Christmas Storytime 3.1: "The Little Match Girl"

For my entire life, home has been a place where stories are read, invented, and shared.  When I was a child, my parents read or told stories to me nearly every night. In college, as I began to write my honors thesis on literary fairy tales, my friends said, “Well, if you’re going to be reading fairy tales all year, you should read them to us.” I agreed, and for most of my senior year, an assortment of friends would gather in my room, and I would read to them from Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen’s stories, The Chronicles of Narnia, and much more.  In graduate school, my academic and professional study of stories proceeded with greater rigor than ever, but I missed having people to sit in a room with me and share stories.  During my Christmas vacation two years ago, I recorded a few of my favorite Christmas stories for friends who were far away. I continued these recordings last year, and this year I am very happy to introduce Christmas Storytime Volume 3 on my blog this year.  The reading is unpracticed, and I can boast of no video editing skills, but I hope the “homespun” quality of this video makes you feel  as though you have joined me in my parents’ living room for a story before bedtime. Tonight’s story is “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen. Enjoy, and watch for more installments in the coming weeks.