Hello, this is Alan, your storyteller, welcoming you to the story home, with a tale for the holidays

that goes to the heart of Christmas to celebrate the kindness we can offer others. So, let us

gather close and listen to Papa Panov's special Christmas, written by the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy,

read by Alan Schofield.

It was Christmas Eve, and although it was still afternoon, lights had begun to appear in the shops and houses of the little Russian

village, for the short winter day was nearly over. Excited children scurried indoors,

and now only muffled sounds of chatter and laughter escaped from close shutters.

Old Papa Penov, the village shoemaker,

stepped outside his shop to take one last look around.

The sounds of happiness, the bright lights,

and the faint but delicious smells of Christmas cooking reminded him of past Christmas times, when his wife had still been alive and his own children were small.

Now they were gone away.

His usually cheerful face, with a little laughter wrinkles behind the round steel

spectacles, look sad now. But he went back indoors with a firm step, put up the shutters,

and set a pot of coffee to heat on the charcoal stove.

Then, with a sigh, he settled into his big armchair.

Papa Panov did not often read, but tonight he pulled down the big old family Bible and, slowly tracing the lines with one forefinger. He read again the Christmas story.

He read how Mary and Joseph, tired by their journey to Bethlehem, found no room for them at the inn

so that Mary's little baby was born in the cow shed. Oh dear, oh dear! exclaimed Papa Panoff.

If only they had come here, I would have given them my bed,

and I could have covered the baby with my patchwork quilt to keep him warm.

He read on about the wise men who had come to see the blessed child, bringing

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