As the children walk in with their lighted candles, and the Storyteller
takes us back to a small Russian village, the scene is set for this
magical Christmas story. Papa Panov, the old shoemaker, now almost too
blind to thread a needle, has a dream that Jesus will visit him on
Christmas Day. All day he waits for him, but the only visitors he has
are a tramp, a roadsweeper and a woman with a baby. Selflessly he gives
them his coat, his money and his soup. As he falls asleep in the
evening, tired, ridiculed and disappointed, he has another dream in
which it appears that his special visitor did come after all... This
adaptation of a story by Leo Tolstoy, narrated by a Storyteller and
involving an unlimited cast of children, is a perfect play for
Christmas.