It is the week before Christmas, and the lives of six troubled people are forever changed by some heavenly intervention when three of them buy a fireplace log at a local convenience store. Joe Wilson is a pitiful drunk bent on committing suicide after his pregnant wife walks out on him, but takes pause when he realizes that the log she had lit to cheer their modest home has been burning on and off for days. Just a drunken hallucination, he reasons--but is it really only that? Helen Tanner, a bitter and tragically scarred woman, doubts her sanity as the mysterious glow from her Christmas log seems to work incredible magic. Has she simply imagined the lovely change, caught up in wishful thinking? Or will her long-lost belief in miracles be rekindled? Tom Banes has sunk to the lowest point in his life and yet spends his last few dollars on a single fireplace log to warm the home of an elderly neighbor. It's the least he can do to repay her for caring about him when no one else ever has. Neither of them can guess, however, that his small act of kindness will result in such an extraordinary transformation.
