George Bailey is a generous, loving husband and father in the small town of Bedford Falls. All his life he has worked hard and made sacrifices to benefit his neighbors and his family. The officer of a small bank loan business, George misplaces an $8,000 bank loan on Christmas Eve and is so distraught that he contemplates suicide. Not only is he upset about the lost money, but he surveys his life and determines that the world would have been better off if he had never been born. Because of the decency in his heart and the prayers of his family, a junior angel named Clarence comes down to show George what the world really would have been like if he had never existed. George discovers that the life he once thought insignificant and unimportant actually touched many lives and shaped the course of history far beyond what he imagined. He changes his mind about taking his own life and realizes that he has contributed a lot by living his life, and in the Christmas spirit his neighbors give George a Christmas gift that he will never forget.