Christmas was not going well. Susan had not received any of the gifts she wanted. Instead of the radio she had wished for, a babyish, metal sled, called a "Sno Wing," greeted her under the tree.  There wasn't even any snow this year—just frozen, brown mud. Worse yet, her younger sisters and brother had each received exactly what they wanted and were playing happily.

An unpleasant jealousy crept over her as her sister bounced across the family room on her shiny, new pogo stick. She felt like reaching out her foot and tripping her.

"Susan," called her mother, "is anything wrong?"

Susan shook her head. She was embarrassed to be thinking such mean thoughts when her parents had worked hard to make it a nice Christmas. But she didn't seem to be able to stop those feelings. Her mother, who always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, sat down beside her on the couch. She didn't say anything about the Sno Wing, or the weather, or Susan's grumpy face. Instead she whispered, "I think now might be a good time to give Dad that present you made him."

Suddenly, Susan felt a bit better. She was really proud of the poem she had written and illustrated for her dad. She ran to the tree, pulled out the rolled-up paper with the bright red ribbon around it, and brought it to him. He admired the pictures and then read the poem out loud to the family as Susan smiled. She couldn't help laughing as her sister bounced on the pogo stick to the beat of the poem.

After that, Susan had more presents to give out: the bags of penny candy she had bought for her sisters and brother and the potholder she had made at camp for her mother. "This perfectly matches the new colors in the kitchen!" Mom exclaimed. "How did you know?" The sparkle was coming back into Christmas.

"Let's take a picture of everyone with their new gifts," said Dad.

John held up his train engine. Mary modeled her new boots, and Amanda posed against the family room wall with her pogo stick. Susan wasn't quite sure what to do with the Sno Wing. Then she had an idea. Her favorite thing in the world was to make her family laugh.

She sat down on the Sno Wing, rocking it back and forth on the rug. As she rocked, she made up a song: "Sno Wing, Sno Wing! Who needs snow to ride this thing?"

Amanda laughed so hard she had to hop off the pogo stick. Mom ran to get a winter hat and scarf to put on Susan for the photo. John and Mary jumped on the back and pretended they were flying down a steep hill. When Dad peeled back the paper to show the photo, they laughed even harder. There was Susan—mouth wide open— singing at the top of her lungs in her stocking cap, mittens, scarf, and pajamas on a sled in the middle of the family room floor. There were John and Mary holding on tightly, pretending to look terrified.

Later that night, when her mom came in to say prayers and tuck her in, Susan was still wondering why she had felt so awful at the beginning of the day and so much better afterward.

Susan," said her mother, "do you remember the Christmas hymn you sing in Sunday School?"

Susan nodded. She knew the words of the song were from a poem by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science. She remembered how it started: "Blest Christmas morn...," but she wasn't sure what the rest of the hymn was about.

Mom read the first verse out loud:

Mom explained that murky meant "dark" and that enshroud meant "to hide." "The darkness of sadness or a bad mood, or any other 'murky cloud,' disappears in that light," she said.

Susan began to understand more of what those lines were saying. She thought about how Christmas was the celebrating of the birth of Jesus, who was born in the dark of night into a world of trouble.

"The light of Christ, the spirit of Truth and Love, shone right through the night, and everyone who saw it was changed," Mom said.

Susan imagined the shepherds, the three kings, Joseph and Mary, and everyone who visited the manger feeling the light and love of God all around them when they visited the new baby. And she knew it wasn't just one night that was important. Jesus showed all of us how to express love, to be joyful, and to bring healing to the world always.

"That spirit of Christ is felt whenever we express unselfishness and joy," Mom continued.

The next day, as Susan glued the Sno Wing photo into her new scrapbook, she laughed again at the funny picture. It would always remind her of the Christmas morning when giving love and laughter—instead of getting more toys—had taught her what truly makes Christmas bright and blessed.

This story is based on a Christmas morning experience from the author's childhood.