After her mother's death, a young girl is separated from her abusive father and is sent between her various friends and relatives, always longing to find a place to call home.

Peyton Canaday, the accountant at her parents' Birch Creek business, the Canaday Inn, and physician Dr. Ben Tyler, having known each other since childhood, were once good friends, that is up until ten years ago when she professed her romantic feelings for him with he responding by leaving town the next day for good. Since Ben returned to Birch Creek a year ago to work at the Birch Creek Community Hospital under the Chief-of-Staff, his divorced father Dr. David Tyler, he and Peyton have conveniently avoided each other. But with one week to go before Christmas, they are forced back together when their mutual friend, widowed Ford Sherman, unexpectedly winds up in the hospital for a few days and needs someone to look after his adolescent daughter, Lily Sherman. With the care to Lily not only the necessities of life, which Ben could handle on his own, but also to maintain some stability in her life by embarking on what were Lily's mother's holiday traditions, Ben requests Peyton's help in he never having had any traditions associated with Christmas. This time with Lily throws a wrench into what both Peyton and Ben had planned in the lead up to Christmas. Wanting to move into event planning, Peyton convinced her parents to let her organize this year's twenty-fifth anniversary Canaday Inn Christmas Eve party, which for all those years has been Birch Creek's event of the Christmas season. Peyton wants to make her mark by making this the best party ever, especially as the Gazette newspaper is planning to feature it on the front page of its Christmas edition. While she has been able to cross all the t's and dot all the i's in being detailed oriented, the one thing Peyton has not been able to do with one week to go is the big picture item of coming up with the party theme, the secret which she's kept behind the locked doors of the inn's still empty ballroom. Ben, when hearing about Ford, was just about to catch a plane to spend Christmas in Honduras for a "vacation", with only his father knowing the real reason being in going for an interview for a three year contract to work at Doctor's Care International's field clinic there, they who need a doctor on the ground the beginning of the new year. In spending time together with Lily, Peyton and Ben become friends once again with the possibility of more, especially if Ben divulges the real reason he didn't say anything to her ten years ago. But they will still have to overcome their different life paths, Peyton in what she hopes will be her new event planning career, and Ben in his medical work in Honduras, much like the altruistic decisions both his parents have made in their lives.

Although she loves her job as an event planner for successful Gail Lane in New York City, the company which Gail tells her directly will someday be hers in being the best of her staff, Rachel Davis, if being true to herself, would admit the job was a fallback in none of her children's books being accepted for publication. With an event canceled at the last minute, Gail gives Rachel an unexpected and unusual break over the Christmas holidays, allowing Rachel and her adolescent daughter Ava to return "home" to spend Christmas with Rachel's parents and sister Maggie in Pigeon Hole, Tennessee, Rachel and Maggie who grew up in the proverbial shadow of Dollywood where Maggie now works in administration. It is Maggie that arranges for Rachel, on behalf of Gail's company, to interview to handle the thirtieth anniversary Christmas event at Dollywood, it arguably the biggest event Rachel would have worked on if awarded it in having a national scope. It is when Rachel arrives at Dollywood that she meets Luke Hackman, who she initially believes is interviewing for the same job, but who is actually the Director of Operations at Dollywood, he who is interviewing for the open General Manager position. In meeting with the Board after their respective interviews, Rachel and Luke are both dismayed to learn that they have been appointed co-organizers of the thirtieth anniversary event, that dismay due to both having differing views and working styles. Eventually able to overcome their antagonism, Rachel and Luke begin to work harmoniously together in realizing that they are working toward not only the same goal of a successful event, but that success which would springboard them to their end goals of putting Gail's company on the national map and Luke getting the GM position, respectively. In the process, Rachel and Luke start to fall for each other. Their path to a happily-ever-after is hindered by their diverging life paths, Rachel's whose is in New York City working toward a higher position in Gail's company, and Luke who is struggling with accepting a sure thing in an offer as GM at Wild West Amusements in Atlanta, that struggle especially as he begins to suspect the GM position at Dollywood won't be his and despite his heart being at Dollywood.

As a product developer for Atlanta-based Winsome Cosmetics, Amanda Lin is frustrated in her cutting-edge ideas being passed over for safer, more conservative ideas. After the latest such pass over, Amanda believes it's a good time to take a vacation, and accepts her widowed Aunt Carol's offer to come for a visit to help on her pecan farm in Pecan Hill, Georgia, where Amanda grew up. While she used the guise of a sprained wrist and the need of some temporary assistance to bring Amanda back at this time, Carol really had bigger news she wanted to share, that she is planning on selling the farm to be closer to her boyfriend living on the coast, news that is understandable but nonetheless bittersweet for Amanda in Aunt Carol and the farm being her last touchstone to her hometown in her own parents long having moved away. What is more contentious however is that Aunt Carol had already chosen J.P. Milligan as the real estate broker to handle the sale, he Amanda's high school sweetheart who returned to Pecan Hill three years ago following the end of his baseball career since having fallen into taking over the family business, and the two who had a less than smooth break-up. Amanda and J.P. end up butting heads in the process of the sale, Amanda and Carol who specifically want to sell it to someone who would retain it as a working family farm rather than use it as a property development. If they allow themselves to open up, Amanda and J.P., in truly wanting the same thing for the farm, could both admit to themselves that a romantic spark still exists. Beyond the issue of their respective current living and work situations, a second chance for Amanda and J.P. could be affected by what happens with the farm.

When a tough as nails food critic slips and loses her memory while touring a winter winery, she discovers her true heart's desires and new romance with a local Winemaker and his family but could lose it all when her true identity comes to light.