Jo March is sleeping in her large, cozy writing chair, a blanket wrapped around her. Her fingers are stained with ink and pages are strewn about her. Sounds of the day start to drift upstairs to her perch. Her eyes flutter open to the distant sound of Meg " Jo, Jo where are you?" And Amy " Do you like these Garlands?" And Beth replying to Amy " They are beautiful!" Jo yawns and stretches and looks through the attic window out onto the snow cover New-England world: Jo smiles to herself whispering " Merry Christmas, world." She wraps the blanket around her and quietly opens the attic door and sneaks down, watching her sisters, her heart's joy, fussing over the decorations Amy has made. Jo smiles calling out to her sisters " Merry Christmas!" They all look up delighted. Meg smiles at Jo " Jo! We've been up for hours!" Beth looks curiously at Jo "What have you been writing?" Jo clamps down the stairs, pages of the play in her hand, " I got carried away with our delicious revenge play last night. POISON!" Amy pouts " No,no poison it's Christmas." Jo flops down on to a chair " Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents." Meg frowns slightly " it's so dreadful to be poor." Amy still looks upset " I don't think it's fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things and other girls nothing at all." Beth looks to her little sister " At least seems have mother and father and each other." Jo looked glum " we haven't got father. And we won't have him for as long as this war drags on." Meg put down her sewing " I wish i had heaps of money and plenty of servants, so I'd never need to work again." Jo looked at Meg " you could be a proper actress on the boards!" Meg was privately delighted with this comment " I can't be, an actress." Jo smirked at Meg " they aren't all fallen women you know." Amy was prancing around the living room " I have lots of wishes, but my favourite one is to be an artist and go to Paris and do fine pictures and be the best painter in the world." Beth cuddles up to Jo " That's what you want too, isn't it Jo? To be a famous writer?" Jo looks at Beth " yes but it sounds so cress when she says it." Amy just looked at Jo " why be ashamed of what you want?"Jo stares back at Amy " I'm not!" Beth looks at all of her sisters " My wish is to have us all be together with father and mother, that's all I want." Amy whispers under her breath " Beth is perfect." Meg glares at her youngest sister "shhhhhh." Jo looks back at Beth "What about your music, Queen Bess?" Beth blushes at this comment " I only do that for us, I don't need anyone else to hear it." Amy stands trying to shape her nose " you must not limit yourself." Meg stands up know ready to end the conversation " Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas because our men are suffering in the army. We can't do much, but we should our little make our little sacrifices and do it gladly." Jo just looks at Meg " don't play mother just because she's not home." Jo throws a pillow at Meg, it hits her square in the face. Amy stands to the side " Don't Jo; it's so boyish." Jo looks at Amy " that's why I do it." Amy disdainfully says " I detest rude, unlady-like girls." Jo claps back at Amy " I hate affected little Chits!"Jo tackles Amy and Beth pulls in Meg . They commence play- fighting. In the tussle Amy shouts " watch me nose! My nose! It's already no good!" Hannah enters the room " I know you don't care what I think, but I don't think you want your mother to find you like this do you?" The girls untangle and run to Hannah. She is a good natured women old enough to be their grandmother. Meg kisses her cheek " of course we care what you think!" Jo looked at Hanna " you're more family than wicked old Aunt March." Beth looked at Jo " Don't Jo" Amy looked at Hannah " where's Marmee?" Hannah looked at the small blonde " goodness's only knows some poor creature came a-begging and your ma went straight off to see what was needed." Jo looked at her sisters " I wish she could help people at a time convenient to us." Beth was holding her doll " Joanna and I are very hungry." Amy looked at her older sister " Dolls don't get hungry Beth." Jo holds up the pages in her hand "I've rewritten the climax and we need to set it to memory. Amy get the costumes." Amy smiles " I've made a divine hat and painted those old shoes blue so she truly looks like a princess." Beth looks at Jo " I think the melancholy piece I've figured out is pretty good." Beth goes to the piano while Jo gives out the new pages " Meg wait until you've seen this new speech!" Beth marvels at the pages " I don't see how you can write such splendid things, Jo! You're a regular Shakespeare." Jo smiles at Beth " not quite" Jo moves her attention to Amy " Miss Michelangelo, can you please rehearse the fainting scene? Your as stiff as a poker in that." Amy almost yelling looks at Jo " I can't help it! I never saw anyone faint and I don't chose to make my self all black and blue. If I can go down easily, I'll drop. If I can't I shall fall into a chair and be graceful; I don't care if Hugo does come at me with a pistol." Amy falls into a chair, Ko turns to Hannah " Hannah....." Hannah looks at her " I'm not acting" Jo just looks at her " I didn't even say anything!" Hannah looks at her " I knew what you where going to say and I'm not acting."

Marmee approaches her modest home, and sees her girls laughing and rehearsing, joyfully playing make believe. She fights tears and sadness, about what, we don't entirely know. We just know that what she does as a mother isn't free. Of course it's not, nothing is ever free, even a joy a mother can make. Just before she flings opens the door, she puts a smile on her face. Like so many mothers, she creates magic where there is none, and enables her girls to be brave. "Merry Christmas girls!"all the girls shriek and crowd around her " I'm so glad to see you all so happy." Jo pulled away from Marmee " Mother! Are you freezing? Come have tea." Beth looked to her mother " Hannah and I made these cakes ." Meg starts talking then " we finished the sewing!" Amy looked at her mother " wait until you see my portrait." They clearly worship their mother. As she's talking, they follow her into the kitchen. " Jo you look tired- were you up again all night writing? Amy come kiss me! How are my girls?" Beth looked at all the food " I'm so hungry!" Jo looking at the food too " I could eat a horse!" Amy looked at her older sister " stop it Jo." Meg took a seat looking at the food " look at this breakfast" Mareem sees the expectant faces and wrestles with herself. Jo looks at Marmee " What?" Meg also looks at her mother " what is it?" Marmee sighs looking at her beautiful daughters "Not far from here lives a poor young woman, Mrs. Hummel. Her five children are in one bed to keep from freezing, and there is nothing to eat. My girls, would you give them you breakfast as a Christmas present? They are very quiet, because they don't want to do it. Beth stairs at her mother " is this where you say that Father would want us to." Marmee looked at her daughter "yes"

At the Laurence household:

Mr. Laurence sits with his grandchildren, Laurie and Lottie, his grandchildren's tutor, Mr Brooke. It is quite and proper, the opposite of the Merry mayhem of the March household . Mr Brooke while being served looks at the servant and then his host " thank you. And thank you, Mr Laurence for including me." Mr Laurence smiles at him " your welcome. Perhaps you could tutor my grandchildren in manners as well as mathematics." They both look at Laurie and Lottie, They are both watching the March women walk across the snow covered field with their breakfast. Jo hits Amy with a snowball, and there is a general tussle. Lottie smiles to her older brother " what are they doing?"

All the " proper" people of concord are entering the local church as the March family walk past them actually doing the Christ-like thing. The girls make their way through the woods and finally find themselves outside of a shack that is so dilapidated that it is hardly standing. This is the Hummel house. The girls enter, tentatively at first around such wretched poverty. Mrs Hummel is barely older than they are, and frighteningly thin. Marmee shows no hesitation, immediately taking the infant into her arms. Mrs hummel looks at them all '' Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us! Marmee smiled at her "I'm back! We brought food and blankets and sweaters. And we brought some medicine.These are my girls!" They all set about making the room less wretched, more home-like. Marmee comforts the baby, Meg takes two children into her lap, Amy cleans and straightens, Beth covers the other children with blankets, Jo sets up the food.

Freezing but happy, the women return, and immediately see Hannah has arranged an unimaginable feast, with candy and ice cream and cakes. Hannah pulls Mrs.March aside while the girls marvel: Amy stares at the food "is it fairies? Beth looks at the cakes '' Santa claus.'' Jo looks at her young naive sisters she shakes her head '' No, it's old Aunt March!'' Hannah smiled " Mr. Laurence sent it. And a lovely young girl came to set it up she has to be the same age as Amy I think the one who was here the other night." Meg looked suprised "The Laurence siblings grandfather? Why?" Hannah looked at Meg " They saw you giving your Christmas breakfast away and wanted you to enjoy the day" All the girls ran to the window to look, Amy pulled the curtian back to see " But i thought he was a mean old man!" Marmee looked at her daughters " That's so generous of him." Jo still looked at out the window suspiciously " His grandchildren Laurie and Lottie put the idea into hid head! I know they did. We should make friends with them." Beth looked at Jo " Boys scare me. And that big old house scares me." Amy was gorging on sweets " Jenny Snow says that Mr.Laurence disowned his son after he went off with an Italian woman, and now his grandchildren are orphans and they spend all their time in that house locked up with their tutor." Marmee glared at her youngest daughter " He is a very kind man who lost his little girl when she was only a child, and now his son as well." Beth looked sadly at her mother " His daughter died? That's so sad." Amy ignored Beth and continued on " But doesn't Lottie just seem so romantic? She's half Italian, and her accent." Jo looked at Amy surprised " What do you know? You've never spoken to her!"Meg was looking at flowers touching their petals "Flowers in winter." Marmee looks at the girls smiling " I'm not responsible for this feast, but I have got a surprise." All the girls gasp talking at once " A letter" "From father!" "Is he coming home?" " Three cheers." They gather around Marmee, sitting her into her easy chair, and making her comfortable. This is clearly their tradition: Jo sighed "Don't i wish i could go......." Beth looked at Jo" Poor Jo- we can't give up our only brother." Amy looked at Jo "It must be very disagreeable to sleep in a tent." Jo takes her position behind the chair. Amy stares at Jo "Jo, stands in the back so we can't see her cry" Jo smacks her head "so what if I do?" Beth sits on Marmee's lap "when will he come home?" Marmee sighed "He will stay and do his work faithfully as long as he can, and we won't ask for him back a minute sooner than he can be spared." Marmee starts reading " Give them all my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night and find my best comfort in their affection at all times."

The sisters put on the play they had been rehearsing. With Marmee and Hannah cheering them on, they perform for the neighbourhood children. The children are entranced as Jo, dressed as Hugo, with a black beard, a mysterious cloak, boots and a sword, calls out: "what ho! Minion! I need thee!" Meg enters as Hagar, the horrible old witch. A smoke effect and a well done homemade costume make a he audience gasp: "Born of roses, fed on dew, What charms and potions canst thou brew?" Jo mouths the words along with her- she's written every one. Amy, as the Sprite, appears on top of a poorly constructed "tree" to give the illusion of "flying": " Hither I come, from my airy home, afar in the silver moo ——-AHHHHH? In mid- speech and gesture, Amy falls with a loud crash: Jo breaking character looks at Amy " Don't laugh! Act like it's all right! Just keep going! Beth play!" Beth is revealed by playing and trying to keep a straight face, while the sisters scramble to keep the performance going. Princess Zara (Amy) and Roderigo (Meg) kneel before Don Pedro (Jo), as he pronounces them man and wife. Beth plays the final triumphant chords. The audience claps as the sisters bow-Jo gentlemanly, Meg demurely, Amy the diva, and Beth's small quiet curtsy. One woman rises to her feet with her applause and shouts.