Christmas Every Day
By William Dean Howells
Pocket Books, $8
ISBN 06710003267
Also available on audio from
Simon & Schuster Audio, $5.95
Audio ISBN 0671514787
Review by Jeannie Crawford-Lee
William Dean Howells wrote Christmas Every Day in 1892, three years after the death of his beloved 25-year-old daughter, Winifred. It celebrates a warm relationship between a father and daughter expressed as father makes up a Christmas story for a rather demanding and feisty little girl. The tale is mischievously didactic -- mostly fun but you can't miss the point. A little girl eager for Christmas day begs the Christmas Fairy to grant her wish that it be Christmas every day. Her wish is granted for a year! The results aren't exactly what she expected: Christmas delights turn to nightmares as everyone is forced to repeat the special preparations and customs of the day endlessly; generosity and jollity turn to surliness. Luckily the Christmas Fairy can put things right -- the heady excitement of Christmas should come but once a year!
Jeannie Crawford-Lee is a writer and editor.
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