et in 1944 Rockport, Massachusetts during the final moments of World War II, I'll Be Home for Christmas focuses on the Bundy family. Head of the family Joseph (Hal Holbrook) and his wife Martha (Eva Marie Saint) await the return of their grown children, who include Mike (Whip Hubley), who has completed all of his combat missions in England and is due to come home for good. His pregnant wife Nora (Courteney Cox) has been living with the Bundys since his departure, and is now awaiting her husband's return while preparing to give birth to their first child, hoping it won't be born until Mike arrives. She eventually gives birth to a baby boy.
Mike's younger brother Terrel (Jason Oliver) is currently in between boot camp and an overseas assignment, and has been at odds with his father his entire life. Meanwhile, the family's only daughter Leah (Nancy Travis) is on a bus home to Rockport, shortly after the violent death of her fiance, when she meets soldier Aaron Copler (Peter Gallagher), who has nowhere else to go for the holidays. They feel attracted to each other, which leads to an invite for Aaron to spend Christmas with the Bundy clan.
Completing the family portrait is 13-year-old Davey (David Moscow), the youngest son who hopes for the war to last for years until he is old enough to experience the action. Another character dominant in the story is Isaiah Cawley (Charles Tyner), a man of the Western Union who delivers telegrams informing people of their loved ones lost overseas.
In a sub-plot regarding Joseph and Martha, the couple stretch their savings and ration stamps to obtain the best trimmings for Christmas dinner, only to be informed by Isaiah of the death of Mike because of a plane crash on Christmas Eve.


I'll Be Home for Christmas has the texture of a Norman Rockwell painting and the ambience of William Saroyan's The Human Comedy. Set in Rockport, Massachusetts (where this TV movie was filmed), the story takes place during World War II. Hal Holbrook and Eva Marie Saint are the parents of three grown children, all of whom are involved in some capacity with the defense program. Oldest son Whip Hubley is a bomber pilot, daughter Nancy Travis is a "Rosie the Rivetter," and younger son Jason Oliver has just enlisted. The film doesn't miss a trick, from the presence of the daughter's soldier-boy sweetheart to the crucial wire from the War Department. Its expected cliches aside, I'll Be Home for Christmas is meticulous in its recreation of the Yuletide of 1944; the film is perfect Christmas Eve TV fare, and never mind that it originally premiered on December 12, 1988. ~