What's a Tub Child to think when his Grandfather hands him a metal hook and tells him to “stand guard” as a roly-poly man in a red suit with a very large sack and an even larger tree pops out of the chimney in the middle of the night? In this last of the Tub People trilogy, the beloved tub toys meet Santa, who rescues the Tub Child from the overly friendly family dog. After a thrill ride in the big bearded fellow's pocket, the Tub People are all placed gently on the Christmas tree where, wonder of wonders, the Tub Child, in the place of honor at the very top, gets to look down on his entire laughing family mixed merrily in with popcorn and candy canes and stars.
Author Pam Conrad is pictured at the beginning and end of the book as an angel, the Tub People's creator and guardian. All the Tub People become angels on the end papers and are reproduced in a sheet of beautiful Tub People Christmas ornaments that children can hang on their tree.