Short Stories About Christmas: 9 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Nine classic Christmas short stories, from The Gift of the Magi and Vanka to The Rattrap and The Blue Carbuncle, summarised and compared, with what each teaches a writer.
Christmas stories are read every December by people who already know how they end, which tells you what the season wants from fiction: not surprise but return. The stories here supply it, and a few of them, Stevenson's and Joyce's, also supply a shock.
The collection begins with the gifts, moves through the letters and the strangers at the door, and ends with the season's last night and a murder on its first. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. Della sells her hair to buy Jim a chain for his watch, and Jim sells the watch to buy Della combs for her hair, and O. Henry arrives at the last paragraph to tell us who was wise. It begins on Christmas Eve with a dollar eighty-seven.
Vanka by Anton Chekhov. A nine-year-old apprentice, alone in the workshop while the family is at midnight service, writes to his grandfather describing the beatings and the hunger and the village frost. He addresses the envelope with all the information he has.
The Rattrap by Selma Lagerlof. A pedlar who has stolen thirty kronor is taken for an old regimental friend by an ironmaster and brought home for Christmas Eve. The daughter, Edla, keeps him on even when the mistake is found, and on Christmas morning finds a parcel.
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle. A goose and a battered hat are brought to Baker Street on the second morning after Christmas, and in the goose's crop is a stolen jewel. Holmes follows the bird back through Covent Garden to a frightened man named Ryder.
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. On New Year's Eve a child who dares not go home lights her matches one at a time against a wall and sees, in each flame, something warm. The people who find her in the morning see only the burnt matches.
Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson. On Christmas afternoon a man murders an antique dealer for money and, standing among the shop's clocks, is joined by a visitor who offers to help. Their argument takes up the rest of the daylight.
The Dead by James Joyce. The Misses Morkan give their annual dance on the night of Epiphany, the last night of Christmas, and Gabriel Conroy makes his speech and carves the goose. In the hotel afterwards his wife tells him about a boy who sang.
Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy. In the days after the winter feast of St Nicholas a merchant and his servant set out through a snowstorm on business that cannot wait. Lost in a ravine, the merchant lies down on the servant to keep him warm.
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. A giant who walled his garden against children finds that winter refuses to leave it. A small boy who cannot climb changes his heart, and years later returns in winter with wounds on his hands.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that Christmas stories are about who is at the door. O. Henry puts a husband there, Lagerlof a thief, Doyle a goose, Chekhov nobody at all. The season's promise, that the stranger will be taken in, is tested in every story and kept in most, and the exceptions, Andersen and Chekhov, leave a child on the wrong side of it.
Markheim and The Dead are the adult Christmas stories here, one set on the feast's first afternoon and one on its last night, and in both a man is confronted with the whole of his life in a single room.
If you want to write about Christmas
What writers can take from this
- Read The Gift of the Magi and The Rattrap on the same evening; both are about a gift left behind by a guest.
- The Blue Carbuncle is the lightest thing Doyle wrote; read it for Holmes's mercy at the end.
- Vanka and The Little Match Girl are brief and better read a week apart.
- Markheim is the Christmas story to read when the others have grown too sweet.
- The Dead needs a quiet hour; it is the longest story in Dubliners.
Try it yourself
Write a story set entirely on Christmas Eve in which a stranger is admitted to a house by mistake, and the household has to decide by morning whether the mistake matters.
Questions
What is the best short story about Christmas?
The Gift of the Magi is the one everyone names. The Rattrap is the choice of readers who want the same warmth with a sharper edge, and The Dead for readers who want none.
Which Christmas short stories are good for students?
The Gift of the Magi, Vanka, The Rattrap and The Little Match Girl are short, much taught and end in ways that reward discussion. The Blue Carbuncle is a good introduction to Sherlock Holmes.
Which classic Christmas story is the shortest?
The Little Match Girl, at about a thousand words, then Vanka at roughly fifteen hundred.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 25 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.