When an ambitious businessman gets in a scuffle with a ref at his son's basketball game, he is suspended from his job and sentenced to community service, manning a red kettle and ringing bells for the Salvation Army for the rest of the Christmas season. At first he finds this humiliating, and in his self-pity determines to be the world's worst bell ringer. But as he encounters the people behind the kettle, his life, and especially his relationship with his son, is changed.