The life of a St. Louis family in the year before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Steve and Cynthia are a newlywed couple celebrating their first Christmas together. They invite their families to join them for the holidays, but when Steve is laid off just before Christmas and Cynthia discovers she's pregnant, they both keep their news secret in hopes that the celebration runs smoothly.
Hard-hearted New York novelist Dru Cassadine...known for her holiday romance stories (even though she is antilove and anti-Christmas)...is desperate to get her mojo back after a string of flops (and a not-so-subtle threat by her publisher that he'll drop her if she has another failure). She decides that a change of scenery might get her creative juices flowing and heads south for the winter, landing in a place known as Harbor Pointe. She doesn't quite get what she came for. She gets much more.
An old Panamanian holiday tradition personified as a homeless man disrupts the life of a workaholic animal rescuer to show him the true meaning of love, friendship and family.
Over the Christmas holidays in a small New England college town, a man and a woman share a brief interlude. He is there to visit his wife, who is a mental patient at the university, and she is there visiting her son, who is a student, after discovering her husband's infidelity.
Recently-paroled thief, Jon Price, is forced to return to his small, rainy hometown of Fall City, Washington at Christmastime. Jon unexpectedly begins to find joy as he meets and grows closer to a struggling single mother who shows him true kindness, and he begins filling the role of a father for her young daughter.
A transit worker pulls commuter Peter off railway tracks after he's mugged, but—while he's in a coma—his family mistakenly thinks she's Peter's fiancée, and she doesn't correct them. Things get more complicated when she falls for his brother, who's not quite sure that she's who she claims to be.
One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.
With their father away as a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, male friends start to become a part of the household.
Eighteen-year old Ashley's life is headed in the wrong direction. She's been hanging out with a bad crowd and seeking an escape from the drama at home. Everything begins to change when a handyman working on the family's house encourages her to volunteer for a Christmas play with underprivileged children. Ashley finds purpose by helping people in need and uses that to help heal her troubled family. Together, they discover the impact one person can make through the gift of giving.
Jack's lavish, fast-paced lifestyle changes one Christmas night when he stumbles into a grocery store holdup and disarms the gunman. The next morning he wakes up in bed lying next to Kate, his college sweetheart he left in order to pursue his career, and to the horrifying discovery that his former life no longer exists. As he stumbles through this alternate suburban universe, Jack finds himself at a crossroad where he must choose between his high-power career and the woman he loves.
When estranged siblings Lindsay and Brad travel to Scotland at Christmas to reunite with their mother Jo, a big family secret is revealed.
When sisters Cara and Amy make a pact to find their soulmates by next Christmas, they’re not expecting to be so successful! One year later, Amy’s winter wedding approaches and Cara finally finds her own perfect man, inviting him as her plus one. But after immediately losing his number, all hope is lost. Will she find him in time to make her Christmas wish come true? Or does love have other plans for Cara?
An uptight, conservative businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.
Wellness expert, Juliet, pitches Christmas memory candles to her boss in hopes of earning a promotion and enlists the help of boutique candle store owner, Tom, to create new candle scents. Tom, who thinks the wellness industry is a scam, refuses at first but agrees when he realizes the money will help make his daughter’s Christmas wish come true.
Although strangers Sara and Jonathan are both already in relationships, they realize they have genuine chemistry after a chance encounter – but part company soon after. Years later, they each yearn to reunite, despite being destined for the altar. But to give true love a chance, they have to find one another again.
An unhinged office worker who planned to go on a shooting spree at his workplace struggles with his newfound status as a hero after he ends up stopping a shooting spree instead.
While visiting his hometown during Christmas, a man comes face-to-face with his old high school crush whom he was best friends with – a woman whose rejection of him turned him into a ferocious womanizer.
Gina and Seth have been pen pals for 13 years and now will have the chance to meet. Both used their best friends pictures to send to each other and now will let their friends meet. True love is found in the end for all.
While on a school shopping trip, the girls get locked in the mall after it closes on Christmas Eve.