Christmas Lost, then Found

When everything is lost, can one family find its way back to each other by Christmas?

New York, the Great Depression. The Genco family has fallen from prosperity to poverty. Vito, once a proud chef at an elegant Manhattan restaurant, now hides his shame in cheap wine. His wife, Anastasia, sews pillowcases for pennies until her hands ache. Their twelve children scavenge school dumpsters for food and crowd into a rat-infested tenement on the Lower East Side.

But young Frankie-their piccolo miracolo, the little miracle-refuses to lose faith. While his older brothers and sisters grow bitter, and Child Services threatens to tear the family apart, Frankie keeps praying before the Blessed Mother, believing that love and forgiveness can restore what desperation has destroyed.

On Christmas Eve, with nothing but pasta and bread to share, a package arrives from a faraway aunt. What happens next will test whether one small boy's unwavering faith can kindle hope in the darkest of hearts-and whether a broken father can find his way home before it's too late.

A deeply moving tale of immigrant resilience, Catholic faith, and the transforming power of a child's love, in the spirit of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi.

Originally published in Incredible Tales, Volume 2, this standalone second edition includes a new afterword in which the author shares the true family story that inspired the book.

"Christmas Lost, then Found depicts an immigrant family struggling to survive in America during the Great Depression. It shows the raw reality of poverty, the determination of a family bound by love, and the faith that lifted them during hard times." -Joanne Giulietti, author of Emerging From Etna's Shadow: A Sicilian Family's Story of Faith and Hope

"It's engaging, intimate, vivid, and poignant..." -Mark Spencer

From John Passadino, author of Incredible Tales collections, Implications poetry anthology, and the Short Play Palooza series.