Although she loves her job as an event planner for successful Gail Lane in New York City, the company which Gail tells her directly will someday be hers in being the best of her staff, Rachel Davis, if being true to herself, would admit the job was a fallback in none of her children’s books being accepted for publication. With an event canceled at the last minute, Gail gives Rachel an unexpected and unusual break over the Christmas holidays, allowing Rachel and her adolescent daughter Ava to return “home” to spend Christmas with Rachel’s parents and sister Maggie in Pigeon Hole, Tennessee, Rachel and Maggie who grew up in the proverbial shadow of Dollywood where Maggie now works in administration. It is Maggie that arranges for Rachel, on behalf of Gail’s company, to interview to handle the thirtieth anniversary Christmas event at Dollywood, it arguably the biggest event Rachel would have worked on if awarded it in having a national scope. It is when Rachel arrives at Dollywood that she meets Luke Hackman, who she initially believes is interviewing for the same job, but who is actually the Director of Operations at Dollywood, he who is interviewing for the open General Manager position. In meeting with the Board after their respective interviews, Rachel and Luke are both dismayed to learn that they have been appointed co-organizers of the thirtieth anniversary event, that dismay due to both having differing views and working styles. Eventually able to overcome their antagonism, Rachel and Luke begin to work harmoniously together in realizing that they are working toward not only the same goal of a successful event, but that success which would springboard them to their end goals of putting Gail’s company on the national map and Luke getting the GM position, respectively. In the process, Rachel and Luke start to fall for each other. Their path to a happily-ever-after is hindered by their diverging life paths, Rachel’s whose is in New York City working toward a higher position in Gail’s company, and Luke who is struggling with accepting a sure thing in an offer as GM at Wild West Amusements in Atlanta, that struggle especially as he begins to suspect the GM position at Dollywood won’t be his and despite his heart being at Dollywood.