Plot

Settie Rose, an eccentric matriarch, hires struggling novelist Juan to write her holiday contest entry. A mixup sparks gossip of Juan's engagement to Settie's daughter Lily, leading the family to play along humorously.

Settie Rose, a quirky family matriarch, enters her town's annual holiday letter-writing contest but needs help, so she hires struggling novelist Juan to craft the perfect letter. When a mix-up leads to the rumor that Juan is engaged to Settie's daughter Lily, the whole family scrambles to keep up the charade. As Juan bonds with the Roses and overcomes his writer's block, Settie learns that embracing her imperfect family is what truly makes her story special.

Writing and receiving letters detailing the exploits of family and friends over the course of the year just past are staples for many people at Christmas. As such, the town of Holly Hills, CT has created a Christmas letter Wall of Fame at the post office featuring the best Christmas letters sent by Holly Hills residents that year. While sanctimonious and controlling Sue Taylor's letter has been selected every year of the Wall's nineteen year existence, Settie Rose, Sue's next door neighbor, has always aspired to the Wall without success. Settie's letters have gone from bad to worse as Settie's family has become more eccentric and dysfunctional, with Settie trying to spin unsuccessfully their goings-on. In that dysfunction, Settie's son, Jack, has refused to be included in any Christmas letter ever again in the white lies Settie tells about him, while her daughter, Lily, has been floundering in life not only trying to find a career path, but true love, she trying too hard, like Settie with the letters, leading to her making bad, unfocused decisions. Settie decides to take drastic measures this year to make it to the Wall in reaching out to Puerto Rico based Juan Sanchez, the writer of her current favorite novel, his first, to be her letter ghost writer, she only describing it as a short term writing opportunity in the lead up to Christmas which would require him to live with them in Holly Hills for that time. To her amazement, he accepts, he encouraged by his "abuelo" (grandfather) as it being a short term change of scenery to help him get over his writer's block, problematic as his family has already spent his advance for that second novel. Despite discovering on his arrival the nature of the writing assignment is not quite what he expected or wants and the eccentricities of the Roses, Juan ultimately agrees if only to spite "the competition", Sue. Juan, Settie and the family have to hide Juan's true nature in the house from nosy Sue, who believes he just the latest of Lily's deadbeat boyfriends, the last word in that statement which may be closer to reality as Juan's time with the Roses progresses and in he embracing the true love that exists underneath that dysfunction.—Huggo