Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening -- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.
 

One Christmas Eve, when the snow swirled and the wind howled, a crow swooped over the rooftops of Clonowen village. The bird was in a hurry for she carried a large piece of bread. She flew over the village square, where laughing children played, across the river and the white fields towards the woods on a hill in the distance. Then, after circling the trees, she came down on the branch of an old oak.
She was about to eat the bread when she saw a fox staring up at her.
Go on, drop it, please drop it, the fox was thinking.
The crow was no fool. She had searched all day for this food and was not going to let even a crumb fall. But she could not eat with a fox staring at her like that.

A wintry scene on Christmas Eve. Snow falls on the brightly-lit houses of Clonowen Village ...on a swift-flowing river nearby ...on roads and fields ...and on the wooded hills beyond ...where a family of foxes has gone days without food.
They set off hunting. No sign of rabbits, or even smaller prey, so they head to the MacLugs's farm in search of tasty chicken. Inside the farmhouse, Slicer MacLug is counting his money on a kitchen table. Outside, his yellow-eyed hound, Raptor, is chained close to the chicken coop. After a close brush with Raptor, and the MacLug's meat truck (driven by Slicer's oafish brother, Smudge), the foxes lope into the village.