Jack
Jack is the protagonist of the story, a young boy based in part, according to author J.K. Rowling, on her own son. The story revolves around the fact that his most beloved and prized possession above all else is a plush toy pig and what happens when that toy pig is lost.
Dur Pig
Dur Pig is the name by which the toy pig is referred as a result of Jack not quite being able to vocalize “the pig” at a young age so that it came out sounding like “Dur Pig.” Later, he will earn the shortened nickname DP.
Mum
Mum is, of course—this story being British—Jack’s mother. And right off the bat she is presented as being a mother among all great mothers. She works as a nurse and when wear and tear demands that DP demands a new set of button eyes be sewn on, she takes her son’s son of his toy seriously enough to turn the simple craft work into a full scale medical attention for a beloved member of the family by covering the toy pig’s new eyes with bandages and writing out a medical notes to make everything official. Alas, Mum’s relationship with Jack’s Dad is not quite as solid and their marriage ends in divorce.
Holly Macaulay
What would a Christmas story be without Holly? Holly Macaulay is one of the best gymnasts in the country who has her eye on making it to the Olympics. She is also tall, beautiful and very popular so no one is more surprised than Jack when it is she who singles him out on his first day in a new school to assertively inform him she is going to his partner, thus instantly elevating him from the new kid to the boy Holly Macaulay introduced to others as “my mate Jack.” Their relationship takes an unexpectedly sharp left turn, however, when Holly is reintroduced to Jack as the daughter of the man that Mum is going to marry. Jack’s becoming Holly’s stepbrother rather than just her mate stimulates a change in Holly personality which reaches its low point on Christmas Eve when she tosses DP out the window of a moving car.
The Christmas Pig
The title character is the plump and smug-looking brand new toy pig that Holly gives Jack as a replacement for the now-lost DP. He is made of the same plush material and looks similar enough but, it goes without saying, he is hardly identical. Still, it being Christmas and Christmas being the season for inexplicable miracles, it turns out that Christmas Pig is actually endowed with sentience and, furthermore, it is he who is going to lead the miss to find and retrieve the lost DP.
