X

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

Continue with Facebook Continue with email

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

Trading Christmas

The Christmas season is approaching. In South Woodbourne, Washington, widowed second grade schoolteacher Emily Spengler loves the Christmas holidays, as do all the townsfolk, and the traditions she had built with her now deceased husband, Frank, who passed away almost three years ago, and her now grown daughter, Heather. As usual, she is expecting Heather to come home for the holidays from Boston, where she is going to school. In Boston, Massachusetts, novelist and English professor Charles Johnson is an unsentimental man, who, like his workaholic brother Ray, owner of his own lucrative business, doesn't celebrate the season. Emily and Charles meet on a house swapping website as they decide to do a one week swap with each other in the lead up to Christmas. Emily wants to go to Boston to be with Heather, who has told her that she isn't planning on coming home for the holidays. And Charles is having problems meeting deadlines for his latest novel and needs somewhere quiet and out of the way to complete his writing. Their house swap doesn't end up being anything as they expected, first and foremost because of the Christmas spirit either missing or overwhelming the other's house. In Boston, Emily learns upon her arrival that Heather has left town with her boyfriend, Jason, Heather who seems to be trying to test her adult wings without Emily's influence. But Emily meets Ray, the two who slowly fall for each other. They will have to determine both their professional and personal futures past this week, and if the other person factors into that future. And in South Woodbourne, divorced corporate events planner Faith Kerrigan, Emily's best friend from San Francisco, shows up on Emily's doorstep planning on keeping Emily company during the holidays in Heather's absence. Out of circumstance, Faith is forced to stay at the house with Charles for the better part of the week. The question with the two is whether they will both survive each other's company for the week, as it is hate at first sight, that perception based largely on the negative way their most recent respective relationship ended.

Loading. Please wait...

Content not available in your region? ExpressVPN can help you stay connected wherever you are. Get 4 extra months FREE with TV Guide's exclusive offer.

Cast & Crew See All

Tom Cavanagh
Charles
Faith Ford
Emily
Gil Bellows
Ray

You May Also Like See All

Celine and Julie Go Boating
Pinocchio
Singin' in the Rain
City Lights

Popular Movies See all movies

History of the World: Part I

1 hr 32 mins
Mel Brooks brings his one-of-a-kind comic touch to the history of mankind covering events from the Old Testament to the French Revolution in a series of episodic comedy vignettes.
47   Metascore
1981 Comedy, Documentary, Music

Solo Mio

1 hr 36 mins
After being left at the altar in Rome, a man decides to go on his honeymoon alone.
48   Metascore
2026 Comedy, Drama

Popcorn Porn: Watching 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno'

1 hr 14 mins
This film follows the making of Kevin Smith's latest film, Zack and Miri Make A Porno.
2009 Documentary, Comedy

Bugonia

1 hr 58 mins
Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.
72   Metascore
2025 Comedy, Suspense, Science Fiction

Yoh! Bestie

1 hr 35 mins
Thando is perpetually unlucky in love, but when her bestie returns from his travels with a fiancée in tow, she's forced to face a new emotion — jealousy.
2026 Comedy, Drama

The Wrecking Crew

2 hr 4 mins
Estranged half brothers Jonny, a volatile suspended cop, and James, a disciplined Navy SEAL, who reunite after the mysterious death of their father, private investigator Walter Hale. Initially indifferent and long out of contact, the brothers are forced together when Yakuza operatives begin hunting for a package Walter supposedly sent, pushing them into a dangerous investigation that leads them from Oklahoma to Hawaii. As they dig deeper, they uncover buried family secrets, criminal conspiracies, and the truth behind Walter's murder, all while struggling to rebuild the fractured bond between them.
67   Metascore
2026 Action & Adventure, Comedy, Suspense