Hey, it's Brian, back with another Burmunt's bonus episode to bring a little extra Christmas

cheer to those of us who get an early start on the Christmas season. Boy, the Burr Months

sure do go by quickly. By the time you hear this, we'll already be about one-third of our way

through the first month. I hope you're making the most of it. Here at Christmas past headquarters,

I've already unpacked and dusted off my record player.

I pull it out of storage every year to listen to the classic Christmas records I grew up with,

and to the Christmas story records I've been collecting over the last several years.

Speaking of stories, I figured I'd take a chance with this episode to bring you one that you might not have heard before.

These classic and mostly forgotten Christmas stories are a vast, untapped gold mine of new ways to get into the spirit,

and to discover things that may go on to become new favorites.

Today, we're going all the way back to 1896, and to a magazine called The Home Monthly. In the December issue, they published

a new story by a writer named Elizabeth Seymour. But you and I know her better by her real

name, Willa Cather. It's a simple and sweet story about a desperate crime committed on Christmas

Eve that takes an unexpected turn. Now, just one little note.

As is often the case in stories from this period, the original version of this story

contains the use of a term that we don't use anymore because we recognize it as offensive.

So in this reading, I changed that word to something a little more suitable.

I'll come back at the end to wrap up and say goodbye.

But for now, get comfy and join me for the 1896 story, The Burglar's Christmas.

Two very shabby-looking young men stood at the corner of Prairie Avenue and 80th Street, looking despondently

at the carriages that whirled by. It was Christmas Eve, and the streets were full of vehicles.

Florist wagons, grocer's carts, and carriages. The streets were in that half-liquid,

...