Andrew woke up the next day, looked out of his window, and smiled. Some white flakes of snow were falling from the sky! He realized that it was Friday, the last day of school before the Christmas holidays!

John rushed into his room, sat on his desk, and opened the Christmas bag. His gift was an elf, an elf made of clay, wonderfully painted with such vivid Christmas colors, colors that made the elf look as if it were a real one! He held the elf in his hands with great care, so as not to break it, and started to examine every little detail of it.

Before every Christmas season, John would find other ways to make his family and friends feel special at this time of the year, whenever he didn’t have enough money to buy them presents.

In his mind echoed his mother’s words that he couldn’t understand in the past: “I wonder if a grown-up would react the same way in a similar situation.” Now the time had come to understand the meaning of those words.