Book Christmas 5

SML
Dec 5, 2015
2 min read

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura and Mary never would have looked in their stockings again. The cups and the cakes and the candy were almost too much. They were too happy to speak. But Ma asked if they were sure the stockings were empty.

Then they put their hands down inside them, to make sure. And in the very toe of each stocking was a shining bright, new penny!

They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for your very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny.

There never had been such a Christmas.

A terrible storm arrives and Mr. Wilder can’t make it to town before Christmas. With no snow and a swelling river, Laura and Mary have no hope that Santa’s sleigh can make it to their house. Little did they know that their bachelor neighbor, Mr. Edwards, crossed the frigid, high river and braved the forty miles to town. He tells a wondrous story about meeting Santa Claus, who entrusted Mr. Edwards with gifts for the good little Ingalls girls. Mr. Edwards understood everyone needs something to believe in, and he generously gave the Ingalls a magical Christmas. Presents are delightful at Christmas, but it’s the selfless, kind people who make Christmas so wonderfully special.

For Christmas dinner there was the tender, juicy, roasted turkey. There were the sweet potatoes, baked in the ashes and carefully wiped so that you could eat the good skins, too. There was a loaf of salt-rising bread made from the last of the white flour.

And after all that there were stewed dried blackberries and little cakes...

Then Pa and Ma and Mr. Edwards sat by the fire and talked about Christmas times in Tennessee and up north in the Big Woods. But Mary and Laura looked at their beautiful cakes and played with their pennies and drank their water out of their new cups. And little by little they licked and sucked their sticks of candy, till each stick was sharp-pointed on one end.

That was a happy Christmas.

Retrieved from: Friday Favorite: Christmas Scenes in Children's Literature