CHRISTMAS COLLECTION. Bear's friends awaken him the day before Christmas and help him to stay awake as they bake fruitcakes, fill stockings, and sing carols; then, while they sleep, he prepares his own surprise.

When Stella gets the sudden idea to go caroling, she has a little trouble getting someone to join her. Her brother, Frank, is not good at spontaneity. The Watsons are very involved in a precarious fruitcake attempt (but happy to send their pig, Mercy, out for the occasion). Eugenia Lincoln declines, a bit rudely, to accompany on her accordion, and Horace Broom is too busy studying planetary movement. Will Stella need to sing by herself--with enthusiastic...

A holiday read-aloud evokes the rituals of decorating a Christmas tree, from picking out just the right tree and digging out boxes of decorations to stringing tinsel and turning on the twinkling lights.

Grumpy and cold when his forest friends insist he stay awake to celebrate Christmas, Bruce the bear, wearing his long underwear and warm hat, is mistaken for Santa by the youngest forest creatures.

Illustrations and rhyming text present some of the different ways a well-behaved dinosaur can celebrate Christmas.

When Kitty wants to write a letter with her Christmas wish, she is not so sure that she has been good this year and wonders if that will affect whether Santa gives her what she is asking for.