Eight-year-old Tess is convinced that if she believes and stays aware of the magic around her, she will meet Santa Claus on Christmas Eve of 1958, when she will thank him for his gifts and ask him to use his magic to cure her best friend's father of cancer.
Belle Teal Harper's entrance into fifth-grade in the early 1960s brings many changes and challenges as her Gran's memory begins to slip, her mom spends long hours away at work, and her class gets two new students, including an African-American boy.
Karen learns a lesson about the joys of Christmas giving when she comes up with a plan to help her neighbors, the Stones, raise the money to rebuild their barn.
When Karen teases her little brother Andrew about getting into trouble at preschool one day, he becomes a tattletale, telling on everything she does wrong.
Karen and her friends are going to Funland, but Karen doesn't have any money. When she finds a lucky penny, and later a wallet full of money, she wonders if she can keep the money for Funland.