The film, which stars Hal Holbrook and Eva Marie Saint, deals with the lives and relationships of a Massachusetts family during the final Christmas of World War II.

Head of the family Joseph (Hal Holbrook) and his wife Martha (Eva Marie Saint) await the return of their grown children, who include Mike (Whip Hubley), who has completed all of his combat missions in England and is due to come home for good.

His pregnant wife Nora (Courteney Cox) has been living with the Bundys since his departure, and is now awaiting her husband's return while preparing to give birth to their first child, hoping it won't be born until Mike arrives.

Meanwhile, the family's only daughter Leah (Nancy Travis) is on a bus home to Rockport, shortly after the violent death of her fiance, when she meets soldier Aaron Copler (Peter Gallagher), who has nowhere else to go for the holidays.

Another character dominant in the story is Isaiah Cawley (Charles Tyner), a man of the Western Union who delivers telegrams informing people of their loved ones lost overseas.