Christmas at Bracebridge Hall-Washington Irving

Anyone who loves Christmas traditions in bygone days will love Irving's Christmas at Bracebridge Hall. It is somewhere between a short story and a novella describing a visit to Bracebridge Hall in Yorkshire, England at Christmas time.

It starts with the narrator's stagecoach ride through the English countryside in late December, his impressions of the great estate of Bracebridge Hall and the inhabitants. In rich detail, Irving describes everything about the holiday festivities over the next two days, from food to decorations to games they played. This story is a wonderful narration of an 18th Century Christmas and is not only a historical description of the traditions and customs of England in the past but a cozy and cheerful story which will put anyone into the Christmas spirit who reads it.