A Southern minister is assigned to a poor church in California where the congregation is drifting away and the church itself is scheduled for demolition.

Set in Palm Springs during a long, fun-filled weekend where several Los Angeles college students flock to spring break, centering on Jim who finds romance with Bunny, the daughter of Palm Springs harred, stressful police chief. Jim's bumbling roommate, Biff, tries to get Amanda, a tomboyish girl's attention with a so-called love gadget. Meanwhile, Gayle Lewis is a high school senior posing as a wealthy college girl who is pursued by Eric Dean, a wealthy and spoiled college prepie, while Gayle has eyes for a cowboy from Texas, named Stretch. Also Jim and Biff's basketball coach, Campbell, tries to romance Naomi, the owner of the motel where all of the gang is staying at, which is interfered by Naomi's young, trouble-making, brat son who's dubbed, Boom-Boom.

It's Christmas Eve, early 1930s on Walton's Mountain. As the family prepares for the holiday, they anxiously await Pa's return home from his job in the city some 50 miles away. He is late, and Ma and the grandparents hear on the radio a report of a bus accident that worries them. Oldest son John-Boy must step up to help grandfather cut down a Christmas tree, and upon learning the concern about Daddy sets out to find him.