Open a door and you might land in Zarahemla on the night Samuel’s prophecy comes due, in a Wasatch mining camp buried by avalanche on Christmas Eve, or in a Swedish fishing village where a sick girl’s only wish is to see the king.

One morning brings a frontier mother in 1870s southern Utah staring at an empty stocking; the next, a book thief prowling a pharmacy at 1:42 a.m.

Stories first printed in the Woman’s Exponent, Juvenile Instructor, and Improvement Era sit beside contemporary work never published anywhere, alongside a tale from Argentina that links Santa’s workshop to the World Cup, a German novel shadowed by the 1930s, an autobiographical story of childhood in Togo, and a graphic novel in which Jared and his brother hunt saber-toothed tigers and stumble onto fire.

Some will make you laugh out loud. Some, like a nine-year-old’s June night when only the moon stays the same, will break your heart.

Prophets and giants, newly dead souls and stubborn grandmothers, a sun that rises in the west: Starting December 1st, a new door opens every day until Christmas.

Come see what’s behind it.