Plot Summary

Having gotten the travel bug from traveling around the world with her parents when she was growing up, Emory Blake is now a writer with Journeying, a travel magazine. She plans to spend Christmas alone like she has for many of her adult years in being on assignment in the far corners of the globe. Her boyfriend William has just broken up with her after six months, realizing that he needs a stable life and she would never settle in one place. Emory's editor and best friend, Veronica Giles, gives her a last-minute assignment due December 23 that differs from the usual: write about a traditional American Christmas in whatever form she chooses. Corporate attorney Scott Hays has been a widower for a few years and hasn't started to date again yet. Ever since his wife passed, he has taken his mother Marilyn and daughter Katy out for brunch at a hotel as their primary Christmas activity and hasn't made much more effort toward a traditional Christmas. This year, Katy has a wish list of traditional Christmas activities that revive the vague memories she has of childhood Yuletides when her mom was alive. Emory and the Hays meet when they are double-booked in the same cabin at Pine Grove in the mountains. With no other rooms available anywhere in Pine Grove, they decide to share the cabin. Emory is unable to even start her Christmas article until she discovers Katy's wish list; as they spend time working on it together, Emory, Scott, Marilyn, and Katy begin to catch the true Christmas spirit...and Scott and Emory start to fall for each other. While Emory can envision having a next chapter in her life as a writer in a less travel-oriented form, she and Scott getting together may face the hurdle of Alice Bennett, the single mother of Katy's classmate, as mother and son are also spending the holidays at Pine Grove. Emory can see that Alice would like to be the next Mrs. Hays and believes--mistakenly--that Scott wants her for that role.—Huggo