The Best Christmas Ever

Christmas doesn't always arrive wrapped in a bow. Sometimes it shows up wearing an orange jumpsuit.

The Best Christmas Ever is a collection of Christmas stories about ordinary people caught up in decidedly extraordinary holidays-stories that can make you laugh on one page and unexpectedly tug at your heart on the next.

In the title story, eight-year-old Jimmy wakes on Christmas Eve to discover a suspicious man in a bright orange jumpsuit hiding in the neighbor's bushes. It turns out to be Uncle Carl, who has unexpectedly returned from "Australia." Before the day is over, there will be a police chase involving a moped, a dog giving birth to ten puppies, a surprising family announcement, homemade fireworks, and one extremely unfortunate sports car. Through Jimmy's innocent eyes, complete chaos somehow becomes the best Christmas ever.

The Fourth Wish begins with Conrad, a down-and-out man whose life has been consumed by alcohol and regret. A chance encounter with three lonely boys at a boarding school-and an old Santa suit-sets him on an improbable Christmas Eve adventure. What begins almost as a prank becomes something much more important: an opportunity for a man who believes he has wasted his life to discover that perhaps there is still time to change it.

Broken Christmas travels to Christmas Eve during World War II, where PFC Perry Reynolds sits in a frozen foxhole dreaming of home, his family, and Audrey-the young woman he hopes to marry. Beside him is Eddy, a simple but courageous soldier whose observation that "the world is broken and it's our job to fix it" takes on heartbreaking meaning. It is a story of friendship, sacrifice, love, memory, and the Christmas that might have been.

Gumshoe Santa introduces young Stuart Fox, who sees himself as a master spy surrounded by intrigue. Meanwhile, private investigator Oscar Rudolph is conducting a very real investigation involving Stuart's family. On Christmas Eve, the boy's imaginary world of spies and undercover Santas collides with Oscar's decidedly adult case-with unexpected consequences and one very special Christmas present.

And in Jingle Bop Bang Bang: A Jim Fiero Christmas Story, private detective Jim Fiero lives with the memory of Margaret, the woman who changed his life during five unforgettable days together. Christmas, a roadside motel, a broken-down Plymouth, and a detective working an insurance case become pieces of a story about love, memory, and those brief encounters that can remain with us for a lifetime.

Funny, sentimental, irreverent, nostalgic, and sometimes bittersweet, The Best Christmas Ever is about imperfect people experiencing imperfect Christmases-and discovering that those may be the Christmases we remember most.

Because sometimes the best Christmases are the ones you never see coming.