This story takes place on Christmas Eve, inside a closed museum in Sendai, the capital of the Miyagi prefecture in Japan.

Hello there. Let me introduce myself. My name is Masamune, and I have been a ghost for centuries now. Allow me to tell you of the times when I was alive. I was born into a clan in the Sengoku period, an era of conflict and civil war. Feudalism was present all across the country. When I became eighteen years old, my father stepped down from his position as the head of the clan, and so, I took leadership.

I suffered from smallpox as a child, and as a result, I lost the vision in my right eye. I thought it was a weakness, so I cut it out and wore an eyepatch. I was a man of discipline, of valor, of honour. I started expanding my territories but was soon faced with a challenge; another warlord uniting the country under one banner. And so, I had to face him eventually. I knew I had a severe disadvantage, so I submitted to him. Later on, when he died, another person took his place, hoping to unify the lands once more. He succeeded, and as before, I submitted, since he was more powerful. After some years, he dishonoured a treaty he had made and ordered everyone to attack a clan that was opposing his rule. I had agreed, but as I continued, I realised I had lost the values I sought to possess. When I realised this, I ordered my men to fire at our supposed allies while they were battling someone else.

I died of illness in my late 60's. For so many years, I have been frowning upon people because they never act the way they actually desire; they hide their true intentions and try to take advantage of others. They are not honest, they don't live up to their word. But, when Christmas arrives, everyone seems so cheerful, so positive, and I truly believe that they do indeed feel that way and are not faking it. I see people making promises and it reminds me of my time, when we would make peace treaties with eternal foes and still have fun with them. Even in times of conflict and stress, we would see the positive side of things and thank the gods that we have lived to fight another day.

It was the 24th of December.

John and Tom were two childhood friends. John was a selfish person, who didn't share his things with anyone. He had lost everything by not sharing and being mean to his frineds. In the end,he was alone.

It was midnight.When he was sleeping,he saw a vision.The vision was split into three parts: the past,the present and the future. Each part sumbolized a part of his life.

First, he went to the past. There, an angel with a bright,white veil appeared. He explained that he was the spirit of the past. John saw himself in the past, when he was young. He was carrying a lot of wood on his shoulders. When his friends were playing together, he preferred to work, every single time. The angel said: You are alone because you put money before friends.

The angel vanished and a ghost appeared. It was the spirit of the present. John saw his friend,Tom, talking badly about him. John started crying. He didn't umderstand why Tom was talking like that about him.The ghost explained: You have done bad things.

The spirit vanished. The Reaper appeared. He was the spirit of the future. John saw a gravestone. His name was on it. Everyone at the place where John worked was happy that he had died.He didn't understand anything. The Reaper disappeared.

From that day till now, John has been generous and friendly to everybody.

The lessons I learned from this story are two:

1: Put money after friends

2: If you give stuff to people, you feel nice.

But if you keep them for yourself, you don't feel nice because you didn't do anyone a favour.

It was 12:00 p.m. John was sitting near the fireplace with a blanket, waiting for his big brother. Outside was very cold and it was snowing. He looked outside the window, at the tree that was in the centre of the town. He saw his brother outside, in front of the tree. He was looking at the sky, like he was waiting for something.Then John went outside, telling his brother again and again to get inside the house, because of the cold. His brother,George, wasn't listening to him. Then,  George sat down like he was listening  to something speaking inside of him. He was talking to himself! John couldn't hear what he was saying. Suddenly, he stood up and he went home with John.

The next day was 1/1/2019. Every year, the gifts were going to be under the big tree at the centre of the town. Every year, George wasn't nervous about what he would get for Christmas. But this year, George didn't sleep. He was waiting awake for the morning.

They lived near the centre of the town. When it was 7:00 a.m. George got off his bed, dressed very quickly and went outside. He went to see if a gift that was under the tree had his name. John didn't saw any gift with his name on it. Often, when he opened the gift, he seemed very happy, but this time, he was happy because of it. After that, he checked his e-mails. He had a new one.The message said: 'You are the lucky winner of the jackpot!' He was so happy! After that, he said that he was going to a job. Of course, John followed him because over the last few days, he was acting strange. He went to some strange streets that John never was there before in his life. Anyway, he was talking to strangers, like homeless people and people collecting for charities. He was also giving money to lots of people telling them: "Merry Christmas!!!". He was telling everyone to come to the tree, at the centre of the town. When every single person of the town was there, he told everyone:'Merry Christmas!!'. John couldn't believe what he'd just seen.

When George came home, John asked a few questions like:' What did you just do there? or 'What's happened to you?' but he answered with just one sentence to all John's questions. He said: 'Not everybody can understand The Miracle of Christmas.'

And that's the miracle of Christmas