Not the best of Montgomery’s short story collections, Christmas with Anne focuses on stories during the holiday season – Christmas, New Years and the time surrounding. Most of these were cute, but that’s it. Not interesting. There was no real climax in a good portion of these. They are just sweet little stories about the holidays. If that’s what you’re looking for in a bunch of holiday stories, then this one is for you. I think in the future, when I pick this up, I will read one or two stories but not the whole collection straight through as I did this time.

Some of the ones that I enjoyed most, though, were the ones where estranged families and friends came together after a long time and forgave old feuds – The End of the Young Family Feud, A Christmas Mistake, The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner and Uncle Richard’s New Year’s Dinner.

The highlight of the book for me was Katherine Brooke Comes to Green Gables (a selection from Anne of Windy Poplars). Now, I have a confession to make. I hate Anne of Windy Poplars. It’s a boring, dull book. Horrible dull. But Katherine Brooke Comes to Green Gables, held one of the very few good points of that book – Katherine Brooke. Really, it’s no secret that I have a soft spot for orphans in fiction – especially in Montgomery’s work. We don’t see Katherine Brooke, though, with the normal cheer and positivity that Montgomery’s characters eventually have – she’s had a hard life and has let it affect her to the point where she is so bitter that she won’t let anyone in to her life anymore. Her story is definitely the most enjoyable part of that particular Anne book. So, it was wonderful to be able to read this bit with her in it when I don’t normally (rather when I never) pick up Anne of Windy Poplars.

Some other thoughts on some of the short stories… Let’s see… Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves actually made me dig out Anne of Green Gables to read a couple of chapters that I liked better than this one. A Christmas Inspiration reminded me too much of Cyrilla’s Inspiration, a short story in the Across the Miles collection, to be thoroughly enjoyable. And the rest in the collection just didn’t stick out in my mind. They were alright, but nothing super spectacular.

This is the second last collection of Montgomery’s short stories that I had left to read – only At the Altar left!