Christmas Bedtime Stories

The film opens with Danielle, a teacher on a Marine base, preparing for a Christmas toy drive alongside her boyfriend Pierce, an executive at a toy company. Pierce proposes to Danielle, and while she accepts, she feels a lingering hesitation and insists on discussing it with her daughter, Audrey, first. Audrey is struggling with the upcoming father-daughter dance, as she barely remembers her father, Colby, who was declared dead after his plane crashed in the Gulf of Aden three years prior. To comfort her, Danielle begins telling Audrey nightly bedtime stories about how she and Colby met and fell in love, starting with a 'meet-cute' at a Christmas tree lighting where Danielle helped Colby fix a short circuit. As these stories progress, Danielle experiences a series of 'signs' that feel like messages from Colby: she finds a bell ornament that had been missing for years, she encounters an old friend from her wedding out of nowhere, and a freak snowstorm occurs that perfectly mirrors the weather on the day Audrey was born. Danielle becomes increasingly convinced that Colby is trying to communicate with her. She visits General Anderson to ask if there is any chance Colby survived, but he assures her that all intelligence points to his death. Despite trying to move forward by picking a wedding date with Pierce, Danielle realizes she cannot commit to a new life while her heart is still tied to the past. She breaks off the engagement with Pierce, who gracefully accepts that they are in different places. Shortly after, news breaks of a prisoner rescue mission in Yemen. Though the General initially tells her no Americans were found, Danielle attends the father-daughter dance with Audrey. During the dance, Colby miraculously appears in the doorway, revealing he had been held captive in a compound and escaped during the raid. The film concludes with the family reuniting and Colby promising to never leave again, fulfilling his vow to 'move heaven and earth' to get home.