It's 1931 in Bakersfield, California. America is in the midst of the Depression, and the Kamp family is struggling to get by, especially after Mrs. Kamp's untimely death. Now, with her mother gone and her father overwhelmed by doctor bills resulting from her brother's polio, little Ruthie expects another Christmas without presents or festivities. But when her father brings home one dollar in change and lets the children use it to buy special gifts for each other, the Kamp family comes to find that money isn't what makes Christmas full of joy, love, and miracles. This touching true story ... will remind you and your family of the simple joys in life and the importance of selflessness, gratitude, and charity.

Too many people have come to dread the approach of the holidays, a season that should -- and can -- be the most relaxed, intimate, joyful, and spiritual time of the year. In this book, Bill McKibben offers some suggestions on how to rethink Christmastime, so that our current obsession with present-buying becomes less important than the dozens of other possible traditions and celebrations. Working through their local churches, McKibben and his colleagues found that people were hungry for a more joyful Christmas season. For many, trying to limit the amount of money they spent at Christmas to about a hundred dollars per family, was a real spur to their creativity -- and a real anchor against the relentless onslaught of commercials and catalogs that try to say Christmas is only Christmas if it comes from a store. McKibben shows how the store-bought Christmas developed and how out of tune it is with our current lives, when we're really eager for family fellowship for community involvement, for contact with the natural world, and also for the blessed silence and peace that the season should offer. McKibben shows us how to return to a simpler and more enjoyable holiday. Christmas is too wonderful a celebration to give up on, too precious a time simply to repeat the same empty gestures from year to year. This book will serve as a road map to a Christmas far more joyful than the ones you've known in the past.

The people and animals present during the birth of Christ each explains what happened during the Nativity, from their own point of view.

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been popular for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time.

A reminiscence of a Christmas shared by a seven-year-old boy and a sixtyish childlike woman, with enormous love and friendship between them.

If she hustled hard enough, she could stay ahead of the game—that was her life story, always trying to make a dollar outta fifteen cent... Street-smart Portia Lane traded in her church roots and college degree for sex-fueled stardom as Brooklyn’s hottest stripper. The hood respects her, men in suits open their wallets, her girlfriends—Laila, Simone, and Fatima—have got her back, and the money rolls in. Then Portia breaks her own rules and falls dangerously in love with one of her regulars, and everything about the way she lives her life comes into question. Jay is an ambitious music executive who’s a little bit thug, and all sexy—and Portia must genuinely change to win his trust and prove her love for him is not inspired by his wealth. But one way or another, Portia will pay the price for her tumultuous past.