Trudie (Melissa Joan Hart) is an aspiring painter working as a restaurant waitress. With the pressure to please her parents (Timothy Bottoms and Markie Post) building, she misses a job interview and gets dumped by her boyfriend just before Christmas, and she has a nervous breakdown. Stressed about going home for the holidays without a boyfriend, she kidnaps David Martin (Mario Lopez), a random customer at the restaurant in which she works and introduces him to her parents as her boyfriend, Nick. Trudie's family is vacationing at a very isolated log cabin miles away from anyone else, so David is unable to escape, although he makes several attempts. He finally decides to play along until the police come, but he ultimately falls in love with Trudie and understands the family pressure that made her feel forced to kidnap him in the first place.