The Ballards, Ulysses (called “Lessy Boy” ) and Curleen, welcome family and friends into their Kentucky mountain home to celebrate Christmas Day, 1937.  In the midst of the Great Depression, they have no gifts to exchange. Instead, they enjoy sharing their love of Appalachian music and the gift of fellowship and good food. Among the holiday guests are the local moonshiner, Lessy Boy's's widowed sister and her mentally disabled but musically gifted son, their eldest daughter Della, her coal miner husband, and their two children, and the new, young, unmarried pastor on whom the family's spinster daughter, Dovey, has pinned her matrimonial hopes. Unexpectedly, Dewey Joe, the Ballard’s son, arrives with his young, very-soon-to-be-a-mother wife, Joy Lynn. He left the family fold two years prior in order to escape a certain and undesirable fate in the coal mines. He has returned to make amends with his parents, but Curleen, deeply wounded by his disappearance, is less than welcoming.  When it seems as if Curleen may never be able to find peaceful reconciliation with her son, a Christmas miracle opens up a new possibility of forgiveness.

The score is made up of authentic hymns,carols, and secular tunes that would have been popular in Appalachian homes prior to 1940. In addition, there are two original songs in the style of the period by DJ Salisbury and David Lutken.