Here are Christmas stories for all generations, and each will tug at your heartstrings in just a little different way. In fact, only a certified Scrooge could possibly read them dry-eyed!

Many families make the Christmas in My Heart collection part of their Christmas tradition. As soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over they decorate the house for Christmas, sit down by the fire, and share stories from the newest book. Some families read at least one story a day during the Christmas season. You’ll find these heartwarming stories add a special touch to your holiday season too.

Stories in this book include: The Candle in the Forest, A Gift from the Heart, A Small Gift of Love, and The Story of the Other Wise Man, plus 11 more. To add to your Christmas enjoyment, selected stories from this book are available on cassette, read by Dr. Wheeler.

I continue to feel that the key reason for inclusion into a collection is whether or not the story moves me deeply, makes me laugh or cry. It isn’t enough merely to be well written from a technical point of view: it must have power as well. When one realizes how many, many Christmas stories are out there, and how precious few have this crucial ingredient, then it’s easy to see why the best are so few.–Joe L. Wheeler.

Joe Wheeler’s writing career started in the fall of 1992 with a collection of heart-tugging stories called Christmas in My Heart, a series that he has become well-known for. Joe Wheeler has been called everything from "Keeper of the Story" to "Father Christmas."  He has been a frequent guest on Dr. James Dobson’s radio show "Focus on the Family", and today is considered to be one of America’s leading story anthologizers, editing collections for nine publishers: Doubleday/Random House, WaterBrook/Random House, Guideposts, Focus on the Family, Tyndale House, Harvest House, Review and Herald Publishing Association, RiverOak Publishing, and Pacific Press Publishing Association.

When asked how he got started, Wheeler tells interviewers that it all dates back to being home-schooled by a remarkable woman, Barbara Leininger Wheeler, his mother (both a teacher and a missionary) in Latin America.  His mother, an elocutionist of the old school, memorized thousands of pages of stories, readings, and poetry, and frequently recited in public.  But her specialty was the old-time, sentimental, Judeo-Christian short stories.  And his mother poured herself – and her stories – into her son, inoculating him with a terminal case of the ‘storyitis virus.’ 

Wheeler has a bachelor’s degree in both history and English from Pacific Union College, a master’s degree in history, a master’s degree in English from California State University, and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University.  Today, Wheeler is senior fellow for cultural studies at the Center for the New West in Denver, Colorado, and professor emeritus of Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Wheeler and his wife, Connie, make their home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado where they receive 200 inches of snow a year.