Christmas Bells Are Ringing

Following in her mother's footsteps, Samantha is a Boston-based freelance photographer. In this, the Christmas season, she is heading back to the family's Cape Cod summer home where she hasn't been since she was seventeen, thirteen years ago, for her father Lee's wedding on Christmas Eve to Helen, a Cape Codder who she has yet to meet. She has resisted returning until now because of the painful memories associated with the death of her mother then. Sam's already busy schedule with the wedding is compounded when she learns she has to resubmit a photo layout by December 23rd for the Boston Messenger's Christmas edition insert, the photographer who gets that layout - she among the shortlist - being offered the full time photographer position with the newspaper. Although she had never thought about a 9-to-5 job, she now believes something more practical like that instead of freelancing is what she needs. In returning to the Cape, she also reconnects with her childhood friend Mike, who works for his family property management company which has among its properties Lee's summer house. Although Mike likes the Cape and the job, he is contemplating leaving in too running away from memories, his of a recent divorce. He, through a friend, is in the running for a commercial real estate job in London. Sam and Mike had once been on the verge of a romantic relationship, but the timing was not good. Now, the romantic sparks are once again ignited in Mike going out of his way to help Sam with her new photos, and although Mike is more willing to admit those sparks, Sam is a little more hesitant in not wanting to stop Mike from pursuing his supposed dream of London, that which happened in a previous relationship which, when it fell apart, was ultimately used as a point of guilt.