The Essential Christmas Classics Collection Boxed Set

Just a few more days until Thanksgiving! This year is proving to be a bit more dramatic on that end than we usually have, but we'll find a way to eat that turkey and stuff our faces with pie and more. 

Right after, Thanksgiving...as in literally the next day...it's time to get our Christmas tree. This, again, is proving to grow into a more dramatic and stressful activity than usual, but we'll get those holiday spirits going no matter what. After all, Sunday is the first of Advent.

Today's read slides right into the pre-holiday-happiness period and takes a look at a couple Christmas classics as well as 12 other short stories. I'm hoping that this one proves to be a set to be placed on the shelves and enjoyed year after year. Let's take a look at it at see if it's worth placing under the Christmas tree or not.

Also, it's Monday, which means it's time for the weekly MMGM list. Middle grade literature fans and knowers get together to give their recommendations for the weeks or other thoughts on the middle grade realm. So, if you're looking for reads for this age group, head on over HERE and see what's what on that front!

THE ESSENTIAL CHRISTMAS CLASSICS COLLECTION

Boxed Set

A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker, and Twelve Classics of Christmas

Aladdin

Middle Grade Fiction

400 pages

ages 8 and up

Celebrate the holidays with this collection of Christmas classics, including A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker, and a collection of holiday short stories—together in one hardcover boxed set!

Celebrate the season with this collection of popular holiday stories from Christmases past. This set includes E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker, the story of a girl’s Christmas gift coming to life and battling the sinister mouse king, which later inspired Tchaikovsky’s popular holiday ballet. Next is A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’s renowned novella about the miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge being confronted with his greed and learning the meaning of Christmas.

Rounding out the set is The Twelve Classics of Christmas, a collection of twelve holiday short stories. From favorites like Clement C. Moore’s “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” and O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” to lesser-known tales from beloved authors like Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Brothers Grimm, this anthology is the perfect way to count down to Christmas.

This festive hardcover boxed set includes:
A Christmas Carol
The Nutcracker
The Twelve Classics of Christmas:

" A Kidnapped Santa Claus” by L. Frank Baum

“The Elves and the Shoemaker” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
“Tilly’s Christmas” by Louisa May Alcott
“Squeaky and the Scare Box” by Georgene Faulkner
“Papa Panov’s Christmas Special” by Ruben Saillens, translated by Leo Tolstoy
“The Christmas Masquerade” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
“A Christmas Inspiration” by L. M. Montgomery
“A Luckless Santa Claus” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“The Legend of the Babouscka” by Anonymous
“The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” by Charles Dickens
“A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement C. Moore

GOODREADS    /     PUBLISHER    /    AMAZON

MY TIDBITS

This is such a lovely set of traditional Christmas tales, altogether in one set. I'm reviewing the paperback version but could see this one as an ideal addition to the shelves in hardback form. 

The box set contains three, more slender novels. These include The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman, and a collection of twelve short stories and poems from renowned, traditional authors. So, it's a great round-up for literature friends. The printing is pretty standard for middle grade novels and, as far as I can tell, sticks to the more original text/translations. At least, nothing popped out to me as 'modernized' or changed. It's a set to snuggle down with for some Christmas reading. It also would work great for homeschooling settings as well.

While this set puts a smile on my face, and I am contemplating getting it in hardback for myself or nieces and nephews, I am just a tiny bit sad that there aren't any illustrations. Instead....and this does make up for that a little...each chapter holds a few stars, swirls, and magical feel with smaller decorations. But the lack of illustrations isn't really hurting my enjoyment of the set, either. 

I am definitely putting this one on my possible gift list for others and find the collection to be a nice touch for the holidays.

The authors...

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth where his father was a clerk in the navy pay office. The family moved to London in 1823, but their fortunes were severely impaired. Dickens was sent to work in a blacking-warehouse when his father was imprisoned for debt. Both experiences deeply affected the future novelist. In 1833, he began contributing stories to newspapers and magazines, and in 1836 started the serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Thereafter, Dickens published his major novels over the course of the next twenty years, from Nicholas Nickleby to Little Dorrit. He also edited the journals Household Words and All the Year Round. Dickens died in June 1870.

E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) was a writer, composer, and painter. Born in Prussia, he served as a law officer until Napoleon’s invasion, after which he settled in Germany and turned his attention to the arts. He is best remembered for his writings of Romanticism and Gothic Horror, and for his novella originally titled Nutcracker and Mouse King, which later inspired Tchaikovsky’s ballet.