"Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" by John Cheever (December 24, 1949 in The New Yorker)

"And when it came Christmas morning, how could you explain it, how could you tell them that Santa Claus only visited the rich, that he didn't know about the good? How could you face them when all you had to give them was a balloon or a lollipop?"

John Cheever (1912 to 1982) is widely regarded as one of America's greatest short story writers. My research indicates much of his work centers on middle class people living in what are called "suburbs" (I am not sure what that is and I am sure I would not like them).  Mel u has posted on some of his more famous stories so when I saw that one of his stories focusing on Christmas, from 1936 a time of great economic hardship in much of the world, could be read on the webpage of The New Yorker I decided to include it as my last Christmas story for this year.  

The story centers on Charlie, an elevator operator in a residential complex for the wealthy.  Charlie lives alone in one room in a boarding house whereas the people in the building have ten rooms and multiple servants.  It is Christmas Day and Charlie cannot help but brood on the disparity between his life and the building residents.  Whenever a resident gets in the elevator Charlie plays on their sympathy, partially to get tips but he is also invited to many Christmas dinners, all take out as he has to man the elevator, plus way to much liquor.  

I really hope you can avail yourself of the opportunity to read this story so I will leave the rest of the story untold.

If you have ever dreaded Christmas because you feared you could not live up to the expectations the media has given your children, you will relate directly to this story.  

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/12/24/christmas-is-a-sad-season-for-the-poor

"Of Cows and Love" by Atul Chandra (1971)

"Of Cows and Love" by Atul Chandra (1903 to 1986, Assam India, author of over 100 books) is set in a half Moslem half Hindu town, after the terrible wave of deaths in 1992.  People of the town always had lived in peace, even friendship but when a cow drops dead at the front door of the house of a Moslem woman it sets off a lot of consternation among her neighbors.  Some Hindus say the cow 

must have poisoned by the Moslem woman just out of hate.  The problem then becomes what to do with the body.  Hindus won't touch the body, only a member of a Dalit caste can move the body.  The woman has to pay an outrageous fee to get the cow removed right now, to leave it dead in front of her house invites disaster.  She begins to think back to a Muslim man she loved and who loved her but ultimately repudiated her as he knew his family would never accept the relationship.  

I read this very poignant and funny story with deeper veins of pain and sorrow in Our Favorite Indian Stories edited by Khushwant Singh and Neelam Kumar.

"Christmas Morning" by Frank O'Connor (1936, originally published in The New Yorker)

"And I knew that the look in her eyes was the fear that, like my father, I should turn out mean and common and a drunkard".  From "Christmas Morning.

I admit I never heard of Frank O'Connor until I noticed Mel u has posted on a number of his stories.  He is from one of the world's great literary cities Cork, Ireland.

"Christmas Eve" was first published in The New Yorker in 1936.  I read it in Mel's copy of The Collected Stories of Frank O'Connor published by Open Road Media.

The story is told by a young boy maybe nine at the most.  He has a younger brother that is the bane of his existence.  His mother puts a very high emphasis on education even though he hates school.  His little brother, a consummate suck up excels at school and always parades his success in front of their mother.  He has to constantly hear "why can't you be like your little brother".  Their father is a drunk.  On Christmas Eve he brings home his pay and begrudgingly gives his wife a little extra for the holiday. She tells him she knows most of his pay will go to "publicans" for his drinks.  The boys are arguing about Santa Clause, is he real, how do they get in touch with him?  Older rough neighbor boys have told them Santa Clause is a fraud, it is your parents.  The boys still cling to Santa Clause.

I don't want to tell the very sad ending of this story.  O'Connor in his spare prose compresses years of misery in the close and we see the narrator learn something no boy should have to, at any age.

"Bertie's Christmas Eve" by Saki 1908

I noticed Mel u in a rare display of good taste on his part has posted on a number of stories by the great gentle Edwardian satirist of upper crust society Saki.  Saki's central characters are often adolescents or adults stiff chaffing at the constraints of social adulthood having fun with their elders.

"Bertie's Christmas Eve" begins at a Christmas Eve dinner with the members of a large extended family.  Everything is as John Bull as it could be and everyone is happy but Bertie.   Bertie, his parents have evidently passed, is at his uncle's for Christmas.  Bertie has been over much of the British colonial world in the tradition of young male relative people don't want around much and he finds this family fuss dinner a huge bore.  Then someone says that the Russians belief that on midnight on Christmas Eve for one hour animals can talk.  One of the more dottie Aunts, though I doubt she is a match for my Aunt Euphemia, suggests they all  go to the cow barn to see if this is true.  Compressing a bit, Bertie locks the whole family in the barn for several hours, just for a lark.  Of course the family sees little humor in this and I will leave the rest of this really fun story unspoiled for you.

Read "Bertie's Christmas Eve" here