Hartford is full of small-town Christmas traditions and Gaby Bryant puts herself in the center of all of them. She loves Christmas and she loves things that stay the same. She spends most of the season engaged in one project after another, all intended to squeeze joy and beauty into the holiday. The fact that her friend Owen only reluctantly joins her preparations somehow adds to her fun.

But this year Owen has a project of his own. He wants to convince Gaby that not all change is bad and that if she'd stop thinking of him as "only" a friend, Christmas could be a whole lot merrier.