagination into the winter homes and told his readers that comfort, a cozy fire under the hearth, spiced wine, and a good story made home-staying worthwhile. ...there are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in mine.In this collection of his Christmas tales, Dickens combined goodwill with tales of shipwrecks and orphans and traditions. There aren't any ghosts of Christmas past nor the haunted recollections of doomed men. Instead, the reader gets a poverty-stricken man relating his "castle in the air" or a narrator describing the various country inns of Yorkshire, "haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie".The stories I liked best were the maritime tales of The Wreck Of The Golden Mary and The Perils Of Certain English Prisoners. Reading of adventures on the high seas when the weather outside your own home is cold is always worthwhile....a right little island, a tight little island, a bright little island, a show-fight little island...Not every story whammed me and I probably do love his actual books of Christmas season more (mostly because of the haunted tales), but these were a worthwhile read. Family, friends, rituals.Book Season = Winter (a glass of Smoking Bishop)