Nobody likes teacher Paul Hunham. Everyone—his students, his colleagues, and even the headmaster—finds his pomposity and rigidity exasperating. With no family and nowhere to go over the 1970 Christmas holiday, Paul remains at school to supervise students unable to journey home. After a few days, only one student remains—a trouble-making fifteen-year-old named Angus, a good student whose bad behavior always threatens to get him expelled. Joining Paul and Angus is head cook Mary, an African American woman who caters to sons of privilege and whose own son has recently died in Vietnam. These three very different shipwrecked people form an unlikely Christmas family, sharing comic misadventures during two very snowy weeks in New England. The real journey is how they help one another understand that they are not beholden to their past-they can choose their own futures.