Christmas in My Heart, Bk 9

Christmas In My Heart #9

by Joe L. Wheeler

A TREASURY OF OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS STORIES Hard to believe, but here it Christmas in My Heart, book9. They keep coming because so many readers like you find it inconceivable to enter another Christmas season without a new Christmas in My Heart transfusion. Oh, `tis true that the now "old" collections are still treasured, are reread again and again, becoming in a very special way Christmas velveteen rabbits, all the dearer for their dog-eared coves and creased pages. Yet at the same time that the first eight collections are returned to, there is an innate need to expand the core collection, to greet with delight new writers with fresh approaches and, even more significant, to listen once again to writers now believed to us-each additional story by such a writer but deepens the bond, that voice that can never be stilled as long as we refuse to let it die. That is the magic of Christmas in My Heart! Stories in this book A Rose in Winter, The Bells Didn't Ring, Bulger's Friends, The Forgotten Friend, Like a Candle in the Window, plus 10 more. What is Christmas? Christmas is a state of mind, a time of year when the heart is magically softened and the soul reaches out to others. A time when the cold of the season is offset by the warmth of the joy within. But no mere things, possessions, or money can call froth than inner joy. It is Christ our Lord, and the memory of His birth on earth, that results in this annual outpouring of love for all those whose lives intersect with ours. For it is not receiving but giving that gives meaning to our Christmases. Giving without anticipation of reward or even recognition. Giving because the fullness of joy within us runs over the rim and splashes happiness on all who are in our vicinity. So this Christmas, let us open up the floodgates of our hearts and flood this sad earth with Christian joy.-Joe Wheeler.

Genres: Christmas, Christian, Short Stories, Short Story Collection

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Joe Wheeler has been labeled many things: as Father Christmas because of his editing/compiling America’s longest-running Christmas of story series — Christmas in My Heart (now in its 18th season); as one of America’s leading story anthologists (56 story collections by twelve publishing houses); as the world’s foremost authority on life and times of the frontier writer Zane Grey (he is co-founder and executive director of the international Zane Grey’s West Society); as a biographer, having written full-length biographies of Abraham Lincoln and St. Nicholas and shorter biographies of Louisa May Alcott, Abbie Farwell Brown, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Gene Stratton Porter, Grace Richmond, Henryk Sienkiewicz, and Lew Wallace; and as a Renaissance Man because of his encyclopedic interest in everything (popular culture as well as the academic); and his master’s degree in the teaching of History, his master’s degree in English (thesis on Utopian and Dystopian literature), and his Vanderbilt doctorate in English (History of Ideas emphasis).

Because of all these variables, and stirring in his 71 books (and counting), this blog series promises to be unlike any other — and that’s why he titles the series, “UNCHARTED WATERS.”

Reviews

[Richard Radosevich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all things about Christmas and I loved this book. It is an anthology of Christmas stories selected by Joe Wheeler; part of a large series...this in #9. It includes the true story of "How an Unborn Baby Saved Its Mother's Life"; for this story alone the book is a must-have. It has 14 other stories which a memorable as well: A Rose in Winter by Jodi Detrick, Bulgar's Friends by O. Henry to name a couple.

[Nicole Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming Christmas stories of Christmas past.