Christmas is a time for miracles, and in each of the stories in A Christmas Tale and Other Stories, wondrous things happen. •A blizzard, a wreck, and two Samaritans show an estranged mother the way back to her children and to faith. •Beggars outside an upscale L.A. church and a young girl teach the congregation the true meaning of Christmas. •A girl encounters an angelic messenger after wishing on an heirloom ornament and learns her mother's secret, a secret that has shaped both their lives. •Ever-burning Christmas lights annoy Mrs. Emory's neighbor, until the woman learns that Mrs. Emory's son has been MIA for forty years. On Christmas Eve, both learn of the son's death-and the eternality of the spirit. •An unemployed laborer finds a fat wallet and a gray kitten during a snow storm. The money will make a memorable Christmas and a better life for his two children, but can he live with his conscience? •A reticent legal secretary who attends the firm's annual Christmas party discovers, with the help of a magical corsage, how her life has impacted people in the past and the present, but also learns that the future is hers to shape. •A Scrooge-like CPA is pressed into service as an emergency foster parent just before Christmas. His two small charges prove that money is secondary to kindness and love. •An out-of-work drifter robbed and abandoned by a trucker is rescued by a passing Samaritan. When a disabled child disappears, he and the townsfolk search through a blizzard to find the boy. A mysterious voice leads him to the boy; his faith is restored.•An old man confined to a nursing home is visited by guides who, through revisiting his past, show him that a hardened heart can be softened by empathy and unconditional love.•An upwardly mobile executive reconnects with her long-lost sister and children when she volunteers at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving. When her sister contracts a potentially fatal infection, she realizes that family and love mean more than possessions.•After a slip on the ice, a judgmental woman suddenly can "hear" others' thoughts and learns hard lessons in empathy and understanding.•A widow takes her frustration and fear out on her three children, who must find a way to bring Mom back to them. (An early version of this story appeared in Grit magazine in 1998.) •New bonus story: A misbehaving angel risks receiving his golden halo to save a child's life.