Annie can't believe her eyes! The "Santa" in the mall looks so much like her grandfather's friend, Simon. A Jewish Santa? Annie lines up to get a closer look - and ends up "placing an order". Simon Greenbaum, flat broke, has taken the job at the Winter Castle to earn a few dollars between jobs. And after all, with his long white beard, he looks just like Santa already. "Don't breathe a word to your Zaideh that you saw me here," he says. "If you don't tell him that I'm a Santa Claus, I won't tell him what you asked for. It's a deal?" When Annie's parents find out, however, that she has placed an order with Santa for a Christmas tree, they are disappointed and tell her that she must learn to be her own person and stand up for her beliefs in order to earn the respect of others. Meanwhile, Annie wants to help Mr. Greenbaum and comes up with a plan. But to carry out her plan, she must reveal his secret. What will she do?

Dora's father owns a dressmaking shop in the bustling garment district of Toronto in the 1940s. Every day after school, ten-year-old Dora runs to help her father in the shop. As she works, she dreams of being a designer herself and dressing the soberly attired mannequins in her own beautiful creations. In Dora's imaginings, the mannequins seem to urge her on in her fantasy as Dora's busy father pays scant attention to daughter's activities. One late afternoon after the shop has closed and while her father is working at his desk, Dora begins dressing up the mannequins. She uses remnants of bright cloth, ribbons and buttons that she finds lying around the shop floor, adding a bright scarf here and a sequin covered hat there. When her father suddenly decides they've stayed long enough, Dora is forced to leave her gaily dressed mannequins in the window, with very unexpected results.