Miracle and Other Christmas Stories

In this book of short stories, Connie Willis does what she does so well and takes a well known story and reinvents it in her own style. Of the eight Christmas stories in this collection, I enjoyed "Inn" the most, a reworking of the nativity where a choral singer helps a homeless couple expecting a baby who have lost their way. The ending had a lovely magical fee to it. I also enjoyed "In Coppelius Toyshop" which turned into a horror story where a self-centred man gets lost forever in a toyshop."Adaptation" was quite a touching story where a young divorced man hopes to see his daughter over Christmas but his ex-wife keeps finding excuses for her not to be with him. "Newsletter" where people seem to be infected with niceness rather than Christmas grumpiness was amusing and I enjoyed the 'Ghost of Christmas Present' (as in gift), whose role is to give people what they really want, in "Miracle", although I found the story rather long. The final story "Epiphany" was also somewhat long and felt a bit forced to me. So overall a bit of a mixed bag but worth reading for the good bits.