Celia needed something different. So, she set out from the quite suburb of Kentucky where she grew up to find fame and fortune in Los Angeles. Little did she know that the goodbye hugs she’d shared with her mother would the last time they’d embrace before her mother’s life was cut short due to a heart attack.
Alan’s musical aspirations led him a recording studio in Los Angeles where his agent was keeping him busy playing his original acoustic melodies. Although he hadn’t originally planned to stay, after the road trip he and his brother shared when their parents died, he decided that Los Angeles was where the next chapter of his life would begin.
But Christmas was rapidly approaching, and George, Alan’s brother, was hoping for a holiday spent with family. After a brief phone call inviting him to come home for Christmas, Alan accepted, but not before rejecting a music tour offer from his agent, and agreeing to try to find the estranged daughter of a close family friend who was stuck in a deep depression. Don just hadn’t seemed himself after his daughter had moved out West and his wife passed away.
Much to George and his wife Denise’s delight, Alan finds Celia and they begin the long trip home. Meanwhile, Denise gets a surprise call from her parents announcing that they’ll be visiting for the holidays too! Although Denise is thrilled, she worries that the strained relationship between George and her father might take the joy out of the season.
Don is unhappy to discover that George has taken it upon himself to try to reunite him with Celia. Denise’s parents arrive and the critiques and complaints from her father start to frustrate George. To top it off, after Denise had decided to coordinate the Christmas pageant, the electricity at the church begins to flicker and the lead singer of the choir drops out. When it looked as if all hope was lost for a joy-filled holiday, an unexpected Christmas miracle would renew their spirits and remind them of the true reason for the season.
The Dove Take:
The Gift of Christmas is a heart-warming story of the redemptive power of the Christmas spirit, as strained relationships are nursed back to health and unpredictable dilemmas are resolved in the least expected way.
