Having missed her chance to see him on the first Christmas, old Befana travels around Italy each year searching for the Christ Child and leaving cookies and Christmas presents for the sleeping children.
A little girl's quest for Christmas leads her into the Great Snow Forest where she is joined in her search by a cat, a dog, a hawk, a fox, and a mockingbird.
The widow McDowell and her seven-year-old son Thomas ask the gruff Jonathan Toomey, the best wood-carver in the valley, to carve the figures for a Christmas creche.