1899. Don't be fooled by the title, this is not what I consider a Christmas story: this Janet is another 'little match-girl', another sweet child with a cruel fate, after a cruel and short life.
Janet is very, very poor: she has brothers and sisters, a poor mom she loves and a drunk as a father; when a contagious illness kills her family, she's left alone. Her only friend is Roy, a poor boy who sells papers on the streets. He finds her a shelter, pays for it, and gives her hope, but when he's run over by a carriage and dies, she's left all alone in the world, with no education to help her and no religion to comfort her; she's alone, sad and starving. One night at the park, she sees a star she feels like her only companion and wants to reach it. When she sees its reflection in the water, much nearer now, she goes for it and disappears under water... poor child, with rich people despising her for being a ragged vagabond instead of helping her.
The title comes from a scene right at the start. A good bishop saw her and gave her a git: two Christmas stockings full of candy and a few coins. She kept her stockings till the end like a treasure, but she could not go to him for help because she didn't know where to find him. He never forgot about her, and instructed his people to find out how she was doing, but when they were told that the family who lived in that room was now dead, of course they thought she was too and stopped looking for her :-(
Such a sad story, just like the little match girl :-(
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