From an eyewitness account of the December, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor, to a child s account of an actual sighting of Santa Claus streaking across the night sky, to a desperate commercial flight on Christmas Day a flight to avoid suicide to the appearance of an angel, a flesh-and-blood angel, Christmas is a Season! 2008 has it all.
In editing Christmas is a Season! 2008, I learned from the writers that the holidays are emotionally charged, and everyone has a Christmas story. Some seasons arrive with merriment, peace, joy, and good tidings toward all mankind. Other years, Christmas Day barrels down with the weight of family and individual loss, empty pocketbooks, depleted checking accounts, anxiety, depression, and a wish to retreat. The short stories and personal essays in Christmas is a Season! 2008 explore every square mile of the Christmas terrain in beautifully crafted prose.
 
Table of Contents
2 Jen Calder (Short Story) Christmas Dinner
10 Mahala Church (Personal Essay) Wonders Never Cease
24 R.L. Burkhead (Short Story) Jingle Bell Topography
40 Joan Stidham Nist (Personal Essay) Memory of the Spirit of Christmas Past
46 Dee Jordan (Personal Essay) The Grinch Who Didn‟t Steal Christmas
52 Mary Popham (Short Story) Christmas Peddler
66 Kathleen Whitman Plucker (Personal Essay) Kim Gannon Had it Right
72 Joan Donaldson (Personal Essay) Finding Room
80 Kathleen Thompson (Short Story) Mother and Child
92 Cecelia Redmond (Personal Essay) Snow White Boomers
102 Karen J. Mann (Personal Essay) Birth, Death, and Disney ii
110 Mary Potter Kenyon (Personal Essay) A Christmas After Cancer
116 Charlotte Rains Dixon (Short Story) The Tree Ritual
136 Anthony J. Mohr (Personal Essay) Santa Claus Lane
140 C J Petterson (Personal Essay) The Blue-Eyed Doll
146 Mary Kuykendall-Weber (Short Story) The Good Belle Snickel
150 Victoria Fedden (Personal Essay) Tidings of Great Joy
156 Robin Ehrlichman Woods (Personal Essay) A Taste of Christmas
160 Terry Rozum (Short Story) No Man Left Behind
168 Suzanne Craig Robertson (Personal Essay) Reruns In My Head
172 Meredith Portman (Personal Essay) The Christmas Mission
178 Tracy Hurley (Short Story) The Matryoshka Dolls
200 Judy Lee Green (Personal Essays) Newlywed Christmas The Store-Bought Christmas Doll iii 208 C. D. Mitchell (Personal Essay) The Tree
224 Joyce Sterling Scarbrough (Short Story) Hope Chest
242 Loretta Cobb (Short Story) Faces Looking Up
250 Dixon Hearne (Personal Essay) Brown Bags and Christmas Paper
256 Hazel P. Pope (Short Story) A House Full of Grandmothers