Even a humble Christmas gift can save a family—and a community.
Bartholomew Dozen’s small bakery is next to noisy train tracks leading to the Wild West. Travelers often jump off the trains and stop by for a loaf of fresh bread. The bakery also attracts thieves and looting in the neighborhood has grown in recent years. Each Christmas Eve, Bartholomew hosts a meal for the poor, spreading holiday joy and cheer. Even when strangers steal from him, he tries to overlook the theft, grateful for the goodness in his life. Every morning his wife Catharine gets up early and helps prepare the dough for the oven. One winter afternoon the week before Christmas, a stranger wanders into the bakery wearing an old leather jacket, a black hat, and shiny silver spurs on his leather boots. The hobo asks Bartholomew for a job, but Bartholomew has no job to offer him. Instead, he asks the stranger to stay for dinner.
As Peter Jesse introduces himself, a sudden crash sounds from the back of the store. A young boy slips out the side door with handfuls of bread, knocking over bags of flour. Bartholomew runs to the cash register only to find the drawer hanging open with wads of cash missing. As Peter helps clean up, Bartholomew hopes the young boy will return what he stole, but he realizes the boy might desperately need the food and money. That night Catharine prepares dinner and Bartholomew places a candy cane at each setting. Peter pulls a slip of paper from his pocket and stares at it as though it is sacred. It is his family’s pretzel recipe. Peter explains that pretzels look like children’s arms folded in prayer. The three holes in every pretzel represent the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Pretzels bring prosperity to everyone who eats them, especially couples getting married or “tying the knot.” Children can hang pretzels on Christmas trees and wear them around their necks on New Year’s Eve. He asks the Dozens to make pretzels in his honor.
Bartholomew places the recipe in his jacket. Bartholomew walks Peter to the front door and watches from the window as he walks toward the train. As Peter passes the bakery next to their home, Bartholomew notices another broken window in the shop. On Christmas Eve, Bartholomew and his family hold their annual holiday meal for anyone in need. After dinner, the entire family goes to church and sings Christmas carols all the way home. Early Christmas morning, a neighbor bangs on the Dozens’ front door. Bartholomew opens the door to find a thief running from his bakery’s entrance. Then a flame of fire bursts the bakery window and tears through the roof of the building. Despite the entire neighborhood dousing the bakery with water, much of the building goes up in smoke. Then the wind blows the pretzel recipe from Bartholomew’s jacket pocket, and he grabs it at once. Instead of losing everything, neighbors who ate fresh bread at Bartholomew’s bakery help him rebuild and make money through pretzels. Customers line up to try the pretzels—which Bartholomew insists always bring blessings. Soon Bartholomew stops making loaves of bread. He has more success with pretzels than he could imagine. The Good Shepherd sent him a Christmas angel with a pretzel recipe for children everywhere.