The Small One (also known as A Christmas Miracle in the UK) is a 1978 American animated featurette produced by Walt Disney Productions and released theatrically by Buena Vista Distribution on December 16, 1978, with a re-issue of Pinocchio (1940).

The story is based on a 1947 children's book of the same name by Charles Tazewell and was a project for the new generation of Disney animators including Don Bluth, Jerry Rees, Henry Selick, Gary Goldman, and John Pomeroy.

He needs a gentle donkey to carry his wife to Bethlehem, insists he will take good care of him, and offers one piece of silver.

[4][5] The idea for The Small One originated from Pete Young, then an apprentice story artist, who found the book among the studio's optioned properties in their library.

According to Mattinson, the team left on Friday for the weekend, and returned on Monday to have their work tossed out because studio management had selected Don Bluth to direct.

[1] Then-animator Betsy Baytos claimed Larson, in reaction to the news, "just shook his head and knew that he wasn't being appreciated.

[3] In retrospect, Bluth stated that "Small One was something I directed to get the crew busy until Pete's Dragon ... [Larson] might have [been involved] in the storyboard area.

His friend Steve Hulett remembered: "He thought they had missed a lot of the points that he and Vance had made in their original boards."

[6] Animation of the Laughing Men from The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Mowgli from The Jungle Book (1967) was recycled for the short film.

Charles Solomon, in his Los Angeles Times review, wrote: "The film has its flaws: The script and the songs are a bit saccharine, and the human characters, except for the boy, are far less interesting in their design and movements than the animals, but The Small One is characterized by the same qualities of light, perspective and atmosphere that made the great Disney films so vivid.