A man reflects on the loneliness of his childhood home, where his family would fervently clean the house every Saturday for guests on Sunday who would never show.

When a young Italian girl goes on vacation for Christmas with her family, her father splurges on her in Verona, and she decides that this is what true happiness is for a child.

Just before an American college student is set to leave for the airport after visiting her extended family in Ethiopia, she realizes her suitcases are too heavy. A fight breaks out between her relatives about what items should travel with her at their behest, versus which ones deserve to be left behind.

On the day of her mother's funeral, a young woman reminisces about the summers during her childhood spent with her family and friends at their lakeside cabin. As she considers her parents' nontraditional relationship, she also wonders about her own love life.

After experiencing what should have been the most idyllic childhood, four siblings must learn how to assimilate back into the real world.

A divorced woman reckons with losing the closeness that she took for granted in her marriage when her ex-husband and his new wife come to visit.

A woman comes home dreading her grandmother's funeral, but she finds that moments of shared sorrow allow families to come together and celebrate life.

When a mother of three children visits her home country of South Africa for Christmas, her depression at how her life has failed her renders her neglectful, putting both her eldest child and sister in irreparable danger.

Over dinner, an observer reflects on mothers and their omnipresent prevalence in children’s lives.

A father tells a story about his deceased wife and the wild traditions they used to have involving alcohol as well as the disapproval his mother-in-law had about their relationship.