[Originally sent out December 2021 in 24 Days of Christmas Newsletter, with plot synopses for Hallmark-style holiday movies that I’d like to see.]

Figure skater Josie Lee has sacrificed everything for her skating career, including her high school boyfriend who would have done anything for her. Now she’s back in her hometown after an Olympics disaster where she was robbed of the gold because of a freak fall during a normally flawless routine. She’s not eager to show her face, so she lays low and spends long hours practicing at the ice rink when nobody is around. But she keeps falling. She needs to get her mojo back.

Her high school boyfriend, Ned, married someone else but never forgot Josie Lee, with whom he bonded over their mutual belief in ghosts. Ned’s wife, Arla, runs the town bookstore. When Josie meets Arla, they fall in love instantly. They touch hands at the holiday village hot cocoa stand and make meaningful eye contact, but they can’t betray Ned.

Josie’s high school bully, Wanda, is now the mayor of the town. Wanda was secretly in love with Ned all through high school, and took it out on Josie because Wanda did not know how to deal with negative feelings in a constructive way. And she still doesn’t.

Wanda arranges a town Christmas celebration and sweetly insists that Josie perform at the ice show. Josie agrees because she doesn’t want Wanda to know she’s a failure. But secretly, Wanda is planning to sabotage Josie’s performance. She doesn’t know Josie hasn’t gotten her mojo back and that simply asking her to perform is punishment enough. Wanda’s plan is to make a mask out of Josie’s high school yearbook photo. During Josie’s performance, Wanda will flit through the stands, wearing the mask. Josie will think she’s seeing a ghost of her past self and will fall in front of the whole town. Wanda always bullied Josie for believing in ghosts, and also for picking her nose, so she knows this sabotage plan will work.

Arla is having trouble with the bookstore. Customers are complaining that it’s boring and predictable, like her marriage to Ned. Josie shows up at closing time with art supplies, a box of memorabilia from her skating career, and two steaming mugs of cocoa. The two of them spend the evening decorating the store — and falling deeper in love. They transform the bookstore into a winter wonderland, festooned with paper snowflakes. Josie, exhausted, falls asleep in a beanbag chair. While she’s sleeping, Arla turns the romance section into a tribute to Josie, with her skating memorabilia and a life-size cutout of Josie that Arla had been keeping in the back room.

The next morning, the townspeople are awed by the exciting new bookstore, which Arla and Josie have renamed the Ice Bookstore. They line up to visit — including Wanda and Ned.

Wanda shows up wearing the Josie mask. She doesn’t think Josie will be there, and she’s going to do some pre-show sabotage by picking her nose in the bookstore while pretending to be Josie.

When Ned sees Wanda-Josie, cutout-Josie, and actual Josie, he thinks he’s being haunted. Wanda’s plan worked — but on NED, not Josie. Ned starts to flee, but Arla corners him to make a confession — she loves Josie. “No more Josie!” Ned screams, running out of the store.

Ned doesn’t stop running until the street dead-ends into a sled dog kennel. The sled dogs came to this small town outside Seattle, the largest turkey-producer in the country, to save Thanksgiving when the turkeys were almost abducted by evil cats. The sled dogs triumphed and rescued the turkeys so people could eat them. They liked the town so they decided to stay for a vacation. Now they’re ready to return home to Alaska.

Ned crashes right into one of the dogs, but the dog just licks Ned. Ned buries his face in the dog’s soft fur and feels a powerful sense of comfort and belonging that he’s never experienced before. Suddenly Ned knows, maybe for the first time in his life, what he needs to do.

Back at the bookstore, Arla uses a fishing rod to lift off Wanda-Josie’s mask, and everyone sees Mayor Wanda picking her nose. She’s a laughingstock and nobody wants to come to her Christmas celebration.

Arla invites Josie over for Christmas Eve dinner. The two clink glasses and laugh, but Josie is alarmed when she hears strange noises from the shed. “It’s a ghost!” she cries. But it’s Ned, getting his outdoor gear together because he’s moving to Alaska to follow his newfound dream of caring for sled dogs. “You two have my blessing,” he calls, as he skis away. Josie and Arla share their first kiss under the Christmas tree.

The next day, Christmas, the town center is turned into a giant ice skating rink. In front of the Ice Bookstore, Josie completes her quintuple lutz for the first time since the Olympic trials, and she and Arla hold hands and skate away.