William Dean Howells

Christmas Every Day William Dean Howells

In William Dean Howells' short story 'Christmas Every Day, ' a little girl asks her father to tell her a story. The father begins, significantly, with one about a little pig, and the child stops him: 'she had heard little pig-stories till she was perfectly sick of them.' She wants a story about Christmas, and he offers to tell one about a Christmas so magnificent that it occurs every day. The child is enthralled; what a magnificent concept! When the father begins again, however, he slips and says, 'Very well, then, this little pig...' The little girl will scarcely let him get away with that, and he excuses his mistake by saying 'I should like to know what's the difference between a little pig and a little girl that wanted it Christmas every day!' This, of course, is the point of the whole story. Children's perceptions of the perfect Christmas are [too often] built on greed, and greed carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Source: Karen Bernardo The other four stories in this book center around the holiday season and are equally fun for children.