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The Advent Calendar: Short Stories Kindle Edition

3.7 out of 5 stars 45 ratings

You have been given an old fashioned advent calendar. It contains no chocolate, just twenty-five doors. Every day in December you open a door and find a picture representing Christmas-time. What if each of those pictures had a story to tell?

This is a collection of stories about Christmas. Family Christmases, mysterious Christmases, lonely Christmases. The Christmases as they should be, as they sometimes are and how they might be. Funny, fantastical, thought-provoking. A story for every day for advent.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01N8R4XR3
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Paula Harmon
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 12, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.3 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 101 pages
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 out of 5 stars 45 ratings

About the author

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Paula Harmon
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Paula Harmon was born in north London but her life as a country girl began at eighteen months when the family moved out, trailing slowly westwards from small town to village before settling in South Wales when she was eight.

Her writing life started with “Clanger” fan fiction and making up stories to act out with a kindred spirit. These largely involved flying unicorns. In later Welsh years, she wandered lonely as a … well, lonely person, in woods and streams and wrote about portals to another world and mysterious woodland spirits. But her greatest love was for historical fiction and mysteries and now she's writing her own.

With no clear idea what she wanted to be when she grew up apart from a writer, she graduated from Chichester University (Bishop Otter College) with a BA in English Literature and a vague idea that, after a bit of life experience, if all else failed, she’d become a teacher, even though she had never grown taller than the average ten year old. Whatever else happened, she was determined NOT to become a civil servant like her mother and be able to talk in form numbers.

At her first job interview, she answered “where do you see yourself in 10 years” with “writing” as opposed to “progressing in your company.” She didn’t get that job. She tried teaching and realised the one thing the world did not need was another bad teacher. Somehow or other she subsequently ended up as a civil servant and if you need to know a form number, she is your woman.

Her short stories include dragons, angst ridden teenagers, portals and civil servants (though not all in the same story - yet). Perhaps all the life experience was worth it in the end.

She lives in Dorset with her husband, has two adult children..

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
45 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2016
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I’m not sure where to start praising the stories in The Advent Calendar. Wow! A little bit of everything for everyone. Happy, sad, humorous, all of them definitely thought-provoking. The only bad thing was, much as I tried to pace myself to one a day before Christmas came, I couldn’t hold myself back. I read them all at once, no pacing for me!
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2020
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    In an attempt to be relevant and timely, this book completely fails to capture the hope and joy of the Christmas season. The first story ends with the line "Sometimes life just sucks." A later story has child ask her mother if they can find a place where Daddy will not hit the mother. The fact that the book contains twenty five stories when an Advent calendar contains only 24 windows should have been a dead give away that the author had only a passing knowledge of the area being written about. The concept of writing a story for each day leading to Christmas is a promising, but this book fails to deliver.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2020
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    These stories had little to do with preparing our minds for Christmas- Christ's birth. Definitely not in good taste for family reading. It met the trash can before Christmas arrived.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Ready Bookic
    5.0 out of 5 stars SCHÖNE KURZGESCHICHTEN
    Reviewed in Germany on January 11, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    KURZGESCHICHTEN ZUM NACHDENKEN! DAS BUCH HAT MIR SEHR GUT GEFALLEN!! :-D
    Report
  • Krystal Davies
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
    Reviewed in Canada on November 8, 2019
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Have not opened as I will be reading on the way to Christmas
  • Holly.
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Festive Must Read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 6, 2017
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    My Review of

    The Advent Calendar by Author Paula Harmon.

    I loved The Advent Calendar, a book of Christmas themed stories for all ages and perfect to read on the lead up to Christmas with the whole family. Two of my favorite stories in this book are: Angels and Stocking. Angels is a short but powerful story that has a very strong message underneath that while we look at people skin deep we miss their cry for help or those moments that we could take to bring company and share human kindness. I felt in just a page this story made a connection with me. I loved Stocking because it’s emotional and sweet and portrays how children reciprocate love to a parent who is doing his best to take care of them.

    The book consists of Christmas themed short stories to read on the lead up to Christmas. Some of the stories are emotional and thought provoking, while others are magical and full of Christmassy sprit. Such as Carol-Singers: in which Lee price and his gang go carol singing, but like every time they had tried to celebrate the many holidays and earn a little pocket money other children got there first. However this night was different as they sang their hearts out at Mrs Morgan’s door. After awhile she invites them in and everyone hears strange noises that seem to be coming from an old coat. What could be inside? What’s Mrs Morgan’s secret? Will children be able to help Mrs Morgan to unveil the secret? Read this book to find out.

    I love how author Paula always manages to create just the right feel to her short stories and evoke several emotions in her readers. This is another book I shall read again and share with my family at Christmas time. I also liked author’s take on some of the classics.

    I would recommend The Advent Calendar if you love short stories, great characters and stories that will stick with you long after reading them. This is a perfect festive read.
  • Olive
    5.0 out of 5 stars ! Engaging stories, with more food for thought in them than in many Christmas devotionals.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 29, 2018
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Twenty-five short stories, one for each day of the Advent Calendar, inspired by the sort of pictures seen behind the windows in old-fashioned Advent Calendars. Not a chocolate in sight! Instead, you get angels, Martians, zombies, dragons, ‘Elf and Safety’, donkeys, the office Christmas party, families, nativity plays - and murder! Engaging stories, well told, and with probably more food for thought in them than in many Christmas devotionals.
    With so many stories, even if there is one that doesn’t ‘work for you’ there’s bound to be others that do. Some funny, some intrguiging, some witty, some sinister. There were many snippets that I particularly enjoyed: ‘Stocking’, ‘Bethlehem’, the Viking wife intending to give her husband a chain-mail mankini. Several stories moved me to tears.
  • Myretha
    1.0 out of 5 stars NOT FOR KIDS!
    Reviewed in Canada on December 25, 2020
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Is it only me who thought that was a Micky Mouse logo on the front? I didn't read the description as I usually do. I saw advent calendar and what I thought was Micky Mouse. IT IS NOT FOR KIDS!!!! It's full of sad stories. Waste of money for me. I don't read these types of stories for myself and I certainly don't read them to my daughter.

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