For Christmas, New York City based neuroscientist Sharon Harper is heading back to her small hometown of Pine Springs to spend it with her pregnant cousin Lucy and Lucy's husband Roland. This trip marks the first time Sharon will have returned since the passing and funeral of her Gramma Vera in January, Vera who raised her. Sharon learns from Vera's estate lawyer Sam Taylor, who also happens to be Vera's next door neighbor, that Vera will be leaving the house - where Sharon grew up - to her, but has written in a journal many of their family Christmas traditions, twelve of them which Vera wants Sharon to accomplish before she makes the decision on whether to move back into the house for good, which would be a departure from Sharon's life plan, or to dispose of it. Also factoring into what Sharon will do is the fact that she has been nominated for the prestigious MacAdam's Fellowship worth $500,000, the interview for which she will attend on December 31st back in New York.