Arborville

Joe Haley and his eight year-old-daughter, Sarah, are Christmas fanatics. Every December, their house becomes a winter wonderland: Christmas music, multicolored lights inside and out, and a ceramic village under the Christmas tree. As a construction laborer struggling to pay the bills, Joe is adept at fending off the financial pressure the holiday season brings. But after a mysterious encounter with an elderly homeless man, Joe puts aside his financial burdens and sets out on a mission to give Sarah the best Christmas present she’s ever gotten, her very first bike. One night, while Joe is at work, Sarah surprises him by decorating the entire house. When Joe comes home, he is shocked to find under the Christmas tree, the ceramic village he has not seen for many years. Joe tells Sarah about a tradition he and her late mother had; on Christmas night, over hot cocoa and Christmas music, they would make up elaborate stories about the people who lived in the village. Sarah makes Joe promise that this year, they would revive that tradition. Three days before Christmas, Joe is driving home with Sarah’s present when his truck breaks down, leaving him stranded on a dark, snow-covered road. He goes looking for help but gets lost in the woods, falls down a hill, and knocks himself out. The next morning, Joe wakes up in a doctor’s office and runs to the train station to get the first train out of town. But when the train drops him off at the same station, Joe realizes where he is… ARBORVILLE, the village under his Christmas tree! Joe quickly discovers that the stories he and Sarah’s mother invented about the people of Arborville are actually the stories of their lives: Mrs. Ambrose, the nice old lady who runs the inn, Buck, the mail man who delivers the mail on a dog sled, Benjamin, the talking grizzly bear who loves cupcakes, and yes, even Santa Claus. Joe tries everything he can think of to get out of the village like retracing his steps through the woods or knocking himself out again in the hopes that he’ll wake up from a dream. When all else fails, Joe tries to get Santa to fly him back home. But Santa tells him that what is possible in Arborville is determined by the imaginations of the people in the real world, so even he cannot cross over. Joe’s concern for Sarah’s safety while she’s alone in the real world, prevents him from appreciating the magical gifts of Arborville, like the sky lighting up every night in a magnificent multicolored splendor. That is, until he falls for Emily, the beautiful town veterinarian with a familiar, comforting purity. Through Emily, Joe deduces that the lights in the sky are the lights of his Christmas tree at home. And when the sky lights up, Joe knows Sarah is alright, because she turned on the Christmas tree. Joe returns to the inn for the night and bonds with Mrs. Ambrose over a common tragedy; he lost his wife just after Sarah was born, and she lost her husband when he went ice fishing and fell into the water twelve years ago. Joe is about to give up hope when he discovers that Mrs. Ambrose’s husband, Walter, is the mysterious homeless man he and Sarah met in the real world. Mrs. Ambrose takes Joe to the pond where Walter disappeared, but before he leaves, he promises that he will return and reunite Mrs. Ambrose with her long lost husband. Joe takes a breath and dives into the ice. When he comes back up to the surface, he’s suddenly in a frigid river in the real world. Joe keeps his promise, but when he returns with Walter and Sarah, something horrible starts to happen. The entire Village is being destroyed by some unseen force. Now Joe and Sarah must save not only themselves, but the entire world of ARBORVILLE. As they race to the inn to reunite Walter and Mrs. Ambrose, streetlights topple over, buildings disappear, and giant ornaments rain down from the sky. With help from Buck, the mailman, and his team of sled dogs, Joe and Sarah succeed in getting Walter back to his wife, but the inn is gone! Suddenly, they all hear a rumbling sound and turn to see the inn rolling end over end down the street. When the inn crashes into another building and comes to a stop, they discover a mysterious, plasma-like substance dripping from it. Joe and Sarah take a closer look. They notice an odd smell emanating from the substance. It’s the eerily familiar smell of… dog food. Back at their house in the real world, their dog, Monster, is trouncing through the village like Godzilla. Joe and Sarah now know that they have to get out of Arborville to stop Monster from destroying it. Joe has to once again go through the hole in the ice. But it’s too dangerous to bring Sarah with him so he takes her to the one person who can keep her safe from all the destruction, Santa Claus. Now that Sarah is safely flying above Arborville in Santa’s sleigh, Joe speeds across the village on the dog sled as the destruction continues. Suddenly, POOF! The dog sled vanishes, sending Joe flying through the air and tumbling across the ground. The whole village square is breaking apart when Joe hears the voice of Emily calling out to him for help. Desperate to save Emily, Joe runs into the fray. But before he can get her to safety, she vanishes. Now Joe is trapped on a part of the village square that is falling off the edge of a cliff. In a last desperate effort, Joe runs to the “Wishing Wall” and makes a wish as he is swallowed up in the destruction. But the Wishing Wall, as imagined by Joe and Sarah, actually grants wishes… As Sarah and Santa watch from high above, something changes in Santa. His story has been altered, and now he can cross over! He flies his sleigh into a multi-colored cloud and launches out the other side to the real world. Arborville continues to fall apart until finally, a calm, silent moment. Arborville is no more. Then… buildings start to reappear. Trees stand back up. The village square rises from the bottom of the cliff and mends itself. Arborville returns to the idyllic Christmas village it was. Joe and Emily find each other sunken deep into a snow drift and have their first kiss. When Santa and Sarah return and land the sleigh, Monster jumps out and runs straight toward Emily. He licks her and sits beside her as if she’s his owner. In that moment, Joe realizes why he feels connected to Emily, why she has such a comforting familiarity about her. Emily’s entire being and spirit were born out of the imagination of Sarah’s mother. And when Sarah asks for Emily’s opinion on hot cocoa toppings, she answers “whip cream AND marshmallows,” a quirk that came directly from Sarah’s mother. After spending Christmas day in Arborville, enjoying the magic and beauty, Joe and Sarah return to their home in the real world. Joe keeps his promise to Sarah, and they have hot cocoa by the tree, telling stories about the people of Arborville. But now, Emily has joined their little family, and the spirit of Sarah’s mother will be with them forever.