Kyle had always been a very ambitious person about life.

Every celebration, birthday party, karaoke session, soccer drill- you name it. He was always the hype-giver of the group.

But this Christmas, everything seemed to be exactly the same.

The decorations seemed to be lazily put up. The music playlists weren't different. The food was exactly the same as last year's.

Everything just seemed so... generic.

And even though Kyle had gotten everything he had wanted for Christmas, something still felt a little bit off, like something was missing.

As he went up to his room to play on his new ukulele, he decided to text all of his friends Merry Christmas, as he usually did every year. It was a tradition to him; something to rebuild relationships and to connect over the simple things in life.

But as he was scrolling through his contacts, a new one showed up.

Holly.

He had gotten her number from a friend as a joke; being told to prank her over text just for kicks and then to leave it at that.

But he never did prank her.

Instead, he saved her number, just because.

He always had a sense of respect for her after one random phone call they had together, where he insisted on calling her Holly and not Holland.

Holland was her original name, but Holly just felt right. Not only was it festive, but it suited her personality too.

And now that Kyle was texting all of his friends, it didn't seem like such a bad idea to reach out to her.

For Holly, Christmas Day wasn't a time of joy and happiness.

It was a painful time to be reminded of the people who had families who accepted them, who spent time with them and didn't just ignore those who needed less attention to get by.

This Christmas, like many others, she would spend alone.

She was away in her room, spending time listening to music and reading her books as always, until a message from an unknown number popped up on her phone.

She squinted, reading it in her head.

"Merry Christmas, Holly!!"

That was all it said.

But all of a sudden, things didn't seem so bad this Christmas after all.

She replied within seconds, wondering who this person could be that she felt like she had known forever.

They hit off right away.

Two hours later, they both had to part for dinner, but something inside of both of them had changed forever.

After dinner that night, Kyle got on his phone again. Holly had texted him since he last got off.

"Hey, just wondering if you would want to go out for dinner sometime?" Kyle sat down. It had been over a year since he had been asked out to dinner, and that hadn't ended well. Now he could have a kind of redo.

"Let's go!" he said to himself, a little first pump in there. Kyle texted back.

"Sure, u name the place, and time and Ill meet you there." Leaving it at that, he got in bed, and fell asleep.

Holly checked her phone, restless that night. She had received a text message.

'Uhh, probably just one of those annoying scammers,' she thought to herself. Tapping on the message icon, she saw that it wasn't a scammer, in fact, it was Kyle. Yes! He had responded with a yes. Thoughts ran through her head on where to go, and when.

'We could go to the pizza place, or there's that new Chinese buffet. There's also Mediterranean.' she thought. That night, Holly went to bed late, not because of restlessness, but because of the excitement she felt toward going on a date. She was going to make this perfect.

That night, Holly ran through various scenarios in her dreams. She'd never met Kyle in person, even though she felt like she'd known him forever. What if she showed up and he was really seventy years old? Or a paraplegic? Or worse, what if he really didn't exist at all and it was really an elaborate scam?

No. Someone like that had to be real. That was the rules of a Christmas miracle. She just had to let herself believe in him.

The next morning, she woke up no longer nervous. She took the bus down the slushy street to work, excited about meeting the man who had brought a little extra light to her holiday. He had called her Holly right from the first call. That was a nickname she hadn't used in a long time, but seeing it from a total stranger made her remember what it felt like to have that level of familiarity with someone.

At the office, she hummed the Christmas songs on her playlist, still stuck in her head even the day after. She wondered if she was dressed properly for a first date--too casual? Too formal? Too brightly colored for December? Ultimately, she concluded that it didn't matter. She was dressed the way she liked.

It wasn't until halfway through the afternoon that she realized: in her excitement, she had totally forgotten to actually text him back with a time and place. Quickly, she pulled out her phone and typed quickly, "Hey! Still able to go out tonight? Let's meet at 5:30 at the Mediterranean restaurant on Tenth Street," with the address attached.

Maybe he had lost interest after not getting a response. Holly began to worry that her Christmas miracle was fading, and she sat back down at her desk. But fifteen minutes later, she got a notification of a text from Kyle. "Sure! See you there."

She smiled. Christmas might have been over, but if tonight went the way she hoped, the new year would be her best one yet.