The Selfish Giant

Watched a delightful story on EWTN last night:  the story of the selfish Giant.  It was introduced by a grandfather sitting talking to his granddaughter on Christmas Eve.  She wanted to open her presents after Mass but her parents were tired and wanted to wait until the following day.  So her grandfather told her the story of the Selfish Giant.  He lives in a big castle and has a beautiful garden.  The children from the village love to come and play in his garden and climb the trees, but the selfish giant wants the garden all to himself and chases them away.  After the winter the spring does not come.  The birds do not want to sing in the garden and winter stays bringing Jack Frost, the North Wind and snow.  The giant cannot understand why it is always winter in his garden, until one day he sees a small child trying to reach the branches.  The giant is sad and lonely and tired of winter and his heart is softened so he goes down to the garden and lifts the child up and the branches start to blossom and spring returns to that corner of the garden.  Soon the children and then spring return to all the garden and the giant looks for his little friend.  He knocks down the walls he has built around the garden and allows the children to play there. He sees many children but never the little child, whom he longs to see, until one day when he is old the child appears to him and the giant is angry to see scars on his hands and feet.  He asks the child who did this to him.  The child tells him that because he had welcomed him into his garden this day he will be with him in his garden forever.  When the children return that day they find the giant dead in the garden, gone to his heavenly reward.  The little girl gets the moral of the story and decides to give her parents a present this Christmas by letting them rest until the following day.  A touching Christmas story.