To Hard-drinking Govan resident Rab C. Nesbitt, there is no magic to Christmas when you have no money and he cannot share his long-suffering wife Mary or teenage sons Burney and Gash's enthusiasm for the festive season, preferring instead to comment cynically to camera on its commercial trappings. The ultimate betrayal is seeing neighbour and best friend Jamesie Cotter working as a department store Santa, which leads to a fight and a spell in gaol for Rab.

Rab, Burney and Jamesie go to Italy to see Scotland play in the World Cup, taking frail and elderly ex-soccer star Matt Fernie with them. Jamesie gets arrested - and visited by Ella, seeking a separation - but Matt is taken seriously ill before Scotland's final game and Rab must lie to let an old man die happy.

Mary's cousin Shug, who lives in England but gets very Scottish after a skinful, brings his hatchet-faced wife Phoebe to spend Hogmanay with the Nesbitts, who are still feuding after an unhappy Christmas. Shug is in his element at the karaoke, the Chinese and the home brew session...until he sobers up and gets an attack of English conscience. Phoebe, surprisingly, lightens up and invites Mary to a party South of the border where Mrs. Nesbitt enjoys a highland fling of her own.

A Christmas special which finds Rab bewildered at the prospect of becoming a father-in-law as Gash announces his intention of getting married and Jamesie out on the streets as Ella trades him in for a younger model, the hunky Donny. Of course it is down to Rab to put everything back to normal again.

Rab C. Nesbitt returns for the first time in nearly a decade and seems to be a changed man, but can he resist a return to his old ways as Christmas approaches?