Five Stockings »

Five Stockings collects five Christmas stories, beginning with "The Box with the Green Bow and Ribbon", a story that first appeared in St. Anthony Messenger and concerns a child's wish during World War II for Santa Claus to bring him a reconditioned bicycle.

In "A Christmas Tale", a lawyer, arrested for being too aggressive while ringing a bell in a shopping center for a charitable organization, awakes from a snooze on Christmas morning to find a drunken Santa in his cell.

"Spoiling Christmas", originally published by Wiregrass Christian Family Magazine, tells the story of two boys who discover where their mother has hidden their Christmas presents.

Set in the Deep South during the early 1950s, "The Pea River Boys Do Christmas" is a story about a mixed-race Dixieland Band that plays for the members of a whites-only private club one night and performs for the patrons of a blacks-only honky-tonk the next.

In "The Gift House", a grandmother tells her grandsons a story about a knight crusader and his search for the gifts of the Magi.

These heartwarming tales, told in a distinctive southern voice and featuring richly drawn characters, will touch the reader's heart and make the reader laugh out loud. One cannot read these stories without gaining a better feel for the presence of Christmas.