Get in the Christmas Spirit with These 12 Fast and Free Online Reads

Do you need to get in the Christmas spirit? As Christmas quickly approaches, sometimes it can be difficult to really feel the magic and joy of the season among all the many responsibilities: shopping, wrapping, cooking, attending events and parties…

If we’re not careful, Christmas can become just a checklist of obligations that leaves us longing for January. I find that reading Christmas books and essays helps me get in the Christmas spirit (and stay there when the checklist threatens to take over).

But I understand that finding time to read (not to mention extra cash to spend on books) can seem impossible amid all the pressing tasks and expenses, so I’ve put together this list of fast and free online reads you can go to whenever you have a spare moment–waiting in line, for example, or waiting for that second pot of coffee or tea to brew.

Bookmark this list, so you can return to it when you’re feeling like a pre-transformation version of Scrooge. (Hey, it happens to all of us now and then.) Let these authors use their words to help you get in the Christmas spirit, reminding you of all there is to love in the busiest season of the year.

12 Fast and Free Online Reads to Help You Get in the Christmas Spirit

|Related: 25 Best Christmas Books for a Historic Holiday

1. “Old Christmas” by Washington Irving (1820)

Washington Irving of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow fame is not just for Halloween. He wrote a series of five Christmas pieces in which the narrator describes spending an old-fashioned Christmas with friends at their English country home. Using the link above, you can click through to read “Christmas,” “The Stage-Coach,” “Christmas Eve,” “Christmas Day,” and “The Christmas Dinner.” Together, these make up a complete story. (These were first published on their own as “Old Christmas” in 1876, but their first publication came many years earlier.)

2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)

Nothing helps me get in the Christmas spirit like spending some time with a few Christmas spirits. There are so many versions of this story out there, but nothing beats the original. (This version from the Library of Congress allows you to read a facsimile of a 1911 edition online or download it as a .pdf.)

3-5. Dickens’ Best Christmas Essays

After the success of A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote four more Christmas novellas. Beginning in 1850 through 1867, he wrote a Christmas piece for the two magazines he founded, Household Words and All the Year Round.

• An earlier piece, “A Christmas Dinner” (1835) tells the story of an extended family gathering for Christmas. Its energy is typical of Dickens–read it when you need to put some spring in your step. (Available to read online.)
• “A Christmas Tree” (1850) is set on Christmas night and follows the narrator through his Christmas memories. I always found it interesting that, while the narrator and I were children some 150 years apart, we played with many of the same toys. (Available to read online or download as an audio or .pdf).
• Feeling disappointed or discouraged, or grieving lost loved ones? “What Christmas Is As We Grow Older” (1851) lets us know it’s okay. All feelings can be welcome at Christmas. (Available to read online or as an audio download.)

6-8. “Christmas at Dingley Dell” by Charles Dickens (1836-1837)

Oh, look, it’s Dickens again! What can I say? He wrote a lot about Christmas, and he wrote it well. Chapters 28-30 of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837, published serially) give us an energetic account of a Christmas wedding at a country estate and a story within a story that gives us a glimpse of a darker version of A Christmas Carol, concluding the Christmas festivities with a Christmas Day skating party.

• “A Good-Humoured Christmas Chapter, Containing an Account of a Wedding, and Some Other Sports Beside: Which Although In Their Way, Even As Good Customs As Marriage Itself, Are Not Quite So Religiously Kept Up, In These Degenerate Times”
• “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton”
• “How the Pickwickians Made and Cultivated the Acquaintance of a Pair of Nice Young Men Belonging to One of the Liberal Professions; How They Disported Themselves on the Ice; and How Their Visit Came to a Conclusion”

9. In Memoriam, A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1850)

If you are grieving at Christmas, Tennyson’s long meditation on the death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam may bring you some comfort. The poem is organized into 133 cantos, and through the poem we see the passage of time measured across three Christmases.

The Christmas cantos are XXIX, XXX, XXXI/ LXXIX/ CV, CVI, CVII.

10. “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (1905)

If gift giving is getting you down, it might by time to pick this one up.

11. Christmas: A Story by Zona Gale (1912)

If strained family relationships and straightened circumstances have you feeling like skipping Christmas altogether, like the townsfolk in this story, this novella might convince you not to.

12. The Romance of a Christmas Card by Kate Douglass Wiggin (1916)

This calming novella with a happy ending can help soothe frazzled nerves. By the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

I hope this list helps you get in the Christmas spirit…

…whatever that looks like for you. I think it can look different at different times in our lives and under different circumstances. As these authors show us, all feelings have their place at Christmas. That’s one of the things I love most about studying history and literature–knowing we’re never alone in joy or sorrow or frustration or delight. Someone has been there before.

May you and yours have a merry Christmas.

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