The 13th Gift: Part One
A true Christmas story of a family suffering their darkest moments finding strength and love from a surprise Christmas miracle.December 1999: It was the Christmas season, but Joanne Smith was numb. She wished she could just go to sleep and wake up on December 26. No singing. No laughter. No shopping. She typically enjoyed the holidays, but this year she couldn’t celebrate. Her beloved husband of almost twenty years had died two months previously. What had once been a happy home was now devastated, leaving her and her three children drowning in grief.Until they were thrown a lifeline. Twelve days before Christmas, Jo was in the midst of rushing her kids to school, when she discovered a poinsettia sitting on her doorstep with a card, signed cryptically by her “true friends.” That seemingly small gift was the turning point for the Smith family, as over the course of the twelve days of Christmas, a new gift arrived daily. The mystery of the Christmas presents – specifically, the generosity and kindness behind them – worked its magic on the Smiths as the family knitted back together. They rose out of their grief and latched onto the hope they suddenly felt again: that with love, with community, and with family, even the most broken hearts can be mended.
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For Rick, my very first true friend, and our three most precious gifts, Benjamin, Nicholas, and Megan.
On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!
HarperTrueLife
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77â85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published by HarperTrueLife 2014
FIRST EDITION
Text © Joanne Smith 2014
Cover photo © Ttatty/Shutterstock, pkline/iStock,
Tsekhmister/iStock, claudio.arnese/iStock
Cover layout © Nupoor Gordon and HarperCollinsPublishers
A catalog record of this book is available from the British Library
Joanne Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008118112
Ebook Edition © December 2014 ISBN: 9780008118136
Version: 2014-11-24
Contents
Chapter 1: The First Day of Christmas
Chapter 2: The Second Day of Christmas
Chapter 3: The Third Day of Christmas
Chapter 4: The Fourth Day of Christmas
Chapter 5: The Fifth Day of Christmas
Dear Readers,
I learned the lyrics to âThe Twelve Days of Christmasâ carol as a kid in grammar school choir, when the magic of the holiday season still filled me with a sense of wonder and possibility, a dreams-come-true mentality. Partridges and pear trees, ladies dancing and leaping lordsâI had thought the words of the tune farcical. I didnât know then that the key to happiness was hidden within its silly stanzas.
I had spent my life grasping at those five golden rings: a husband, three healthy children, and a comfortable home. Then just before Christmas in 1999, my beloved husband died in the night, and I realized my gold was fragile as glass.
We were shattered.
I found no comfort or joy in the approaching holidays, only memories that cut at my heart like broken pieces of a treasured Christmas ornament.
I stopped singing. It hurt even to breathe. I wanted to banish the holidays from our lives. But then something extraordinary happened.
Thirteen days before Christmas, gifts began appearing at my home. They were just small tokens of the holiday season, accompanied by a card with lines similar to the carol. Each was signed simply, âYour true friends.â At first, I resisted the intrusion of Christmas into my grief. But slowly, as the gifts kept arriving, my heart began to thaw. The gifts made my children smile, got us talking, as we tried to identify the source of our mysterious presents. They were teaching us how to function as a family again.
The romantic in me would like to believe a miracle touched my family that Christmas, and in a way that is true. But I know that the miracle was the way a small act of kindness saved my family and brought us back to each other. Years later, the magic of the holiday season is still colored by the light that those friends shone into our lives. Thinking of what a powerful impact those anonymous gifts made on my family has changed the way I see the holidaysânot just as an excuse to give and receive presents with my loved ones, but as a time when it is more important than ever to step outside of my own world and consider those around me, to open my heart, reach out my hand, and engage. The holidays are a time to rejoice, to remember, to reflect on seasons past, and to celebrate our memories. This book is about finding a way to honor those who cannot be with us this season, to create new and joyful memories, to experience this season of giving in a very special way.
Come.
Walk with me.
I will share with you the message that forever changed my family, the healing magic of the 13th Gift.
Just before dawn on December 13, my daughter, Megan, tugs at my nightshirt.
âMom, we missed the school bus.â
Disoriented and still half asleep, I start calling commands to my children before my feet hit the floor.
âSplash water on your face! Get dressed! Weâve got bananas and granola bars in the kitchen for breakfast. Iâll get the car heated up, but we have to leave in ten minutes!â
