Christmas Eve is approaching. It is also the day Julian will turn eleven years old. Usually it is the best day of the year, filled with the fantastic aroma of gingersnaps and tangerines, the sound of a crackling fire, the decorated Christmas tree and the flickering candlelight. But this year nothing is as usual. Julian and his family mourn the death of his big sister, and Julian feels that Christmas has just been cancelled. Then one day Julian meets the happy and Christmas-loving Hedwig and he begins to believe that perhaps there will be Christmas after all. But there’s something strange about Hedwig’s house, and who is the old man who is lurking around the house all the time?