Dickens' Christmas Books might be some of his most overlooked works, except for, of course, "A Christmas Carol." But in these stories he has captured the season's spirits of reflection and faith better than any other work I've read. "A Christmas Carol" is an acknowledged masterpiece; "The Chimes" and "The Battle of Life" are particularly moving as well. Four of these five stories bring me to tears by their ends.
I started in 1991 to read one story per year in the published sequence, (for Christmas 2000, I'm reading The Haunted Man again) and this has made December and its holidays more enjoyable and meaningful for me. I hope to continue the cycle and look forward to reading "this year's Christmas story" aloud to my family as my kids grow up.
Oxford Press/World's Classics publishes excellent quality paperbacks, and they do justice here to Dickens' powerful works. I highly recommend this work (and especially this publisher) to anyone; if you're looking for "A Christmas Carol", get this volume of all the Christmas Stories and enjoy even more of Dickens' masterful ability to weave the human condition into such moving short stories.