The Smouse Family Christmas

When Jay Smouse sends Zoe Grant a 911 Mayday panic text, she races to his house expecting a real emergency, only to learn that he needs help getting ready for the annual Smouse Family Christmas Party. Jay's dad, who usually runs the celebration, has been stuck on a business trip and won't be home until later that night, so Jay's Aunt Patty has moved the party to her house at the last minute. Jay wants Zoe to come along and quietly "problem solve," and he even invents a cover story that Zoe's family doesn't celebrate holidays and that he's teaching her the true meaning of Christmas, an idea she flatly refuses to play along with.

Their welcome is rocky. Jay's cousin Vincent opens the door only to declare, "You can't come in. We don't need help," and slams it in their faces. Before Zoe can leave, a crash sounds inside: the family cat, Lunchbox, has toppled the Christmas tree and broken ornaments. Jay and Zoe hurry in, help stand the tree back up, and meet Aunt Patty, who is sweetly welcoming but clearly frazzled. She has lost her glasses, burned the Stollen bread and remade it, and can't remember what she was just doing. Vincent, who baked the Pfeffernuesse cookies himself, insists that he and his mom have everything under control.

In the kitchen, Jay and Zoe discover otherwise. The goose Aunt Patty thought she put in the oven is still sitting in the sink, and a stove burner has been left on and is smoking. Jay, whose dad sent him a checklist, sheepishly admits he invited Zoe because she can cook, even though her experience amounts to one box of brownie mix. As Zoe looks up how to roast a goose, the doorbell rings: Grandma Gina and Grandpa Max have arrived early to help, which nobody wanted. Grandma immediately starts fussing, suggesting Patty needs calming medicine and essential oils, criticizing her for hiring a personal shopper named Blair, and dropping hints about Patty and Vincent moving in with the grandparents. Meanwhile Lunchbox knocks the tree over a second time, and Jay ends up fielding a call from Blair on the phone Aunt Patty forgot on a chair, cheerfully ordering gifts for the grandparents and a burger gift card for himself.

The tension boils over when Grandma calls Patty scatterbrained and says Vincent needs a competent adult to parent him. Vincent shouts at his grandparents to leave his mom alone, then knocks the freshly baked Stollen crashing to the floor, cutting his arm in the process, and flees to his room. Upstairs, Zoe gently suggests to Jay that maybe Vincent really would be better off if they moved, and Jay pushes back hard: on any ordinary day, Patty and Vincent are fine. Vincent goes to school and does his homework, Patty works a remote job and gets groceries delivered, and the thing that stresses her out most is her own parents, so they only ever see her at her worst. Vincent, overhearing, reveals a surprise: dropping the Stollen was no accident. His mom's remade loaf looked fine but would have tasted terrible, and he staged the disaster to spare her embarrassment. Aunt Patty comes up to bandage his arm, and when he anxiously asks if they're moving, she answers firmly, "Grandma is not your mom. I am." They love Odyssey, and they're staying. Zoe apologizes to Vincent for judging him and his mother on the most stressful day of the year, admitting that as a journalist she should have dug deeper, because the two of them are actually a great team. Vincent forgives her, and even Jay jokes that he can't forgive the door slam because "I have reached my kindness quota."

Downstairs, Grandpa raves over the Pfeffernuesse, and when Grandma hints one more time about a bakery job near their house, Patty calmly but firmly tells her parents she isn't moving. She and Vincent have family, friends, and a good simple life in Odyssey, and she asks her mother to please stop asking. Grandma finally agrees. The party ends on a laugh when Zoe reveals that this is not, in fact, her first Christmas, exposing Jay's fib, and she demands his cookies as payment while he protests that he was only easing the tension.