Weihnachtspäckchen ... haben alle zu tragen (2023)

The film tells various stories set in Mittenwald in the run-up to Christmas and during winter, which intersect at several points. The gay couple Julian and Tim, who run a bakery, learn the day before Christmas Eve that their adoption application has been approved earlier than expected and that they can take in their son Jonny that very day. At first, they are rather overwhelmed by the three-week-old baby, who keeps them on their toes. Together, they try to master the challenges of parenthood. Frank drives to Mittenwald to visit a woman. He finds only her neighbor Ruth, who tells him that the woman he is looking for is spending Christmas by the sea. Frank and Ruth get along well, and he decides to stay in Mittenwald for a few days. When Ruth finds out that Frank ran over her neighbor’s husband and killed him, she breaks off contact with Frank. When he continues to wait outside the widow’s house, Ruth speaks to him again and learns his story. She takes him in for Christmas; after the neighbor returns, he will get in touch with her and talk to her. Overweight Henny feels that her mother, Sibylle, is too strict with her, so she would now rather live with her father, Guido, in Mittenwald. When Sibylle’s car is towed away, she spends the evening, and then even the night, with Guido. Later, Henny and Sibylle make up, and the mother accepts her daughter’s decision to move in with Guido. Guido suggests that the three of them have dinner together before Sibylle leaves. Henny and a friend meet 15-year-old Elias, who has run away from home because of his violent father. So he won’t have to sleep out in the cold, the girls hide him in a room at the hotel run by Henny’s friend’s mother. When the boy later wants to continue on to Munich, parcel delivery driver Adika, who himself had to flee years earlier, finds him a place in a supervised group home for Christmas. Adika would like to get to know Tessa, a geriatric nurse, better. He gets the chance when he helps Tessa take two of her elderly patients, Charlotte and Willi, to their beloved Christmas run. Since Tessa has to work over Christmas, Adika, with the help of the two retirees, organizes a Christmas dinner featuring the dishes that were always served at Tessa’s family home. The surprise succeeds, and after dinner, Adika and Tessa kiss in the kitchen. The film closes with John Lennon’s song “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” playing in the background and shows how the people involved spend the evening.