Uncle Richard’s New Year Dinner is a tender, early-20th-century family story about estrangement, reconciliation, and the quiet power of kindness. Set over the course of a single winter evening, it explores how long-standing rifts are rarely healed by grand speeches—but sometimes by a warm stove, a shared table, and a willingness to begin again. It’s a story of kindness, humanity, and hope that arrives without ceremony.

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) was a Canadian author best known for her enduring novel Anne of Green Gables. Writing with warmth, wit, and deep emotional intelligence, Montgomery captured the inner lives of ordinary people and the quiet dramas of home, family, and belonging. Her stories often found beauty in small moments and believed—without sentimentality—that kindness, imagination, and patience could heal even long-held wounds. Though her work is rooted in a specific place and time, its emotional truths remain timeless.

If you love short stories, explore our multiverse of timeless tales at shortstoryverses.com

Season’s Readings is just one corner of the Short Storyverses Multiverse, created for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful pause and a well-told tale. You can explore the rest of the multiverse at shortstoryverses.com.

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First published in 1905, “The Boy with the Box” is a gentle Christmas story about childhood pride, unexpected generosity, and the quiet ways kindness reshapes a heart. It captures a winter world of skates and shop windows, family love and small sacrifices—where the true gift arrives not in a box, but in understanding.

Mary Griggs Van Voorhis (1876–1938) was an American writer whose short stories often focused on children, family life, and moments of quiet moral awakening. Writing in the early twentieth century, she was known for her warm realism and her ability to find emotional truth in everyday scenes. Her work appeared widely in magazines of the era and remains admired for its gentle humanity and timeless perspective.

If you enjoyed this story, please check out the rest the Season's Reading catalog of holiday tales. You can also find a multiverse of classic and original short stories of various genres at shortstoryverses.com

Season’s Readings is just one corner of the Short Storyverses Multiverse, created for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful pause and a well-told tale. You can explore the rest of the multiverse at shortstoryverses.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a special Christmas bonus episode for Season's Readings listeners.

Frank has reasons for not decorating anymore. Christmas is quieter now. Darker. Easier to ignore.

Then a new neighbor moves in next door—six years old, endlessly curious. What starts as a simple conversation turns into a small act of defiance against grief, routine, and the belief that some lights, once turned off, should stay that way.

The Star is a gentle story about unexpected persuasion, borrowed wonder, and how the smallest voices sometimes know exactly where the switch is.

If you enjoy short stories, there are dozens more just waiting to be heard on the Short Storyverses channel or at shortstoryverses.com

Season’s Readings is just one corner of the Short Storyverses Multiverse, created for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful pause and a well-told tale. You can explore the rest of the multiverse at shortstoryverses.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.