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The children were charming. They absolutely refused to resemble their elders, notwithstanding the efforts of mothers and governesses. In a jiffy they had denuded the Christmas tree down to the very last sweet and had already succeeded in breaking half of their playthings before they even found out which belonged to whom….

I was quite lost in admiration of the shrewdness our host displayed in the dispensing of the gifts. The little maid of the many-rubied dowry received the handsomest doll, and the rest of the gifts were graded in value according to the diminishing scale of the parents’ stations in life. The last child, a tiny chap of ten, thin, red-haired, freckled, came into possession of a small book of nature stories without illustrations or even head and tail pieces. He was the governess’s child. She was a poor widow, and her little boy, clad in a sorry-looking little nankeen jacket, looked thoroughly crushed and intimidated. He took the book of nature stories and circled slowly about the children’s toys. He would have given anything to play with them. But he did not dare to. You could tell he already knew his place.

From Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Tree“:

“There was everything, and more.” This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side–some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses–made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time.

Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life.

Straight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises; and, looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top– for I observe in this tree the singular property that it appears to grow downward towards the earth–I look into my youngest Christmas recollections!

From Willa Cather’s “My Antonia“ (admittedly a major classic):

By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table, looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread animals, strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into pasteboard sockets. Its real splendours, however, came from the most unlikely place in the world–from Otto’s cowboy trunk. I had never seen anything in that trunk but old boots and spurs and pistols, and a fascinating mixture of yellow leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemaker’s wax. From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly coloured paper figures, several inches high and stiff enough to stand alone. They had been sent to him year after year, by his old mother in Austria. There was a bleeding heart, in tufts of paper lace; there were the three kings, gorgeously apparelled, and the ox and the ass and the shepherds; there was the Baby in the manger, and a group of angels, singing; there were camels and leopards, held by the black slaves of the three kings. Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches. Grandmother said it reminded her of the Tree of Knowledge. We put sheets of cotton wool under it for a snow-field, and Jake’s pocket-mirror for a frozen lake.

From Anton Chekhov’s “Vanka“:

Vanka let out a deep sigh and once more gazed at the windowpane. He remembered that it was always his grandfather who went into the forest to get the Christmas tree for the big house, taking Vanka with him. Oh what fun that was! Grandfather crackled, the frost crackled, and looking at them Vanka crackled too. Before felling the tree, his grandfather would smoke a pipe, take his time over a pinch of snuff, and laugh at little Vanka shivering there…The young fir-trees clothed in rime stood motionless, waiting to see which of them was to die.

From William Makepeace Thackeray’s “Roundabout the Christmas Tree“:

The kindly Christmas tree, from which I trust every gentle reader has pulled a bonbon or two, is yet all aflame whilst I am writing, and sparkles with the sweet fruits of its season. You young ladies, may you have plucked pretty giftlings from it; and out of the cracker sugarplum which you have split with the captain or the sweet young curate may you have read one of those delicious conundrums which the confectioners introduce into the sweetmeats, and which apply to the cunning passion of love. Those riddles are to be read at your age, when I dare say they are amusing….

The tree yet sparkles, I say. I am writing on the day before Twelfth Day, if you must know; but already ever so many of the fruits have been pulled, and the Christmas lights have gone out…. When you read this, will Clown still be going on lolling his tongue out of his mouth, and saying ” How are you to-morrow ? ” To-morrow, indeed ! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that cheek is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking the absurd question. To-morrow, indeed! To-morrow the diffugient snows will give place to Spring; the snowdrops will lift their heads; Ladyday may be expected, and the pecuniary duties peculiar to that feast; in place of bonbons, trees will have an eruption of light green knobs; the whitebait season will bloom … as if one need go on describing these vernal phenomena, when Christmas is still here, though ending, and the subject of my discourse!

From e. e. cummings’s “little tree“:

little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid….

From D. H. Lawrence’s “Aaron’s Rod“:

“What Josephine said,” explained Robert, “was simply that it would be pretty to put candles on one of the growing trees, instead of having a Christmas-tree indoors”….

Soon they were busy round a prickly fir-tree at the end of the lawn. Jim stood in the background vaguely staring. The bicycle lamp sent a beam of strong white light deep into the uncanny foliage, heads clustered and hands worked. The night above was silent, dim. There was no wind. In the near distance they could hear the panting of some engine at the colliery.

“Shall we light them as we fix them,” asked Robert, “or save them for one grand rocket at the end?”

“Oh, as we do them,” said Cyril Scott, who had lacerated his fingers and wanted to see some reward.

A match spluttered. One naked little flame sprang alight among the dark foliage. The candle burned tremulously, naked. They all were silent.

“We ought to do a ritual dance! We ought to worship the tree,” sang Julia, in her high voice.

“Hold on a minute. We’ll have a little more illumination,” said Robert.

“Why yes. We want more than one candle,” said Josephine.

But Julia had dropped the cloak in which she was huddled, and with arms slung asunder was sliding, waving, crouching in a pas seul before the tree, looking like an animated bough herself.

Jim, who was hugging his pipe in the background, broke into a short, harsh, cackling laugh.

“Aren’t we fools!” he cried. “What? Oh, God’s love, aren’t we fools!”

From Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match-Girl“:

She lit yet another match. She now sat under the most magnificent Christmas tree, that was larger, and more superbly decked, than even the one she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s. A thousand tapers burned on its green branches, and gay pictures, such as one sees on shields, seemed to be looking down upon her. She stretched out her hands, but the match then went out. The Christmas lights kept rising higher and higher. They now looked like stars in the sky. One of them fell down, and left a long streak of fire. “Somebody is now dying,” thought the little girl— for her old grandmother, the only person who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that, when a star falls, it is a sign that a soul is going up to heaven.

She again rubbed a match upon the wall, and it was again light all round; and in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining like a spirit, yet looking so mild and loving. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “oh, take me with you! I know you will go away when the match goes out—you will vanish like the warm stove, and the delicious roast goose, and the fine, large Christmas-tree!” And she made haste to rub the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to hold her grandmother fast. And the matches gave a light that was brighter than noonday. Her grandmother had never appeared so beautiful nor so large. She took the little girl in her arms, and both flew upwards, all radiant and joyful, far, far above mortal ken, where there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor care to be found; where there was no rain, no snow, or stormy wind, but calm, sunny days the whole year round.

LEO CAREY: I have one friend lucky enough to have been given Richard Taruskin’s “Oxford History of Western Music” for Christmas back in 2005, when it was just out. That’s when it was in 6 volumes and cost $750. He’d email me little tidbits from it occasionally. Anyway, now it’s out in paperback in 5 volumes at a ‘mere’ $185. It’s probably a gift only for someone really obsessed with music, as it can get pretty technical; being able to read music and familiarity with the repertoire Taruskin talks about is pretty much a requirement. Still, though making my way very slowly—I’m still only up to the tenth century!—I’ve been fascinated by what’s in it. For instance, that music was first written down to basically political ends—so that the Roman liturgical rite could be exported across the Carolingian Empire. Or this: until recently, people assumed that the origins of this music, known as plainsong or plainchant, went back to the dawn of Christianity, when it split from Judaism. All those monks singing their chants might be a link to worship as it had been in Old Testament times. But no!: there’s lots of evidence (for instance in psalms texts) that earlier religious music could be pretty rowdy, with lots of vocal lines and accompanying instruments. The style of plainchant seem to have a emerged as a reaction against all that among early communities of Christian ascetics. In other words, that seemingly primitive simplicity that you hear in plainsong is actually the result of an aesthetic choice. (Available on Amazon.com.)

One more music book—much more accessible—is something I’ll definitely be giving to a couple of people this holiday: Elizabeth Wilson’s “Rostropovich.” It’s a biography of the great cellist’s life up to his departure from the Soviet Union with particular emphasis on his teaching at the Moscow Conservatoire, where he created a generation of amazing players. (Wilson, daughter of a British Ambassador, was one of the few Westerners to be in Rostropovich’s class; Jacqueline du Pre was another.) It’s rare that a book manages to communicate the importance and excitement of teaching in music —the way that intense young players are galvanized by charisma and example. Rostropovich’s charisma is there on every page and I don’t think you’d need to be very interested in music to be spellbound by it. The book is full of great anecdotes, anecdotes being one of the glories of music history: Rostropovich and the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter dressed up as crocodiles for a fancy dress party at the apartment of the writer Mikhail Bulgakov’s widow, Rostropovich’s ruse for passing a test on Communist doctrine, and so on. Some anecdotes are more sober and remind you of the near-religious significance that music assumed for people living under the repressive Soviet regime. Once, Rostropovich and his accompanist Alexander Dedyukhin were touring in Siberia, near the border with China:

The concert was to be held in an enormous aircraft hangar which could easily accommodate four thousand people, but Rostropovich and Dedyukhin arrived to discover that the organizers had canceled their concert because only five people had turned up. However, Rostropovich also found that these five men and women had trudged many kilometers over the taiga especially to hear him play: they were former ZEKs (political prisoners), who had served long terms in the camps and were still living in distant exile. Without hesitation, Rostropovich told the organizers that he would play for this small audience without a fee: he asked for five chairs, invited the men onto the stage and played his full program for them with Dedyukhin, adding as many encores as they requested.

(Available on Amazon.com.)

DEIRDRE FOLEY-MENDELSSOHN: The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary has a ton of words—it almost seems literally so! The index alone runs to two thousand one hundred and seven pages. Where else could you possibly look up thirteen hundred years’ worth of permutations of the word “love,” or find out how John Locke might have described getting drunk (swinking, bezzling, sottishness, fuddling, bibbership)? Who knew that there were two hundred and forty-eight synonyms for stupid? The ultimate volume for the word-fetishist. (Starting at $337.56 on Amazon.com.)

JENNA KRAJESKI: I have sensitive eyes, by which I do not mean “Shield me from the cruel world,” but rather, “Buy me a full-spectrum lamp for Christmas or Hanukkah” (yes, my family celebrates both). Long ago, I curled beneath the radiance of a friend’s squat, plastic contraption with the focus of a grad student cramming for a midterm and the tranquility of a lazing cat, and since then nothing—certainly not my bedroom’s bare overhead energy-saving bulb or the office’s draining florescent—will do. Bonus: because the sun is the original source of full-spectrum light, this gift can help with seasonal-affective disorder, otherwise known as having a sensitive soul. (The Grandrich ES-217 27-Watt Full Spectrum Desk Lamp starts at $79.99. Lamps vary in size, price, and appearance and are available on Fullspectrumsolutions.com and Amazon.com.)

VICKY RAAB: Here’s a gift idea—on sale, even, with discount code BCJ2009—from a gemütlich new enterprise operating out of Brooklyn, called Book City Jackets, which will keep the elegant cover of “The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis” and other Book Bench Book Club selections looking spiffy. The covers imitate the brown-paper-bag covers we made as kids (well, O.K., my father made mine because I could never get the corners right). They come in sets of three: in Artists’ Editions featuring the work of the up-and-coming (if you fall into that category, new submissions are requested); and the more literal Bookshelf and Reading List styles, to keep nosy parkers itching to know what unexpurgated texts you’re reading off the scent. (Prices start at $11.00; Book City Jackets; 119 N 11th Street, 4C; Brooklyn.)

REBECCA MEAD: I already got exactly what I wanted for Christmas—the Greenlight Bookstore, which recently opened in my Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene. Oh, the joy of living in a place where an independent bookstore is opening, rather than being closed down! The store is well appointed, smartly stocked, and welcoming. Their events have been packed like Chelsea gallery openings—at the opening party, which took place on a night of pouring rain, the sidewalk outside the store was thronging with crowds who couldn’t get in—and their children’s corner is a confirmed Saturday morning destination. With the Greenlight in the neighborhood it’s almost possible to believe this is an era in which publishing is flourishing and reading has never been more popular. This may be a delusion, but it’s not a bad one to have available just around the corner. (The Greenlight Bookstore is located on 86 Fulton Street, Brooklyn; 718 246-0200.)

ERIC LACH: The Smartpen contains a device that automatically matches written notes with recorded audio, so that you can call up important parts of a recording simply by finding your corresponding note. What makes it so fascinating to me is that it appears to fall perfectly on the line that separates professional godsends from jacked-up gizmos. You’ll either have it strapped to you for the rest of your life, or you’ll never use it, ever. There is no in-between. (Available for $199.95 on Livescribe.com.)

MONICA RACIC: “Heads On and We Shoot: The Making of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’” is a magical folding book that combines three stories into one like a piece of origami (with each corresponding to pre-production, production, and post-production). If you don’t mind ruining the movie magic, you’ll be mesmerized by the details of how this film came together. Page after page chronicles the hard work of adapting the children’s book: preliminary sketches, props, costumes, set designs, casting, and other taxing behind-the-scene endeavors. The book also discusses the psychology of the characters, and it’s a fun romp through the film’s evolution, replete with handwritten comments from Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers, and other members of the crew (including the Creature Designer—what a title!), which gives a personal touch to this already charming story and its punctilious production. (Starting at $26.39 on Amazon.com.)

SALLY LAW: When I moved to New York City, I left my writing desk behind in my parents’ basement. I felt that its trashy provenance—my stepmom purchased it at a going-out-of-business sale at a Holiday Inn—would be out of place in my new cosmopolitan life. (More important, I had no room for a desk—for any furniture, really—in my West Village digs.) Now, five years and one big Brooklyn apartment later, I’m ready for a grown-up desk. I’ve been eyeing this one on overstock.com, and in a bid of optimism, have even cleared out a corner of my bedroom for it. (Available for $209.99 on Overstock.com.)

LILA BYOCK: I’m making a grudging pre-New Years resolution: to fix dinner at home more often than I eat out. If someone would buy me a copy of Thomas Keller’s new cookbook, “Ad Hoc at Home,” I would gladly reward him with a chicken pot pie. (Starting at $29.25 on Amazon.com.)