Dorey Walker (Elizabeth Perkins) is a hard-nosed, successful single mum, who is the director of special events at Cole's toy store. She lives in a lavish New York apartment with her 6-year-old daughter, Susan (Mara Wilson), who has trouble believing in Father Christmas because, um, Dorey told her he didn't exist, "A long time ago." Way. To. Go. Mum. Dorey doesn't overtly display her ungrateful nature she's sneakier than that. It's her indifference to those around her that mark her out as one of life's takers. She does, however, turn down overly nice and matinee idol handsome, uptown lawyer, Bryan Bedford's (Dylan McDermott) proposal for absolutely no reason, leaving him to dispose of a Cartier ring The Hulk would have problems carrying. Yet it is Bryan she turns to when newly appointed Cole's Santa Claus, Kris Kringle (Richard Attenborough), bops an inebriated ex-Santa on the head with his walking stick for being nasty about children. Kris is then carted off to the funny farm for claiming he's the real Father Christmas. Dorey asks Bryan, as a hot-shot lawyer, to prove Kris is the real Santa and save Christmas. She doesn't offer to pay him, or even say thank you when Bryan duly convinces the court that if we believe in God we can believe in Richard Attenborough/Father Christmas. In any other Christmas film a mother that informs her daughter Father Christmas doesn't exist, would be rewarded with a lump of coal in her stocking but not Dorey. After Bryan saves Kris, he marries Dorey, the newlyweds get given a house and it is suggested she is pregnant. No doubt she will tell this child Santa isn't real before the midwife has even cut the umbilical cord.
