"In the town where I was born and raised, everyone drove a few miles south to cut a tree. In that dry, windy country few of the cedars grew straight and full, so the major problem was to find the one least lopsided and wind-whipped."

Thus A. C. Greene, in "The Too-Big Christmas Tree," tells of a Christmas in the 1920s when his father cut a too-big tree and almost broke up the family. Long out-of-print and a collector's item, this story is now coupled with "Christmas Shopping," in which a small boy sets out with his grandmother on his first shopping trip to buy Christmas presents for the...