Holidays are times when people whose beliefs differ are bound together by some single tradition they share. Holiday stories tend to be populated by people separated by social, economic, or religious differences and serve to make some humanizing commentary on those differences.

The resolution of the story is a revelation of a human or spiritual element that the characters share. On the one hand, such stories are formulaic. Their major purpose is to teach the audience a moral lesson. On the other hand, the formula allows for a variety of storytelling methods and styles. The flexibility in the Christmas story, for example, has made it popular in varied media. Many secular and religious school plays, films, television specials, and seasonal cartoon programming tell and retell variations on the formula each year. Consider the framework of other familiar Christmas stories as you discuss the following: 1. Based upon...