To ask you to help me identify this Christmas story?

[Wheresthesandman]

Not a real AIBU, sorry I want to see if I can buy a copy of it though.

I’m try desperately to find the title of a short story I read as a child about some siblings who go to a shop run by an elderly man to buy Christmas gifts for their parents. It’s a sort of everything/junk/vintage shop I think, and from what I remember it’s quite an old story. I know one of the children buys a pipe rack carved in to the shape of animals for their father? And that they don’t have the money for a tree, but there is a little fir tree in the gutter that was deemed too small for a Christmas tree that the shopkeeper lets them have for free or very cheap and wraps up in paper for them?

I can’t find any evidence of it online, but I know I haven’t imagined it. Please help!

And that they don’t have the money for a tree, but there is a little fir tree in the gutter that was deemed too small for a Christmas tree that the shopkeeper lets them have for free or very cheap and wraps up in paper for them?

This rings a bell. Haven't a clue though!

I’m glad I’m not the only one! The copy I had (I think it was part of a selection of short stories) even had a picture of the pipe rack that I can picture so clearly but I can’t for the life of me think who wrote it or what it was called

Is it one of the stories in "Round The Christmas Tree"? It's ringing a faint bell for me.

Sounds like a combination of Enid Blyton stories - sorry can’t be more help but it does sound familiar

I don’t think so, but I will investigate. Thank you!

I have no idea either but the tree in the gutter rings a bell for me too!

This is almost worse than nobody having heard of it! Thank you though.

Rings a bell for me too! Poss a Noel Streatfield short story?

I think the fir tree is from an Enid Blyton short story which was in one of the Christmas books that come out in the last few years. They decorated the tree with fat balls to feed the birds.

It must have been in a earlier book as well if you read it as a child.

I put the key words into Google and it brought this up.... www.gutenberg.org/files/5061/5061-h/5061-h.htm could be in this?

I’ve read that story, but I can’t remember who wrote it.

I think it’s a fairy tale, not an Enid Blyton story.

I have this story in a book. The story is called They wanted a Christmas tree and it’s in a book called My Sleepytime storybook. It doesn’t have an author as such but was printed by Dean and son ltd who I think also published Enid Blyton books.

The isbn for my copy is 0603002692 it’s from 1981 so don’t know I’d you’d still be able to get a copy.

Could be wrong though, as I read lots of books as a child.

This is the book

Well done Linnet!

Just found it available on eBay and abe books!

Wow. Amazing!

Thank you so much! I’m very impressed you still found it with my incorrect details... I would have bet you £100 the shopkeeper was a man

I've never read the Sleepytime book...but I remember reading a story with a crlhristmas tree like that in it, and a pipe rack
Maybe in My Naughty Little Sister?

It sounds like a Mr Pinkwhistle story to me :)

I remember that story!