Josie's Gift — Kathleen Long Bostrom

This Christmas will be the most difficult one for Josie, her mother and little brother, Bobby Joe. It is the first holiday for this depression era family since the death of their father and husband. He had always taught this simple family that "Christmas is not about what we want. It's about what we have." But this Christmas, all Josie could think about is what she had lost.

Trying to fill the emptiness, Josie begs her mother for a new blue sweater she has been admiring in the store window for weeks. She knows that they can't afford it, but she wants desperately to know joy again. But in the form of three visitors and a surprise sacrificial gift on Christmas morning, Josie finds the joy she is seeking in the true meaning of Christmas.