Since the creation of Christmas, or rather the cultural invention of celebrating and celebrating the birth of Jesus, humanity has created countless stories based on the holiday.
These stories convey a warm and optimistic worldview, like greetings shared at Christmas.
The ending is usually that after despair comes hope and the pure soul is saved.
I don't want to say that such hope is premature.
The language of generous blessings and the imagination of good neighbors may have added some warmth to the bleak world.

But there is a slightly different story in the world.
Stories that don't mend the cracks in reality with sweet comfort and promises, stories that leave the heart heavy after reading, but also strengthen it, stories that remind us that despair, like hope, cannot be taken lightly.
This Christmas, I'm a somewhat eccentric Santa Claus, and I've carefully selected only such stories to share with you, my readers.

The mice were gnawing at everything.
It was truly a curious creature.

“Where is the most beautiful place in the world? If you’ve been there, tell me.
Have you ever been to a pantry? Where every shelf is filled with cheese and every beam is lined with ham.
“They say you can dance on oil candles there, or go in skinny and come out fat.”

“I don’t know of such a place,” replied the fir tree.
“But I know the forest.
“It’s a place where the sun shines and little birds sing.”

The fir tree told a story from its childhood.
It was a story the little mice had never heard before.
They listened with bated breath and were amazed.
“Wow! I’ve seen so many things in my life.
How happy I would have been!”

“Me?” the fir tree thought deeply.
“Yeah, those were pretty fun times.”

The fir tree also brought back memories of Christmas Eve, when it was decorated with candy and candles.

“Wow, you’re so lucky, old fir tree,” the mice exclaimed.

--- p.20 From "Fir Tree"

Sophie suddenly felt afraid.
Could it be that some terrible spell had given her the power of arrest-immunity cells? Spotting the police standing leisurely in front of the dazzling theater, Sophie, desperate for a last resort, decided to attempt a public disorderly act.

Up in India, Sophie started screaming like a drunkard.
They danced and sang, making a lot of noise as if the sky was going to disappear.
The policeman turned his back on Sophie, twirled his baton, and spoke to a passerby.

“I’m one of those Yale guys.
Everyone's excited about our crushing win over the University of Hartford today. What's the fuss about?
“It’s noisy, but it won’t cause any harm, so I’m ordering you to leave it alone for today.”

Sophie, discouraged, stopped her fuss.
Are you sure no police officer will arrest you?
--- p.35 From “Police and Hymns”

As soon as he sat down, he leaned forward and began to speak.
The voice was slightly louder than a whisper, but still low and cautious.

“You don’t have to ask me twice now.
Let me tell you what's bothering me.
Last night I mistook you for someone else.
“That’s what’s bothering me.”

“Did I make a mistake?”

“No, because of someone.”

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know either.”

“Does it look like me?”

“I don’t know.
I didn't see the face.
He was covering his face with his left arm and waving his right arm.
Very violently.
“It’s like this.”

I watched his movements.
It was as if he was desperately sending out a signal, shouting, “Get out, please!”

--- p.51 From "Signalist"

The donkey stood on the left side of the manger, and the cow on the right.
It was the same location as when Jesus was born.
The cow likes formalities and ceremonies, so it was particularly obsessed with this arrangement.
The cow and the donkey stood there for a long time, motionless, as if posing before an invisible artist.

The baby's eyelids closed again.
It seemed like he was so sleepy he couldn't stand it.
A few steps beyond the threshold of sleep, a shining angel awaited.
Maybe they are waiting to teach the baby something, or maybe they are waiting to learn something from the baby.

The angel walked out of Jesus' dream and appeared in the stable.
He bent down towards the newborn baby and drew a transparent halo around its head.
The second halo was painted on Mary's head, and the third on Joseph's head.
The angel flapped his dazzling feathered wings and disappeared again.
The wings were a shining white, and their colors changed constantly, like bubbles constantly being born from the waves of the sea.

“I guess we don’t have our share of halo,” said the cow.
“Angels must have their own reasons.
Because Nana and the donkey are both such insignificant beings.
Besides, what merits did we have to deserve such a halo?”
--- pp.71-72 From “The Cow and the Donkey by the Manger”

The mother kangaroo insisted on giving one of her baby kangaroos to Jesus as a gift.
The mother kangaroo insisted that it was a gift from the heart and that it was okay to accept it since there were many other kangaroos at home.
But Joseph shook his head firmly, and the kangaroo eventually returned with its baby in its arms.

The ostrich was lucky.
While people were looking away for a moment, she laid an egg in a corner of the stable and then quietly disappeared.
It wasn't until the next morning that the donkey discovered the 'souvenir'.
The donkey believed that a miracle had occurred, as it had never seen such a large and solid egg before.
The donkey's delusion was quickly dispelled when Joseph made an omelet with the eggs and ate it.

The water birds had difficulty coming in person because they could not breathe outside the water, so they asked the seagulls to visit them on their behalf.

The bird left behind a song, the pigeon left behind love, the monkey left behind playfulness, the cat left behind a gaze, and the turtledove left behind the softness of its uvula.

There were other animals that wanted to be there too.
These animals, still undiscovered and therefore nameless, were beings waiting to be named in the depths of the earth, the abyss of the sea, and the eternal night where neither starlight nor moonlight, nor even the changing of seasons, could reach.

--- pp.89-90 From “The Cow and the Donkey by the Manger”

The night was bluish.
The moonlight was bright.
Thin clouds floated in the sky here and there, but they did not obscure the moon, delicate as ice.
Here and there in the yard, the snowdrifts bathed in moonlight sparkled sharply like shards of iron, and the trees covered in dove-colored frost cast long, dark shadows.

The room in the annex was well heated and warm.
Ivan placed a small earthenware pot with a fir tree on the table.
When Sleptsov returned from the main building with a wooden box under his arm, his eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were covered with gray dust.
Ivan was just about to hang a candle on the top of a fir tree that had been trimmed in the shape of a cross.
Sleptsov stared blankly at the fir tree and asked.

“What is that?”

Ivan took the box from the owner and answered in a low, soft voice.
“Christmas is coming tomorrow.”

“No, just put it away.” Sleptsov frowned.
And I thought to myself.
It's Christmas Eve today, how could this be? How could I forget that day?

--- p.107 From "Death"

At that time, Johnny lived with his aunt.
I was in school when, over Christmas break, Johnny's aunt, Mrs. Geddes, gave me one of her nephew's booklets.
The title was "How to Get Rich at Christmas."
It was a pretty catchy title, but when I read it, it said that if you want to get rich at Christmas, you have to get rid of Christmas.
So I didn't think much more deeply about the book.

But that was just Johnny's first attempt.
Less than three years later, Johnny founded the Abolition of Christmas Society.
His new book, Abolish Christmas or We Die, was constantly checked out from public libraries, and it was finally my turn to read it.
This time it was quite convincing.
By the time people closed the book, they were completely absorbed in his logic.
One day I bought the book again for sixpence in a used bookshop, and even after all these years, his argument that Christmas was a national crime still seemed surprisingly sophisticated.

--- p.114 From “The Man Who Writes Fallen Leaves”

As I came out, I was overcome with shame.
I've always gotten away from people like this.
It was half funny and half sad.
It was snowing.
The evening bell rang through the thick snow.
The city looked like a scene from a fairy tale.
The snowflakes swirled softly and fell lovingly.
When one flower touched my lips, it felt like I was being kissed.
Hats and coats soon turned pure white, and the streets, houses, and pedestrians were all covered in snow.
Lights twinkled in the silence.
At that moment, it seemed as if the world contained only cozy homes, loving people, cheerful spirits, kind words, and indescribable peace.

--- p.129 From “A Christmas Story”