Every day is like Christmas for Caroline, a young blond editor at Presents, the shopping magazine. Every day brings more free Guccis and Pradas for her magazine and her closet. But the actual Christmas is a drag: everyone gets presents. And Caroline is feeling the loss of her mysterious father more than ever. Her fabulous designer mother is in dumpy Branson, Missouri, her redheaded assistant Ursula Heep is scheming behind her back, that creepy receptionist Mrs. Defarge won't stop with the knitting, and a 6' 7"" football player named Tiny Tim is obsessed with her.
On Christmas Eve, the ghost of Caroline's dead roommate, Carly, returns to warn that three more spirits are coming. Caroline begins a trip to Christmases past, present, and future, but though she has nine closets, she doesn't have a thing to wear.