Christmas tears...

When I was growing up there were three stories guaranteed to make me cry. Two I only ever heard on the radio. One was Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince about the little swallow and the statue, narrated by Bing Crosby. The second was the Christmas story called The Small One about a little boy and his donkey, also narrated by Bing Crosby. The third story was Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, which I mostly read in print form. In each case I think the tears signalled an empathy with marginalised characters and animals/birds. The recordings, of course, were designed to trigger tears (cue mood music, fruity voice...) and Paul Gallico has been criticised for his sentimentality. Yet, despite my adult self objectively 'knowing' this, early on Christmas morning, I unexpectedly caught a recording of The Small One on National Radio and I sat there in bed with my cup of tea, sobbing my heart out...