A movie in three acts following three couples who, over three years, each host a Christmas party. The camera stays in the kitchen and we are treated to Ayckbourn's beautifully detailed look at middle class life.
It is Christmas time in London, but the season finds Sara struggling to summon the cheer she used to have for such occasions. Nonetheless, her spirit remains buoyant thanks to her old friends, and a new neighbor that moves in next door.
Elfrida Phibbs thought she was retiring from her London life to a "geriatric bolthole" in the country. She soon finds herself compassionately tending to her neighbor Oscar, who has suffered a tragic loss. Together, they agree to depart to Scotland for the holidays, in order to avoid Christmas and the painful memories of what they have lost; they will just skip Christmas. But Elfrida has a young relative desperate to get her own teenage niece, Lucy Marchmont, away from ugly family drama in London, and asks to join Elfrida in Scotland. Soon, Christmas of the heart creeps in, and this group of random people finds that a different kind of Christmas might be the best kind.
