The Boy Who Didn't Like Christmas

There was once a boy whose name was Frank. He was five years old and every morning his mother or father took him to school. Frank liked going to school. He had good friends there and a nice teacher who did a lot of fun and interesting things with them. They did painting and drawing together, sang songs, played games, and went on trips together.

One day Frank’s teacher said:

"It will be Christmas soon. Let's make some nice decorations."

The children were very happy to hear that, because they had been looking forward to Christmas all year. Only Frank felt sad. He made a decoration, just to please his teacher, but he wasn’t excited about taking it home to hang on the Christmas tree. He didn’t want it to be nearly Christmas. He would have liked to crawl away and hide somewhere until it was time to unwrap the presents. That bit was all right, but what came before it was always unpleasant.

When Frank thought about this year's Christmas, he just sighed. He would have to help mum make the Christmas pudding again, and decorate the tree with dad, there would be turkey and brussels sprouts for lunch, and then they would sing carols at the Christmas tree.

Everyone was surprised. "What don't you like about it?" they asked. "It sounds like a beautiful Christmas. Other children would give a lot to have a Christmas like that!"

That made Frank feel bad that he was sad about things other children liked. But he just didn’t like them.

Frank's mother wasn’t a very good cook, and her Christmas pudding was always overcooked and not sweet enough. As for the turkey, it was always dry and tasteless and filled with strange-tasting stuffing, and…