Everett Stone wants to bring his girlfriend, Meredith Morton, to meet his bohemian Connecticut family at Christmas. Straitlaced Meredith, feeling she needs backup, asks her sister Julie to come along. Hoping to win the approval of her boyfriend's parents, Sybil and Kelly, and the rest of the family, instead Meredith succeeds only in highlighting her uptight personality and making Everett doubt his intentions.