This episode can be found on YouTube in video form here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc_RFQ2x6vE

Our Yuletide surprise is a poignant short story.  Read by the charming and talented Abigail Broeker, "The Gifts of the Child Christ" was written in 1882 by George McDonald, whose fiction and faith inspired C.S. Lewis.  This Victorian tale is an Ironic, perceptive, but ultimately hopeful portrait of a marriage, a set of parents, a courtship and even an employment relationship that will all converge and mature because of unexpected losses.  Okay, it's a tear-jerker--think Charles Dickens at Christmas time!

We were able to simplify the piece for modern ears, since it's in the public domain.

Additional resources:

The Gifts of the Child Christ: Fairy Stories for The Childlike by George MacDonald, edited by Glenn Edward Sadler, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1973.

www.worksofmacdonald.com

www.george-macdonald.com