The Night Before the Night Before Christmas

It's the Christmas season in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Workaholic married couple and workaholics Angela and Wayne Fox, a magazine photographer and airplane engineer, don't realize that in putting work first, their children, mid-teen Hannah Fox and adolescent Toby Fox, are unhappy. Christmas is treated as an afterthought in their house; Angela and Wayne always argue about who is tasked with Christmas-related chores as they squeeze them in between their work and constant work telephone calls. While Toby does his small measures to have as happy a Christmas as he can under the circumstances, Hannah takes her frustrations out on Toby, the easiest target. Late on December 23, they hear a thud on their roof. What they find is an unconscious man dressed as Santa. They take him in and when he regains consciousness they find that he has amnesia, not remembering who he is or how or why he was on their roof. In reality, he truly is Santa, and a technical problem caused him to crash; he had left the North Pole a day early because of a calendar mixup by his head elf, Nigel Thumb. While Toby is certain that their unexpected visitor truly is Santa, the rest of the family just want to find out who he is. They are not convinced even when Nigel shows up on their door and shows them the sleigh and reindeer in their backyard. With the Foxes' help, Nigel tries to help Santa regain his memory in time for him to make his Christmas Eve trek around the world. Nigel believes that Santa's missing red velvet bag, which magically refills with gifts for all the good boys and girls, is the answer to jogging Santa's memory about who he is. As the Foxes spend time with Santa and Nigel, the question becomes if they will regain the Christmas spirit as a family, whether or not they ever come to believe that their December 23 guest truly is Santa Claus.—Huggo