“A Worn Path” is a Christmas story. It contains many of the trappings of Christmas: the hunter assumes that Phoenix is walking into Natchez to see Santa Claus; she is greeted by bells and Christmas lights when she approaches; and when she stops to rest, it is beneath “a pearly cloud of mistletoe.” The two nickels she acquires during the course of the story allow Phoenix to buy a Christmas gift for her grandson, like the colorfully wrapped presents carried by the lady who ties her shoelaces for her.

However, beneath the popular references to Christmas lies a more serious concern with the Christian faith. The lady who ties Phoenix’s shoelaces imitates both Christ washing his disciples’ feet in John 13:1–17 and Mary Magdalene washing Christ’s feet in Luke 7:37–38. Phoenix appears Christlike in her unselfish love for her grandson and in her suffering. Her journey along the Natchez Trace can be seen as a pilgrimage and also as a reference to the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. However, she also feels that God is watching and judging her when she picks up the hunter’s nickel.