Christmas at Famous-Barr - Stories

Angela is stuck. It's Christmas Eve and she and her young daughter have to be in town for an unpleasant task. After dinner they take a stroll through the holiday streets and discover something pretty amazing.

Lots of ordinary things pass us by while we're busy doing other stuff. However, sometimes the veil gets thin and glimpses peek through of something brighter.

Harry and his buddies go downtown for a day of hanging out. They're seventeen-year-old guys with a lot on their minds, although by their take-life-as-it-comes attitudes you'd never know it.

In many ways Sloan Stevenson is a regular guy. A product of the modern world of Studio 54 and the 'do your own thing' attitude of the swinging 70s, he has his thoughts of independence shaken by meeting a great guy and his twelve-year-old daughter, Katie.

We all hurt. It seems the only cure is being willing to see things through the eyes of others.

The store's display department is incredibly busy. One young man's strained relationship with his boss is complicated by the arrival of an outsider from Hollywood, and a young woman he meets by chance.

The first Christmas in six years without the world being at war; there is hope, there is remembrance, and there is uncertainty.

The store's family-feel is reinforced weekly with the publication of "Store Chat," but it takes effort. So does social justice. The Elevator Captain, the Editor, the Columnist, an Elevator Operator and her young son all strive for the renewed potential of Christmas in peacetime.

Great things are happening in the city's 'Big Three' department stores, and at one in particular, circumstances are bringing an unlikely group of people together. But the thing is, none of us know it's 'history' while we're living it.

Winifred Barrett is good. She was brought in to help meld two corporate identities into one, and winds up taking on more and more responsibilities. Could a career woman back then have it all? One would think not….

Through a series of her letters and journal entries, we learn the answer.

Earth-shattering events are few and far between, but when they come, they have lingering effects.

Two teenage boys were swept up by the winds of change, and punished for it. A firebrand reformer enlists the help of a reluctant correspondent, and both unwittingly help a department store man come up with a durable innovation to bring a little joy into people's lives.