Plot summary

It's the December holiday season, Christy Dickinson's favorite time of year, which doesn't exactly mesh with her stockbroker boyfriend Peter Carlson, who doesn't understand the joys of Christmas. She knows what she wants in life down to the very exacting order she places at her regular coffee house. One bigger item in what she wants is a move from the sales department to design at Solomon Wind Toy Company (SWT) where she loves working in that connection of the joy toys bring to children at Christmas. The scuttlebutt from Samantha Ames, her best friend and the president's executive assistant, is that the opening in design is hers if her sales pitch to Toys for All's CEO David Berger is successful. While the sales side of the pitch seems to impress David, she will have to impress a second time when David invites her to his holiday party in just over a week on December 24, when he expects to see a design concept and the party where she agreed to lead many of the holiday traditions, which she is more than happy to do in loving all things Christmas. Beyond needing to come up with a design concept in a week when she originally expected she'd have until the new year, she discovers two things about the party after the meeting with David that dampen her enthusiasm: that David has also invited the competition, Toys and Tricks, who supposedly will also be making their design pitch; and that the party is not to celebrate Christmas but rather Hanukkah, the Jewish traditions about which she knows nothing. In Christy being determined to learn all things Hanukkah by the time of the party, Samantha arranges for her preteen son Alex's Jewish schoolteacher, Jonathan Silver, to be Christy's teacher in the subject. Despite Christy and Jonathan's initial meeting not going well, they decide to bury the hatchet in each needing the other, Christy who will in turn teach Jonathan all about Christmas to impress his girlfriend Heather's parents, whom he will meet for the first time on Christmas Eve--his relationship with Heather depending on her parents' approval. As they spend time together, Christy discovers that Jonathan is as passionate both about his holiday traditions and life as she, but arguably more important that both have not been able to see the forest for the trees in something not quite right about their individual current paths.—Huggo