The Holiday Movie Left Right Story

Brooke Callahan was a senior vice president at a very big company in New York, and you could tell, because she walked fast and her coat was the color of oatmeal. She had never once taken a vacation. She had left her last three holiday parties early to answer emails. Her phone was always in her right hand, and her coffee was always in her left.

Two weeks before Christmas, her boss sent her to a tiny town called Pine Hollow, Vermont, to buy the last old bakery left in town and turn it into a parking lot. "In and out," he said. "You'll be back by Friday." If you have ever seen one of these movies, you already know she will not be back by Friday.

Her rental car made it as far as the covered bridge. The GPS said turn left. Brooke turned right, because she was on a call, and slid gently into a snowbank right in front of a bakery with a hand-painted sign: The Rolling Pin, Since 1952.

The baker came out to help. His name was Luke. He wore flannel. He had flour on his left cheek, which he did not know about and which nobody mentioned for the rest of the movie. He pushed her car out of the snowbank with his right hand while holding a tray of cinnamon rolls in the other.

Luke had a daughter named Lily, who was eight and wise beyond her years, the way only children in these movies are. Lily looked at Brooke. She looked at her dad. She looked left, then right, and said, "Are you staying for the Christmas festival?" Brooke said no. Brooke stayed for the Christmas festival.

The festival had everything. A gingerbread contest. A tree lighting. A man in a Santa suit on the left side of the gazebo who looked suspiciously like the real thing. And a town meeting right in the middle of the square, where everyone agreed the bakery must be saved, which was awkward, because Brooke was there to buy it.

She should have told them right then. She didn't. Instead she entered the gingerbread contest as Luke's partner, because his usual partner had left town and Lily had already signed her up in glitter pen.

They built a gingerbread bakery. Brooke did the left wall. Luke did the right wall. The roof slid off twice. On the third try, their hands touched right over the icing bag, and they both looked up at the same moment, and somewhere a violin started playing, even though there was no violin anywhere in town.

They came in second, behind Mrs. Abernathy, who has won thirty-nine years in a row and is rumored to use real gold leaf. It didn't matter. Lily said they were the real winners. Everyone on her left nodded. Everyone on her right nodded. Snow began to fall, right on cue.

And then, of course, it happened. Her phone buzzed in her right hand. It was Preston, her boyfriend from the city, who wore a suit to everything and owned a boat he called "my other office." Preston was in Pine Hollow. Preston was standing on the left side of the gazebo, holding the contract. "Did you tell them yet?" he said, very loudly, right in front of Luke.

Luke's face fell. Lily's face fell. Mrs. Abernathy's face fell, though she was holding a trophy, so it didn't fall far. Brooke tried to explain. Luke turned right around, walked back to the bakery, and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

Brooke left that night. Over the bridge, left at the gas station, right onto the highway. Left lane. Right lane. Left lane, left lane, left lane, stuck behind a snowplow. She was halfway to Connecticut when she pulled into a rest stop, looked at the contract, looked at the gingerbread crumbs still on her oatmeal coat, and turned right around.

She called her boss and quit. She called Preston and broke up with him, which took less time than the quitting. Then she drove all the way back to Pine Hollow and walked right into the middle of the tree lighting with five minutes left before midnight.

"I bought the bakery," she told Luke. He looked crushed. "No," she said. "I bought it. Me. Not the company." She had never taken a vacation, so she had a lot of money saved up. She handed him the papers with her left hand. With her right, she finally wiped the flour off his cheek. It had been there for a week.

The tree lit up. The crowd cheered. Lily cheered loudest. Luke leaned left, Brooke leaned right, and they kissed in the snow right as the clock struck midnight, while the man in the Santa suit winked and a sleigh bell rang somewhere off to the left.

Cue the credits. The movie's over, and so is the story. Whatever gift you're holding right now is yours to keep, and if it smells like cinnamon, that's a very good sign.