In the house of Christmas there are many books and many stories. Most have no more vibrance than a week-old bouquet of flowers.

Not so with this collection. Not a single story is included unless it shakes you to the core of your being. Unless it moves you to laughter and tears. Unless it bypasses the tinsel and hype in order to find the Reason for this sacred season. Such stories are scarce as emeralds. To fill a book such as this, the past must be mined for those great stories that have stood the test of time.

If you love old-time stories, this book is for your and your loved ones. Many families share a story or two a day from this series during the Christmas season.

Stories in this book include: The Invisible Christmas Trees, The Man Who Missed Christmas, The Blue Christmas Tree, Christmas Angel, The Star in the Well, and 15 more. To add to your Christmas enjoyment, selected stories from this book are available on cassette, read by Dr. Wheeler.

Christmas to me is far more than just a day, more even that the Advent and 12 days of Christmas–in truth, Christmas is a state of mind, an attitude, an incurable case of ‘Joy to the Lord.’ Children know all this, for they are born joyful. Their clear vision is not yet clouded by cataracts of acquisition, greed, or ruthlessness. A sense of wonder . . . . That is what children are born with, and then lose somewhere along the way.

So it is time for us all to slow the frantic pace of our lives, the, hand in hand with a child–for only a child knows the way–retrace our way back to the Eternal, to the only things that really matter. And when we finally get there, it will be Christmas.–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.