Carol really loves Christmas. The decorating and shopping, the Christmas sweaters and music—she wishes it all could be a year-round event. The only downside to the holiday is that she lives in Florida (not exactly the land of snow) and her only family is her Uncle Christopher, who adopted Carol when she was young, after her father's disappearance and mother's death. Her uncle owns a toy company and is super rich—but he's a grinch and a workaholic. Then, on a magical December trip to NYC, Carol meets her destiny. Santa—the real man with the bag—meets Carol at the top of Rockefeller Center, overlooking the tree. There he explains that Carol is descended from a long line of Defenders of Claus, those who protect and serve Santa. Carol's dad was a Defender. And now Carol has been tapped to fulfill his legacy. Who would want to hurt Santa? Someone pretty scary and shady, it appears—a masked man who's trying to destroy Christmas! Carol is whisked off to the North Pole on the adventure of a lifetime. Can she help save Santa before it's too late?

The battle for Christmas, and the world itself, is about to begin. When Christmas Carol, a Defender of Claus, is suddenly yanked into a portal by her Elven grandmother, she doesn’t immediately understand what’s happening. But all becomes clear when she and the Ancient One emerge on the other side of the portal in what’s supposed to be the North Pole: everything’s changed. Carol’s father is gone. The Defenders of Claus don’t exist. The Elf kingdom has been destroyed. And Santa’s a broken shell of himself. The jolly world Carol knew has turned into a terrifying place, where the magic of Christmas has been eliminated and everyone lives in fear of the all-powerful Supreme Leader. Someone has traveled back in time to change history, and Carol’s pretty sure she knows the culprit. Carol and her grandmother, with the help of two ragged boys who have lost everything in the rebellion against the Supreme Leader, track down the only Elf capable of helping their enemy travel through time. The bitter, shimmering creature reluctantly agrees to send Carol back, and she lands in the mid-1800s, when Santa was just getting started and the very first Defender of Claus was found. She must protect Santa and the original Defender and undo the damage her enemy has done or risk returning to a present day that has never known Christmas.

This wonderful collection of classic stories about Santa Claus and Christmas includes works “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, “A Russian Christmas Party” by Leo Tolstoy, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore, “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus” by L. Frank Baum, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann, “The Errors of Santa Claus” by Stephen Leacock, “How Santa Claus came to Simpson’s bar” by Bret Harte, “Santa Claus's Partner” by Thomas Nelson Page, The life of SAINT NICHOLAS, The Bible and others.

An Anglican priest hands out brass knuckles to his congregation, preparing to battle anti-Christmas fanatics. Fascists insist that the Winter Solstice is the real Christmas, while Communists stage atheist musicals outside of churches on Christmas Eve. Activists vandalize shops that start touting the holiday in October and anti-consumerists sing parody carols in shopping malls. Is there a war on Christmas? As Gerry Bowler demonstrates in Christmas in the Crosshairs, there is and always has been a war, or several wars, on Christmas. A cherished global phenomenon, Christmas is the biggest single event on the planet. For Christians it is the second-most sacred date on the calendar, but it also engages billions of people who are caught up in its commercialism, music, sentiment, travel, and frenetic busyness. Since its controversial invention in the Roman Empire, Christmas has struggled with paganism, popular culture, and fierce Christian opposition; faced abolition in Scotland and New England; and braved neglect and near-death in the 1700s, only to be miraculously reinvented in the 1800s. The twentieth century saw it banned by Bolsheviks and twisted by Nazis. Since then, special interest groups of every stripe have used the holiday's massive popularity to draw attention to their causes. Christmas in the Crosshairs tells the story of the tug-of-war over Christmas, replete with cross-dressing priests, ranting Puritans, and atheist witches. In this eye-opening history of Christmas and its opponents from the beginning up to the present day, Bowler gives us a shocking, and richly entertaining, new look at the tradition we thought we knew so well.

Musaicum Books presents to you a meticulously edited Christmas Classics collection. This ebook has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Content: The Holy Night (Selma Lagerlöf) The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry) A Merry Christmas & Other Christmas Stories (Louisa May Alcott) A Letter from Santa Claus (Mark Twain) Silent Night The Night After Christmas The Child Born at Bethlehem The Adoration of the Shepherds The Visit of the Wise Men As Joseph Was A-Walking The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter) Where Love Is, God Is (Leo Tolstoy) The Three Kings (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) A Christmas Carol (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (L. Frank Baum) Christmas At Sea (Robert Louis Stevenson) The Savior Must Have Been A Docile Gentleman (Emily Dickinson) The Heavenly Christmas Tree (Fyodor Dostoevsky) The Little City of Hope (F. Marion Crawford) The First Christmas Of New England (Harriet Beecher Stowe) Christmas in the Olden Time (Walter Scott) Christmas In India (Rudyard Kipling) A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) The Twelve Days of Christmas The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (L. Frank Baum) Ring Out, Wild Bells (Alfred Lord Tennyson) Little Lord Fauntleroy (Frances Hodgson Burnett) Black Beauty (Anna Sewell) The Christmas Child (Hesba Stretton) Granny's Wonderful Chair (Frances Browne) The Romance of a Christmas Card (Kate Douglas Wiggin) Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) The Wonderful Life - Story of the life and death of our Lord (Hesba Stretton) The Christmas Angel (A. Brown) Christmas at Thompson Hall (Anthony Trollope) Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells) The Lost Word (Henry van Dyke) The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (E. T. A. Hoffmann) The Little Match Girl The Elves and the Shoemaker Mother Holle The Star Talers Snow-White…