Includes bibliographical references.

Away in a manger / William James Kirkpatrick -- Isaiah 9:2-6 -- Luke 2: 1-20 -- Pedida da la posada : asking for lodging -- Stable / Gabriela Mistral -- Barn / Elizabeth Coatsworth -- Presepio / Joseph Brodsky -- Puppy who wanted a boy / Jane Thayer -- Christmas superstitions (from Christmas in the mountains) / Hubert J. Davis -- Christmas Eve, Nochebuena / Cesar Vallejo -- Carol of the birds, El cant dels ocells (Old Spanish carol from Catalonia) -- Silent Night / Joseph Mohr & Franz Gruber -- Joy to the world / Isaac Watts & G. F. Handel -- Christmas sparrow / Billy Collins -- Christmas Day in the morning / Pearl S. Buck -- Christmas Day at sea / Joseph Conrad -- Christmas / Vladimir Nabokov -- A Christmas memory / Truman Capote -- Blond / Natasha Trethewey -- All I want for Christmas is you / Mariah Carey & Walter Afanasieff -- Hark! The herald angels sing / Charles Wesley, George Whitefield & Martin Madan, and Felix Mendelssohn -- Peace / Henry Vaughan -- Letter to John Hancock / George Washington -- Christmas bells / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- Christmas truce, World War I (from The London Times) -- Letter to Tommy, World War II / Lt. Col. Ralph Noonan -- Telegram to the U.S. Ambassador, Moscow / W. Averell Harriman -- A Christmas sermon on peace / Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Christmas e-mails from Iraq / Capt. Trent Weston & Sgt. Mike Mira -- Happy Xmas (war is over) / John Lennon & Yoko Ono --

Santa Claus is comin' to town / Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots -- A visit from St. Nicholas / Clement Clarke Moore -- Is there a Santa Claus? ("Yes, Virginia") / Francis P. Church -- Letter to Michelle Rochon / John F. Kennedy -- Letter from Santa Claus / Mark Twain -- Santa's stocking / Katharine Lee Bates -- Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus (from Little House on the Prairie) / Laura Ingalls Wilder -- A Chaparral Christmas gift / O. Henry -- Santa Claus / Sonny Boy Williamson -- Saint Nicholas / Marianne Moore -- Saint Nicholas (from The Christmas encyclopedia) / William D. Crump -- Six to eight black men / David Sedaris -- Santaland 2006 (from Santa guide for the Macy's Santa) -- Children of the world v. Santa Claus / Andrew J. McClurg -- Deadweight loss of Christmas (from American Economic Review) / Joel Waldfogel -- NORAD Tracks Santa (online tracking; also send Santa an email) / www.noradsanta.org -- Father Christmas executed / Claude Levi-Strauss -- Christmas in Hollis / Run-D.M.C. --

We need a little Christmas / Jerry Herman -- Letter to Santa, & Introduction / Caroline Kennedy -- Gracious time (from Hamlet) / William Shakespeare -- Psalm 8 -- Credo / Edwin Arlington Robinson -- Letter to Fred Allen / Groucho Marx -- Relative pronouns / E. B. White -- Keeping Christmas / Henry van Dyke -- White Christmas / Irving Berlin -- Deck the halls (Welsh traditional carol) -- Under the mistletoe / Countee Cullen -- Messiah (Christmas portions) / Mark Doty -- Little tree / E. E. Cummings -- Christmas tree / Emma Lazarus -- Christmas trees: a Christmas circular letter / Robert Frost -- A Christmas tree / Piri Thomas -- Christmas party at the South Danbury Church / Donald Hall -- Loudest voice / Grace Paley -- Peace and goodwill to managers / George Bernard Shaw -- Old scout: the season of letter-perfect families / Garrison Keillor -- Computer's first Christmas card / Edwin Morgan -- Lunch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984) -- Holly and the ivy (English traditional carol) --

We wish you a Merry Christmas (Traditional) -- All you that to feasting and mirth are inclined (Anonymous English Medieval) -- "Amos 'n' Andy" Christmas show fails test of time (from The New York Times) / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- Christmas in Qatar / Calvin Trillin -- Christmas laughter / Nikki Giovanni -- Penalty for keeping Christmas -- Grace defended / Cotton Mather -- From Martha Washington's kitchen -- Incidents in the life of a slave girl / Harriet A. Jacobs -- Christmas in the olden time / Sir Walter Scott -- Second of the three spirits (from A Christmas carol) / Charles Dickens -- Salvation Army's bounty (from the New York Times) -- Christmas every day / William Dean Howells -- Christmas in the tenements / Theodore Dreiser -- Un poquito de tu amor / Sandra Cisneros -- Here we come a-wassaling -- O come all ye faithful / Frederick Oakeley & William Thomas Brooke and John Francis Wade -- Matthew 2:1-12 -- Oxen / Thomas Hardy -- A Christmas carol / Christina Rossetti -- Carol of the Brown King / Langston Hughes -- Christmas morning / Elizabeth Madox Roberts -- Gift of the Magi / O. Henry -- Real gifts parents can give to children / Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy -- Dreams of a black Christmas / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Christmas / St. Augustine -- First Nowell -- Winter wonderland / Richard B. Smith and Felix Bernard -- All's Noël that ends Noël / Ogden Nash -- Christ climbed down / Lawrence Ferlinghetti -- Remembrance is sufficient / W. H. Auden -- Blow, blow, thou winter wind (from As you like it) / William Shakespeare.