<P> On Christmas night, with only $1.87 in hand, and desperate to find a gift for Jim, Della sells her hair for $20 to a nearby hairdresser named Madame Sofronie, and eventually finds a platinum pocket watch fob chain for Jim's watch for $21 and she was satisfied with the perfect gift she got for Jim . </P> <P> At 7 o'clock, Della sits at a table near the door, waiting for Jim to come home . Unusually late, Jim walks in and immediately stops short at the sight of Della, who had previously prayed that she was still pretty to Jim . Della then admits to Jim that she sold her hair to buy him his present . Jim gives Della her present--an assortment of combs, useless now that her hair is pretty short . Della then shows Jim the chain she bought for him, to which Jim says he sold his watch to get the money to buy her ornamental combs . Although Jim and Della are now left with gifts that neither one can use, they realize how far they are willing to go to show their love for each other, and how priceless their love really is . </P> <P> The story ends with the narrator comparing the sacrificial gifts of love with those of the Biblical Magi . </P> <P> The story has been adapted to films, The Sacrifice (1909), Love's Surprises Are Futile (1916), The Gift of the Magi (1917), a segment of O. Henry's Full House (1952), The Gift of Love (1978), The Gift of the Magi (1958), Dary magów (Poland, 1972), Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978), I'll not be a gangster, love (Не буду гангстером, дорогая / Nebūsiu gangsteriu, brangioji, USSR, 1978), Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999), The Gift of the Magi (2004) and the short film for the Irish band The Script in 2010 called For the First Time . Love, another French movie, based some of its scenes on this story . Raincoat (2004), a Hindi film directed by Rituparno Ghosh is an adaptation of the story . The Greek film directed by Ismene Daskarolis (2014) places it in the economical crisis of Greece today . The Mexican film Nosotros los pobres includes this tale as a small sub-plot . There is also a Bulgarian short film adaptation known as "Darovete na vlahvite" (2013) directed by Ivan Abadjiev . </P>

The gift of the magi - a short story