Not so Normal Christmas

Jeannette and her siblings grow up without the childhood magic of believing in Santa Claus, with both parents telling them that the stories are foolish to make up for the fact that they cannot afford to buy their children gifts. Instead, each year, the Walls family waits to have Christmas a week after December 25, scavenging Christmas decorations from the garbage and getting cheap/broken leftover toys on sale in stores. The year Jeannette is five, Rex loses his job at the town’s gypsum mine, so instead of store-bought presents, he takes each child separately out to the desert at night where they look at the stars and Rex tell them to choose one as their own. Jeannette selects Venus, after Rex explains that it’s not a star, she still wants it, and so she ends up with a planet instead.