Journalist Taylor Nichols and army infantryman Captain Luke Malone meet one Christmas Eve in returning home, to the town where he grew up and where his parents still live, and where her grandfather has long lived, he being her sole surviving family. Taylor lost the Christmas spirit when her mother passed several years ago on Christmas Eve. While Luke is able to lift her Christmas spirits in their short encounter, they don't ever expect to see each other again. But when they meet exactly one year later in a similar circumstance in both going home for Christmas, they get a chance to get to know each other and in the process start to fall for each other. Their next several Christmases are shown as they advance in their respective careers and as they indeed have fallen in love with each other. The question becomes whether Luke's military life will be an obstacle in them getting together, especially as his latest assignment, a potentially dangerous one, has him half way around the world in a remote locale.