Mr. Sheffield is not going to be home for Christmas. His kids even know that he uses a personal shopper to buy all of their gifts. Fran asks little Gracie, who is too cynical to believe is Santa, what she would ask of him for Christmas if she did believe. Gracie says that she would wish for her dad for Christmas. Well, I think we know where this episode is going.

So Mr. Sheffield decides to go out of town to raise money for a children’s charity instead of spending Christmas with his own children. She did, however, convince Mr. Sheffield to pick out the children’s gifts himself. What she didn’t realize, is that he also picked out a gift for her as well in lieu of a Christmas bonus. So she pawns the gorgeous vase he got her in order to pay for the gifts she had already charged on her credit card. But Mr. Sheffield gives her this beautiful speech as snow falls on him in the doorway (soon) about how he picked it out just for her and hopes she will cherish it, etc, etc.  

So Fran rushes back to the pawn shop and pawns her grandmother’s watch (a family heirloom) in order to get the vase back. In a weird kind of not really gift-of-the-magi situation, Niles alerts Mr. Sheffield to the situation and he tracks down the watch at the pawn shop. But it isn’t her grandmother’s watch. It’s some random stranger’s watch. Then Mr. Sheffield accidentally sits on the vase and ends up in the hospital with chards of glass in his butt. 

But hey they get to spend Christmas together and Gracie believes in Santa because her wish came true! Mr. Sheffield tells Gracie that it was his Christmas wish to spend time with them too. (Uh yeah okay but that didn’t stop you from scheduling a fundraiser on Christmas Day…)

Very Special Lesson: Sometimes it takes a Jewish Nanny to remind a WASP family of the true meaning of Christmas.