A little house. A little shack of a house. No heater. No fireplace. No chimney. No Santa Clause.

The little boy sat alone in his room on Christmas Eve. His mother tucked him in and kissed his forehead. While he was dressed for bed, she was dressed for work.

She regretted leaving him alone. No father to keep him safe and now no mother to love him. She needed the work, though, to afford the home. The little wooden home. The little wrought-iron bed that her son snuggled up in.

She locked up the house and closed the windows and closed the curtains to keep the frigid night from creeping in.

She locked up the house and he cried himself to sleep. Once again, Santa would forget him. Or maybe he’d remember, but there was no way for him to leave a present. There were locks and there was no tree and there was no chimney.

So the little boy snuggled up to his warm old dog and cried himself to sleep.

And the next morning, the little boy wrapped himself in his quilt and passed through the living room to take the old dog out to the bathroom. There was no chimney and no tree and no present. The little boy sighed and stepped outside into the early morning light. The sun set the snow to sparkle and the warm dog stepped into the cold new snow.

And as the little sad boy called his dog back inside, a flash of color caught his eye. He turned on his porch as his dog ran inside. He didn’t know how he had missed it before. The bright red stood out against the gray wooden house and the bright white snow.

A brand new bike stood propped against the window. The young boy was startle. Before he approached, he looked around to spot the generous being that left it there. No one in sight. Just the snow and the sky and his little shack of a house.

So he stepped forward and he reached out. And his hand ran over the smooth glossy surface. It was his. It had to be. And the bow on it was his too. The green and white bow that was striped like a candy cane.

And on that bow was a note. The little boy opened the note and he read the simple message. A message that even he could understand. It read:

I could never forget you, dear boy.