First published in 1905, “The Boy with the Box” is a gentle Christmas story about childhood pride, unexpected generosity, and the quiet ways kindness reshapes a heart. It captures a winter world of skates and shop windows, family love and small sacrifices—where the true gift arrives not in a box, but in understanding.

Mary Griggs Van Voorhis (1876–1938) was an American writer whose short stories often focused on children, family life, and moments of quiet moral awakening. Writing in the early twentieth century, she was known for her warm realism and her ability to find emotional truth in everyday scenes. Her work appeared widely in magazines of the era and remains admired for its gentle humanity and timeless perspective.

If you enjoyed this story, please check out the rest the Season's Reading catalog of holiday tales. You can also find a multiverse of classic and original short stories of various genres at shortstoryverses.com

Season’s Readings is just one corner of the Short Storyverses Multiverse, created for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful pause and a well-told tale. You can explore the rest of the multiverse at shortstoryverses.com.

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This is a special Christmas bonus episode for Season's Readings listeners.

Frank has reasons for not decorating anymore. Christmas is quieter now. Darker. Easier to ignore.

Then a new neighbor moves in next door—six years old, endlessly curious. What starts as a simple conversation turns into a small act of defiance against grief, routine, and the belief that some lights, once turned off, should stay that way.

The Star is a gentle story about unexpected persuasion, borrowed wonder, and how the smallest voices sometimes know exactly where the switch is.

If you enjoy short stories, there are dozens more just waiting to be heard on the Short Storyverses channel or at shortstoryverses.com

Season’s Readings is just one corner of the Short Storyverses Multiverse, created for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful pause and a well-told tale. You can explore the rest of the multiverse at shortstoryverses.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Christmas Day in the Morning is a story about family—not as it is imagined, but as it is lived—and the gifts that arrive without wrapping. It was written with music already echoing between its lines. The traditional song of the same name appears directly in the story, assumed to be familiar to its original readers.

For this performance, the music is included not as embellishment, but as part of the text itself— the way it may have lived in the reader’s mind when the story was first published.

Grace S. Richmond (1866–1959) was an American novelist and short-story writer whose work focused on family life, personal responsibility, and the quiet moral decisions that shape ordinary people.

A frequent contributor to publications such as The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, Richmond was widely read in the early 20th century. Her Christmas stories, in particular, favored restraint over sentimentality—using the holiday as a setting for reflection, reconciliation, and emotional truth.

Her fiction was written to be shared, remembered, and reread—often aloud, and often at Christmas.

“I Saw Three Ships (Come Sailing In)” Traditional English carol

Performed by Matt Norris & the Moon

Audio sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC BY 3.0)

Season’s Readings is just one corner of the Short Storyverses Multiverse, created for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful pause and a well-told tale. You can explore the rest of the multiverse at shortstoryverses.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.