'Louise's Christmas Memory' is the first of three stories in Christmas Memories at Grace Chapel Inn, book 48 in Tales From Grace Chapel Inn. That is a series about three sisters who run a bed-and-breakfast from their maternal ancestors' Victorian house in the village of Acorn Hill, Pennsylvania. Their late father, Daniel Howard, had been the pastor of nearby Grace Chapel, hence the name.

Louise's story is about the Christmas before Jane was born, although she is present in their mother's womb. Aunt Ethel and her late husband, Bob, married not quite two years, are not yet parents. Bob has hurt his back and Nellie Belle, an ewe, is having her first delivery. Ethel doesn't know what to do, so she calls her older half-brother, Daniel, for help. A blizzard strands Madeleine Berry Howard, 14-year-old Louise, and 11-year old Alice at the Buckley farm when Daniel drives back for the Christmas Eve service.

Knowing that Madeleine Howard will die an hour after the baby she's carrying here is born makes Louise's worry for her mother's well-being more aching.

The description of the old farmhouse and barn and the Christmas decorating were interesting. I liked the description of them making frobelsterne, German three-dimensional paper stars. We get to see seeds of the two elder sisters' characters. Alice's enthusiastic care of the lamb, Heiligabend, was sweet. (The lamb is not named in the story itself. The name and meaning are given early in the framing sequence between Louise's and Alice's memories.

I think Christmas Memories at Grace Chapel Inn is one of the better entries in the 15 books I've read so far. ( )