- A holiday fable that tells the story of an elderly man discovering love for the first time.
- As Christmas is approaching, Mary moves in with her daughter Alex/Elizabeth Banks across the street from old, lonely Robert/Martin Landau. Robert works at a supermarket. He meets Mary/Ellen Burstyn when she drops in to check he's OK after seeing his car crashed into the garage. She later invites him out for dinner date, letting him pick the restaurant. Robert asks his colleagues for advice on dating as it's new to him. Manager Mike/Adam Scott helps him out more than once. The date goes well despite Alex's worries and is followed by other dates.—Scott Filtenborg
- Robert (Martin Landau), a lonely elderly man, wraps up a single present to himself, and places it under his Christmas tree. He walks out the front door of his house, leaving it wide open.
Robert goes to his job as a clerk in a grocery store, where an old woman watches him from a distance. He strange boss, Mike, asks to meet with Robert, and pitches him an idea for selling Christmas cookbooks.
When Robert returns home, he is shocked to find the woman from the store in his living room. He angrily yells at her to get out. She calms him down, reassuring him that she is his new neighbor from across the street, and introduces herself as Mary (Ellen Burstyn). She explains that she saw his car in the driveway had crashed into the garage, and that his door was open, so she came in.
Mary soon comes by later and asks Robert if they can go to dinner the next day. He agrees, and is relieved that she will drive, because he did crash his car into the garage before, when he had to use the restroom.
Robert gets excited for his date with Mary, cleaning himself up well. Realizing he is rather nervous, Robert asks Mike and other locals for advice, although most of what they tell him tends to be at odds. Meanwhile, Marys daughter Alex questions her mother about whether the date is a bad idea.
Mary picks up Robert, and he begins to make some awkward compliments on her looks, just as he had rehearsed. Over dinner at a fancy restaurant, they admit they do not like the food and would rather have TV dinners. Mary also admits that she has watched Robert at the store during his break times, when he likes to sketch pictures. With a sudden burst of inspiration after talking about their lives, they promise to never give up.
After dinner, Robert and Mary go on a carriage ride across town, and while she is comfortable, she explains that this is her first date since her husband died. They return to his house, and he puts off kissing her by calling her attention to Christmas carolers. Before she leaves, he stammers to say that their date was wonderful, and she says she would like to see him again the next day.
Robert wakes up the next morning, and begins a mildly manic process of checking his phone to hear from Mary. Some kids come buy selling cheap sleds for charity, and he is so distracted that he buys a bunch. Soon thereafter Mary comes by, and later they go off sledding with glee. Afterward, they go for a walk in the snow, during which Mary invites him to a Christmas Eve party. While appreciating the beauty of the day, Robert becomes maudlin and says that he wasted his whole life; Mary quickly tells him not to think that way.
As Robert keeps ticking days off his calendar on the way to Christmas, he asks Mike to help him buy a present for Mary, and they go on a fun shopping spree. After they return, Alex approaches Robert and mentions that Mary really likes him.
The next day, Mike comes by to tell Robert that he suddenly met someone special the night before, and Robert shares in the excitement of their mutual new romances. Robert tells Mike he wants to spend the day with Mary rather than come to work, which the boss says is fine, and later that day Mary tells Robert that she would like to spend Christmas with him. He confesses to her that hes never spent Christmas with anyone before, and they kiss.
Christmas Eve arrives and Mary takes Robert to a party at her cousins house, where Robert awkwardly tries to mix into conversations. A little girl greets Robert by name, but when he doesnt recognize her, she cries. Robert then sees Mary in a heated talk with a man, and he confronts him, assuming the stranger is her ex-husband or lover, but she explains that he is only a friend.
Mary and Robert walk out into the lightly falling snow, slowly dancing together.
On Christmas morning, Robert is happy to find Mary sleeping in bed next to him. They go on to eagerly open gifts together: he has given her a snow globe, and she has given him a paint set to encourage his art work. She is soon shocked, however, when she opens the gift that he had previously wrapped for himself, finding a gun inside. He explains that he had grown tired and did not want to live alone anymore, so he planned to kill himself on Christmas, but since he met Mary, she changed everything in his life. He tells her he is in love with her, and they embrace.
Later that day, Mike comes over to show Robert that he has fixed his garage, and to his surprise, he brings Marys daughter Alex. All four of them then eat TV dinners together.
In bed that night, Robert tells the sleeping Mary that despite their short time together, he feels like she has been with him his whole life. He says that he will ask her to marry him.
While painting the next day, Robert comes out of a pause and cant find Mary, sending him into a massive panic. Mary returns and tries to give Robert a pill, but he does not recognize her, and he becomes irrationally irate.
Mike and Alex come over and try to help Mary calm down Robert, but he grows so distraught that he runs across the street and barricades himself in Marys house. There he sees on the walls pictures of himself with Mary as a younger couple, and with Mike and Alex as children. He realizes he had forgotten his relationships with all of them, and collapses to the floor.
A flashback next reveals how Mary set up the house across the street for her husband Robert, whose memory had been failing. All this time, their children Mike and Alex had been helping her to maintain the illusion that she was a new love in his life.
At the hospital, Mary brings Robert the snow globe he gave her as a gift, but his mind is almost gone and he has little response. Mary promises that she will love him forever, and she places his wedding ring which she had been wearing back on his finger.
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