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The movie kicks off with a boy named Julian telling us that he's going to tell us a story about someone named Hedwig. It's Christmas time but Julian isn't in the Christmas spirit. This is the first Christmas since his big sister, Juni, passed away. Julian goes for a swim in the pool and when he comes out for air, he sees a girl waving at him through the window. When he goes to leave, she's waiting for him. He introduces herself and tells him how impressed she is with his swimming. They walk through a Christmas market and she talks about how she absolutely loves Christmas. Julian says he doesn't care for Christmas and she just can't believe it. She gives him a hard time about that and he doesn't take it well. They argue and go their own ways but she runs after him before he gets too far and apologizes. She says she wants to be his friends and invites him to her house for cocoa and maybe seeing her house will give him the Christmas spirit. He walks away anyway.
He gets home and it's just sadness. His little sister asks about where the advent candles are which makes their mom sad. Everyone is just sad.
The next day, he's at the pool, hoping to see Hedwig again but she doesn't show. He remembered her address from when she told him the night before and tracks it down. It is as magical as she says it'd be and she's not done decorating yet - there's still decorations to add to the bathroom and the storage closet, obviously. She goes to grab and nail and Julian realizes these white ice skates begin to turn black as he gets closer. When she comes back, they go back to white. He's sure it's nothing.
They drink some hot chocolate. We find out that Julian's birthday is Christmas eve.
He tells her that there's just no Christmas in their house this year, it's too hard for his parents. She encourages him to be the example. So Julian goes homes, dusts off the advent candle set and lights 3 candles. His parents show up and smile at what he did. His sister says maybe if we light the 4th candle, Juni might be so happy that she'll come home for the holidays. The parents struggle with how to respond to that.
The next day, Julian and Hedwig play in the snow, building a snow man, a snow sister, and enjoying the snow together.
The next day, Julian brings Hedwig a gift - her very own swimsuit so that she can learn to swim. As they go to leave, this scary man walks up with keys to the house. Julian is confused and asks if she's scared that this scary man is walking around her house. She says she's not scared, not of that man.
He teaches her to swim and she gets the hang of it until she gets to the deep end and begins to sink. Julian saves her. She says she's not sure she's ever going to be able to do it.
Julian follows the old scary dude to this christmas card factory. He picks out a card and then asks him about why he was at the house. He yells at him and tells him to go.
Julian and Hedwig go ice skating....well, Julian goes ice skating. Hedwig won't go on the ice. Afterwards, they drink hot chocolate and he tells her all about Juni.
The next day, he tries to get her to open up. She won't do it. He tells her that he doesn't want to be her friend if she's not going to open up and she just vanishes.
He goes to her house and it's dark. The old scary guy shows up. He tells her that he used to live there with his sister before she died. Her name...Hedwig. She died when they were kids when she fell through the ice. Julian tells him about his sister who died and they use her pictures to make a ton of Christmas cards.
Julian hangs this Juni Christmas cards in his house and tells his parents he doesn't want to forget about her or act like nothings happened. He wants to remember her.
He then runs to the cemetery to finds Hedwig's grave. He apologizes and she shows back up. He tells her that her brother thinks that she's sticking around because she's mad at him. She says thats not true. They decides it's time for her to go for good.
He goes to grab her skates from the closet and they head off to the ice. She skates until the snow ghost comes down from the northern lights to take her away.
The movie ends with Julian coming downstairs on his birthday to find his parents have decorated for Christmas. They go to a Christmas service where Julian sings and he goes outside to have a fun snowball fight with his friend.