The Santa Con

Using his professional talents on the prison warden and board, con man Nick DeMarco is granted early parole. One person who can see right through Nick is his sister Rose, who is nonetheless forced to take him in temporarily. As a job is a condition of Nick's parole, Rose manages to get him a short-term one in view of her mall coffee-stand as a mall Santa, and he reluctantly agrees. What Rose can see as his first major screw-up (in his narcissism he doesn't even realize he did it), is, as Santa, promising to grant a boy's Christmas wish that his estranged parents will reunite by Christmas, which is a week away. Out of circumstance, Nick, confused over his error with the boy, turns to God in the form of Ruth, the pastor at a church in the neighborhood, and she convinces Nick that to truly make amends for his misdeeds, he must try to grant the boy's wish despite not even knowing who the boy is or what his parents' circumstances are. With Rose's help, finding out the "whos" is the easy part: the boy is 7-year-old Billy Guthrie, and his not-yet-divorced parents are Web designer Carol Guthrie and ad man John Guthrie. Again using his professional talents with a little help from Rose and his ex-con former prison mate Paul Greenberg, Nick is able to infiltrate their individual lives and discover that Carol still loves John, but John seems to love whiskey more: when given an ultimatum, he chose drinking over family. In the process, Nick becomes emotionally invested in their lives--and he also starts to fall for Carol.