This Christmas

In Los Angeles, Shirley Ann Whitfield, affectionately called Ma’Dere, is the matriarch of the Whitfield family, she with six children: San Francisco residing wife and mother Lisa who feels the need to act as the responsible one in managing her extended family’s welfare, as such sacrificing her own wants in the process; traveling jazz musician Quentin Jr. who the family has not seen in four years; Claude the marine; New York ad exec Kelli who admits she is the selfish one; college student Mel; and Michael (called Baby) who still lives at home while figuring out what he wants to do with his life. Ma’Dere has lived in the family home for a few years now with Joe Black, a church deacon, with Ma’Dere’s husband/the children’s father, Quentin Whitfield Sr., long having left the family to pursue a life as a jazz musician. Because of the pain associated for Ma’Dere, Sr.’s piano sits in the garage untouched. Quentin, being a chip off the old paternal block, is the most disconnected from the …