It's the Christmas season in Chicago. Jamie, a struggling political campaign writer, broke up with Emily, an up and coming marketing executive, a couple of months ago, Jamie not telling her or anyone else the reason being that he felt he wasn't good enough for her. They both are working on potentially career altering jobs, success on Emily's which would mean a promotion to the corner office, and success on Jamie's, the Christmas address for Governor Hayward who is floundering in the polls, which would mean he would still be able to stay working as a political writer, period, as failure would mean an end to this career, failure which has been his history in freezing under pressure. Emily's job is for the City of Fulton, where Jamie's family lives, she fearing running into any of them while she is in town. She not only runs into Jamie, home for the holidays, but his entire family, who he has not told about their break-up and thus they misconstruing she being there in Jamie having invited her home with him. One issue after another forces Emily and Jamie to keep up the ruse. It leads to them making a deal with each other which would affect their current jobs. In spending time together, they end up reconnecting emotionally. While Emily's questions about why he broke up with her to begin with and Jamie's concerns about his own insecurities are still factors, they getting back together again is affected by their professional fortunes as they try to hide the truth from his family.
—Huggo