Jingle All the Way 2(2014)

SHORT VERSION:
After finding out that Larry is getting Noel a Harrison Talking Bear for Christmas, Victor sends Welling – the chief of security at his Baxter Box Company – out to every toy store in town to buy up all of the bears so Larry can’t get one, intending to gift the bear to Noel himself, and he has all of the bears stashed in a storage room in his company’s warehouse. Larry eventually figures out what he did and where he put the bears and confronts him in said storage room, but when he attempts to take a bear and flee to the tree lighting ceremony taking place at town hall so Noel will get her bear now instead of at Christmas, he and Victor end up locking themselves in the room. They subsequently have a fight, but they eventually calm down and have a serious chat that ends with them both agreeing that they need to figure out a way to get along for Noel’s sake. Meanwhile, Welling is openly confronted at the tree lighting by a reporter who found evidence that he is responsible for the town’s shortage of Harrison Bears, and due to both her persistent questioning and the townsfolk demanding that he tell the truth, he confesses that he bought all of the bears on Victor’s orders, causing Victor and his company to become reviled.

Larry and Victor manage to bust out of the storage room, but when Victor calls up Trish to let her know that he and Larry are on their way to meet her and Noel at the tree lighting, she informs him of how he has essentially become the town pariah because everyone thinks that he bought up all of the Harrison Bears so that no one else could have one, so it would be best for him to not come here. Shortly after she hangs up, Larry tells Victor that he has an idea that will take him from town pariah to town hero. They thus get a delivery truck and load all of the bears into it, then go down to the tree lighting and give away all of the bears for free to anyone who wants one, claiming that this was all a surprise that Victor had been planning for a long time. The children get their bears, and the good names of Victor and his company are restored.

While Larry, Victor, Trish, and Noel are celebrating Christmas Day in Larry’s trailer, Larry and Victor give Noel her own Harrison Bear, but much to their confusion, she is not all that thrilled about receiving it. When Larry reads out her badly-written letter to Santa to her and how it apparently says that she wanted a Harrison Bear, she points out that he misread it; it reads that all she wants is her family together as one, and she got her wish because they are all here.

LONG VERSION:
After Victor (Brian Stepanek) finds out that Larry (Larry the Cable Guy) is looking for a Harrison Talking Bear to give to Noel (Kennedi Clements) for Christmas (thinking that that is what she wants after sneaking a peek at her badly-written letter to Santa that she only wanted Santa to see), he has Welling (Eric Breker) – the chief of security at his Baxter Box Company – go to every toy store in town with the company credit card and buy every bear available so Larry will fail in his task (which he has called “Operation: Who’s Your Daddy”), plus Welling follows Larry around to various places that are offering the bear for free or as a prize and bribes people to ensure that he doesn’t get it. The night before Christmas Eve, Larry and his friend Claude (Anthony Carelli) try to buy one of the bears from a disgruntled toy store worker scalping a bunch of them out of a dilapidated warehouse with his henchman, but this fails when the police show up and arrest the crooks and the bears get impounded as evidence.

The following day, while Larry and Claude are having a meal at Maggie’s (Rachel Hayward) diner, Larry tells Claude and Maggie that he has accepted that it is ridiculous for him to compete with Victor for Noel’s affection and that there is plenty of room for both of them in her life, and he is willing to make peace with him at the tree lighting ceremony taking place tonight at town hall. Suddenly, Maggie directs Larry’s and Claude’s attention to a news report airing on the diner’s TV, where reporter Margo Price (Brenda Crichlow) is informing the viewers that there are no more Harrison Bears anywhere in town. She then mentions that, according to various reports and eyewitness accounts, there were plenty of those bears in stock as recently as a few days ago, but they were bought up by the same unidentified white male in large lots, possibly so they could be sold on the black market to desperate parents. After Claude remarks that someone would have to have a whole lot of money to buy every Harrison Bear in town, Larry comes to think that Victor had something to do with this because he has a whole lot of money, and he draws the conclusion that Victor must have read Noel’s letter as well and knew that he would go out looking for one of those bears. After voicing both of these beliefs to Claude, he tells him that he is taking off and will see him later at the tree lighting, explaining that, if Victor has indeed been buying all of the Harrison Bears, he knows exactly where he is keeping them, and he is going down to that location right now to get one of them.

Larry goes to the Baxter Box Company building at around closing time pretending to be a deliveryman and carrying a package for Victor, and he tells the receptionist in the lobby that the package must be given to Baxter immediately and that it has something to do with Operation: Who’s Your Daddy (Noel had mentioned this project name to Larry in a conversation they had a couple of days ago and said that Victor was awfully busy with it). He then asks her where the bathroom is, and after she points out where it is, he heads down to it and hides in it. Victor then comes into the lobby as he is finishing up a phone call to Trish (Kirsten Robek), telling her that he is on his way to meet her and Noel at the tree lighting ceremony, and the receptionist hands him the box and tells him that it is for Operation: Who’s Your Daddy. Moments later, he heads in the direction of the company’s warehouse and passes by the bathroom while doing so, and Larry silently follows him until he reaches the door of a storage room. When Victor heads inside, we see that he has all of the Harrison Bears stored in there, and after he opens the package and discovers that it just contains a head of cabbage, Larry announces himself. After getting over his surprise at the sight of all of the bears in the room, he tells Victor that he knows now that he bought up all of these bears so he couldn’t get one for Noel, and Victor doesn’t deny it. Larry accuses him of getting back at him this way in order to ensure that Noel doesn’t get the Christmas she wants, but Victor corrects him by saying that she will indeed be getting one of these bears tomorrow, only it will come from her stepfather and not her father. Larry then grabs one of the bears and tells Victor that he is taking this down to the tree lighting ceremony so Noel will get her bear tonight, then briefly distracts him before making a break for the door. After Larry grabs the handle, Victor puts him in a waistlock and tries to pull him away, but this causes him to break off the handle. Victor informs him that they are now locked in this room, and what’s worse, they are stuck here until the company reopens in two days. Angered at this turn of events, Larry tackles Victor right into a stack of the bears, starting a fight with him that sees them both using the bears as weapons.

At the tree lighting ceremony, Welling is found by Margo Price and publicly asked for a comment about the sudden shortage of Harrison Bears. When he claims to be unaware of that, Margo brings up her discovery of how the bears were bought in bulk and were signed and paid for with a Baxter Box Company credit card by someone named “N. Welling”. Welling denies being the “N. Welling” she mentioned and says that he has no need to buy that many bears since he has no children of his own, so Margo asks if Victor would have something to do with this. He replies that he wouldn’t, so she then asks him if this is something that he is doing on his own. During all of this, the crowd focuses their attention on Welling, and they soon get hostile with him, telling him that he ruined Christmas for their children. Growing very nervous, Welling tells them all that he was not trying to ruin anyone’s Christmas, and after Margo asks what he was really trying to do, the crowd demands that he tell them the truth. Welling cracks under the pressure and confesses that Victor made him buy up all the bears, causing the crowd to start denouncing Victor and his company, and Welling ends up being forced to flee when the crowd starts to pelt him with candy canes.

Meanwhile, Larry puts a stop to his fight with Victor and tells him that he started this whole mess earlier in the film by talking about what they were going to do for Christmas right in front of Noel. Victor admits that he knows now that that was a mistake, but he explains that it was his first Christmas with her and he wanted it to go well, especially considering that he has never been a father before. Larry derisively reminds him that he is her stepfather, and Victor replies that he hates how he says that in that negative tone because he makes it sound like a label for a lesser lifeform. He then tells Larry that it is not easy competing with him because he thinks that Larry is the “perfect dad”, but he only regards him as such because, by apparently avoiding any semblance of responsibility, he is always happy and relaxed, and since he works as little as possible, he is always free to take Noel places and do things with her. Larry replies that, while he may look like a failure to him, he pays all of his taxes, doesn’t owe anyone a cent, never took a handout, and lives up to his end in supporting Noel, and he is not going to apologize for any of that. However, he has great difficulty explaining those things to a little girl who has a stepfather that lives in a mansion, has his own chef, and can buy her anything she wants anytime she wants it. Victor interprets this to meaning that Larry thinks that he is too successful, so he informs him that he never took anything from anybody either and has worked hard for what he has. Larry replies that he is not begrudging his success because it isn’t about that; it’s about Noel and how he can’t compete with him. He lastly tells Victor that, while he is not sure that he is ever going to learn to like him (to which Victor replies that the feeling is mutual), they are stuck with each other because of Noel, so they have to figure out a way to get along. They soon manage to bust out of the storage room thanks to Larry getting one of the room’s forklifts running and driving it through the commercial door, and as they start to make their way towards the main entrance, they mutually agree to spend Christmas Day with Noel and Trish at Larry’s trailer.

In the midst of their departure, Victor calls Trish and tells her that he and Larry are together and are on their way to meet her and Noel right now, but she informs him that it isn’t safe for him to come down to the town hall. She explains that everybody has gotten the idea that he bought up all of the Harrison Bears so that no one else could have one, and now he and his company have become reviled by everyone here at the tree lighting, so it would be best for him to not show his face here. After they reach the lobby, Victor complains to Larry that he has just destroyed his family’s good name in this town, and he tells Larry that he is going to head home and barricade his doors in preparation for the angry mob. However, after casting his eyes on the Santa Claus mannequin in the lobby, Larry tells him that they are going down to the tree lighting because he has an idea, and if it works, Victor will go from town pariah to town hero.

Sometime later, Larry pulls up in front of town hall in a Baxter Box Company truck with Victor riding in the container, and the angry townspeople soon surround it. Larry gets out and quiets the hostile crowd with help from Claude and Maggie, and he tells the crowd that they have been given some inaccurate information about Victor and his company. He says that Victor is here to make Christmas better, not ruin it, and that this whole thing was a surprise by the Baxter Box Company that has been planned for a long time. He then directs the crowd to the container door and opens it, where Victor is shown dressed as Santa Claus and he has all of the bears in there with him, and Victor announces to the crowd that he is offering these bears for free to anyone who wants one. He and Larry then hand out the bears to the children, and the reputations of Victor and Baxter Boxes are restored.

The next morning, Larry, Victor, Trish, and Noel are celebrating Christmas in Larry’s trailer as planned, and Noel gets a Harrison Bear of her own from her father and stepfather. However, much to their confusion, she is not all that thrilled about receiving it. Victor asks her if that bear was the one she asked for in her letter to Santa, and when this prompts Noel to accuse Larry of breaking the promise he made to her regarding the letter, he and Victor come up with a rather lame excuse for looking at it that Noel buys. Larry then pulls out the letter and reads it to Noel the way he read it the first time, but Noel points out to him that he actually misread it; it actually says that all she wants for Christmas is her family together as one, and she got her wish because they are all here. Come time to have Christmas dinner, they find out that the turkey has unfortunately been burned to a crisp, so they all agree to go out for dinner. However, neither Larry nor Victor can decide where to eat at.