Probably the most famous of modern Christmas short stories, American author O. Henry (1862-1910; real name William Sydney Porter) tells the tale of the young married couple Jim and Della. Money is short for presents and economies have to be made but the love each bears for the other produces willing sacrifices. Della sells her gorgeous hair to buy Jim a watch-fob while, in sad irony, Jim has sold his watch to buy combs for his wife.
It is said that O. Henry’s love of alcohol often made him late in submitting his stories and that in 1906 his Christmas story was particularly behind schedule. In desperation the artist whose job it was to illustrate O. Henry’s work went to the author to be given at least an idea of what to draw. O. Henry replied that he had not got a completed story, nor even a word of it written, but that he did have a vision of a poorly-furnished room with a man and a woman talking about Christmas. The man had a watch fob in his hand while the woman’s principal feature was long beautiful hair. The illustrator began to draw and within a few hours O. Henry had produced a classic.
In the 1990s Mark St. Germain and Randy Curtis produced a Christmas musical combining the plots of two O. Henry stories, “The Gifts of the Magi” and the “The Cop and The Anthem”.