After the recent loss of her son Sean, Patty Addison devotes herself to finding homes for needy children. The loss of their son has strained Patty's relationship with her husband Mark, but they reconnect emotionally when they take in Emily, a 9-year-old orphaned in a car accident similar to the one that killed Sean. At the same time Dr. Nathan Andrews is trying to find the parents of a boy who died in the ER, and Mark is trying to help one of his son's friends.

Felix Funicello is a Catholic school fifth-grader in 1964, whose claim to fame is his cousin Annette Funicello, the famous Mouseketeer and teen movie queen. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin' and Hopin' barrels toward one outrageous Christmas!