The 13th Gift

2014 | Biography

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.

Joanne Huist Smith (Author)