Man With A Plan – Winter has Come

In this week’s episode of Man with a Plan, Adam (Matt LeBlanc) and his brother Don (Kevin Nealon) do not want to untangle the Christmas lights. They would rather watch the game. They decide if they plug in the lights and they light up, they will untangle. If not, they will watch the game. The lights flicker off and on until they do not turn back on. Andi (Liza Snyder) walks in with a huge smile on her face. She is thrilled about the holiday season that Adam has given her the nickname Christmas Andi.

Andi has a lot of plans for making Christmas special, but Adam tries to get her to tone it down. She is worried that the kids will feel that Christmas is different this year because she went back to work so she is determined to make Christmas extra special. Unfortunately for Adam, the Christmas lights turn back on so he has to untangle them.

As he untangles the lights, Don suggests that he should recruit one of the grandparents to do the Christmas planning so Andi will get her perfect Christmas and Adam does not have to spend the next three weeks doing all the Christmas preparations. Adam decides to call Andi’s parents to set up his plan because he is afraid that Andi will question his motives if he brings it up with her. He tells her dad to give Andi a call about coming to Virginia Beach for Christmas, but tells him not to tell Andi that it was his idea.

Andi does get the call from her parents and tells Adam about the invitation to Virginia Beach. Adam pretends that he did not know. Andi feels they should decline, but Adam points out that if they go that her parents will handle all the Christmas planning and they can take it easy. Andi starts to like the idea and starts planning the trip to Virginia.

As the weeks go by, Adam and Andi have everything set to go to Virginia. Their annoying neighbors, the Robertsons, are spending their Christmas in Hawaii. First, they stop by to give their house key to the Burns family who will keep an eye on their place while they are away. Adam’s and Andi’s eldest daughter Katie (Grace Kaufman) and Sasha Robertson are not friends. Sasha started a rumor that Katie’s hair is a wig so the girls are not on good terms.

On Christmas Eve, Andi is watching the news and learns that a major blizzard that was supposed to hit New York hit them in Pittsburgh instead. All the airports are closed so they cannot fly to Virginia. Plan B is to drive, but the car will not start. Even if it did, there is an announcement that the roads are closed. When everyone goes back inside the house, Andi calls her parents to tell them they cannot come to Virginia for Christmas. Andi’s dad tells her that Adam was who came up with the idea for Christmas in Virginia. When Andi hangs up, she is angry. Adam tries to say that they are both victims of bad luck because the blizzard ruined their Christmas plans. Andi disagrees and says that he used her parents to get out of planning Christmas. Adam admits it, but says that Andi can go overboard with her Christmas planning. Even though they are both disappointed, Adam assures her that they can still have a wonderful Christmas at home. Being in Christmas Andi mode, Andi can not stay angry for long and starts thinking of things they can do with their limited resources. Emme (Hala Finley) bursts their happy bubble when she asks where will Santa put his presents if they do not have a tree. Her parents try to tell her that Santa might not come because he thinks they will be in Virginia. This girl is a true believer. She wrote Kris Kringle eighteen letters so she cannot be fooled by her parents. “He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows we’re in Pittsburgh.”

Andi rushes upstairs to see if she can find some backup presents for the kids and comes up empty. Adam tells her that he will go out to look for presents while she focuses on the decorations. When he returns home, Andi and the kids have decorated her drying rack as a Christmas tree. Teddy (Matthew McCann) has used his Transformer action figures for a Nativity scene.

When Andi follows Adam into the kitchen, he brings her the presents he bought at a gas station which was the only place that was open and in walking distance. He bought taquitos for Katie, a pool toy for Emme and a funnel for Teddy. Andi knows only Teddy will be satisfied with his present. Emme comes into the kitchen excited that Santa will come because they now have a tree. After she leaves, Andi goes back to being mad at Adam for putting them in this situation.

Emme puts out cookies for Santa and sees her father in the living room. Adam tries to tell Emme again to keep her expectations low about Santa, but the girl has faith in Santa Claus. She only believes that he will be a no-show if she has made the naughty list and Adam can not let her believe that so he does not press the issue.

On Christmas morning, the Burns children run into their parents’ room excited to open their presents. Adam and Andi are not looking forward to seeing the devastation on their faces so the walk downstairs slowly. Andi is surprised to see that they have a real tree and lots of presents under it. She pulls Adam to the side to ask him how he did it. He helped himself to the Robertsons’ tree and presents and left them a taquito stuck in their air vent. Andi is happy that she has the perfect Christmas moment with her family.

In the closing moments, Katie gets the best present of all– Sasha Robertson’s diary. It turns out she did a good a nose job. “It’s a Christmas miracale after all.”