When Emmeline Grangerfield sets out to make Christmas merry and bright for a group of orphans, things quickly spiral out of control. Will help arrive in time to revive her holiday spirit? It will be up to the quilters of Depression-era Milton Falls, Ohio, to find time for the true meaning of Christmas during the busiest season of the year. In this short story prequel, Frances O’Roark Dowell visits two of the five women who come together to form an improbable quilting circle in her historical novel, Friendship Album, 1933 — which is currently being released as an audiocast one chapter at a time on The QuiltFiction Podcast. (Originally published on The Quilt Fiction Podcast on Dec. 22, 2018)