In an old city bar   That is never too far   From the places that gather   The dreams that have been     In the safety of night   With its old neon light   It beckons to strangers   And they always come in     And the snow it was falling   The neon was calling   The music was low   And the night   Christmas Eve     And here was the danger   That even with strangers   Inside of this night   It's easier to believe     Then the door opened wide   And a child came inside   That no one in the bar   Had seen there before     And he asked did we know   That outside in the snow   That someone was lost   Standing outside our door     Then the bartender gazed   Through the smoke and the haze   Through the window and ice   To a corner streetlight     Where standing alone   By a broken pay phone   Was a girl the child said   Could no longer get home     And the snow it was falling   The neon was calling   The bartender turned   And said, not that I care   But how would you know this?   The child said I've noticed   If one could be home   They'd be all ready there     Then the bartender came out from behind the bar   And in all of his life he was never that far   And he did something else that he thought no one saw   When he took all the cash from the register draw     Then he followed the child to the girl cross the street   And we watched from the bar as they started to speak   Then he called for a cab and he said J.F.K.   Put the girl in the cab and the cab drove away   And we saw in his hand   That the cash was all gone   From the light that she had wished upon     If you want to arrange it   This world you can change it   If we could somehow make this   Christmas thing last     By helping a neighbor   Or even a stranger   And to know who needs help   You need only just ask     Then he looked for the child   But the child wasn't there   Just the wind and the snow   Waltzing dreams through the air     So he walked back inside   Somehow different I think   For the rest of the night   No one paid for a drink     And the cynics will say   That some neighborhood kid   Wandered in on some bums   In the world where they hid     But they weren't there   So they couldn't see   By an old neon star   On that night, Christmas Eve     When the snow it was falling   The neon was calling   And in case you should wonder   In case you should care     Why we're on our own   Never went home   On that night of all nights   We were already there     THEN ALL AT ONCE INSIDE THAT NIGHT   HE SAW IT ALL SO CLEAR   THE ANSWER THAT HE SOUGHT SO LONG   HAD ALWAYS BEEN SO NEAR     IT'S EVERY GIFT THAT SOMEONE GIVES   EXPECTING NOTHING BACK   IT'S EVERY KINDNESS THAT WE DO   EACH SIMPLE LITTLE ACT