Christmas Cake

With the holiday season drawing near, the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina, are making plans for a cake cookbook -- a project that will hopefully lift the spirits of a beloved member of their close-knit quartet. Margaret Peele is downhearted now that her cancer has returned. All she wants this Christmas is to visit her mother's Texas hometown and to see their absent friend, pastor Charlotte Stewart, who left Hope Springs to run a battered women's shelter.

Well, if that's what Margaret wants, that's exactly what impulsive Beatrice Newgarden Witherspoon will deliver. She locates a very inappropriate, but comfortable, van to transport Margaret, Louise, and Jessie across the country for a Lone Star reunion with Charlotte. And over the course of a remarkable journey they will rediscover the greatest Christmas gift of all: eternal friendship.