A drug-addicted actress dies from a cocaine overdose and leaves her fellow cast and crew members to set up the funeral.

A famous football player dies of dehydration during a strong training session, and the family is hired for the funeral services.

A man dies after a long battle with cancer, and his psychic widow discusses the funeral arrangements with the family.

Nate and Claire go to Seattle to pick up the body of a man who died on a public bus.

A middle-aged woman chokes to death in her apartment, and is found dead a week later.

While at a boat party, a drunken man falls overboard. The family tries to convince his widow to use their funeral services.

Jewish executive Jeffery Shapiro accidentally hangs himself while masturbating with asphyxiation.

Christmas Eve - and the one year anniversary of Nate and Brenda's meeting and Nathaniel Fisher's death - is approaching, and this year, the Fishers are requested by bikers to allow the funeral home to be open on Christmas Day so they can have a party/memorial service for Jesse Ray Johnson, who was involved in a motorcycle accident on his way to his part-time job as a mall Santa while greeting some kids. The family (and Rico) each remember their last moments with Nathaniel and, in most cases, regret what they didn't do for him before he died. On Christmas Eve Brenda's mother invites Brenda and Nate over for dinner with a "special guest", who turns out to be Billy. Ruth prepares to take Claire to church with David out to visit Keith and Taylor, but they never make it when they enter Nikolai's shop to see it robbed and him shot in the legs with both now broken. Ruth decides, to the chagrin of the family, that he'll stay with them until he can walk, since he has no insurance. Nate is forced to confess his AVM to Brenda when he has a seizure as they sleep together. On Christmas Day, Marrilyn Johnson offers Nate a motorcycle as a gift so he can live every day to the fullest. Toby, Keith, and Taylor are invited for dinner that evening. Rico has a good holiday with his family - until his cousin Ramone arrives to attack him when he's forced to tell Vanessa he's gay and she told his wife. Also, Claire's holiday takes an interesting turn when Toby calls her "hostile" and she drives him away, though she does enjoy keeping in touch with Billy Chenowith.

A construction worker's metal lunch-pail falls from his perch on the building and strikes Dwight Edgar Garrison on the head - resulting in a major family conflict between his current wife and her 2 stepdaughters from his first marriage, on whether he should be buried with his late wife or the widow. Besides having to deal with that, Nate remains unaware that Brenda is still seeing other men but wonders whether she still wants to marry him, or just does out of pity...and whether he should wed at all when Lisa meets him and announces she's pregnant with his child. Claire has doubts about her relationship with Billy, who's also throwing Brenda and her perspective on most of her relationships into confusion. David's relationship with Keith is strong, but Keith's life is troubled when Karla relapses into drugs. Meanwhile, just about everybody finds Nikolai to be a pain while Ruth's working - even Rico loses his sandwich to him. But Ruth is more concerned with the fact that he's in debt to Yuri, a loan shark.

Benjamin Srisal suffers a heart attack at home, requiring a Bhuddist service at Fisher & Sons that Nate gets a crash-course in how to conduct, but he's still got no answers as far as what should be done concerning Brenda and Lisa. Lisa apologizes for her outburst in the store but requests she have full custody of the child, causing him to be haunted by visions of the first child they conceived, as well as all the others he lost to abortion. David and Keith begin to argue again, especially after Karla accidentally hits and kills a homeless man on the street, and Taylor is too shaken to actually keep it secret and tells David under the pretense that it's a joke - David is troubled enough to tell Keith, but feels too guilty to report to the police as Keith does. After hearing her "soul-twin" parents have chosen to remarry, Brenda attends an orgy with Melissa where she sleeps with more than one man but then chooses to blame Melissa for her infidelity so breaks contact with her. Claire considers attending an arts college. Ruth returns Nikolai to his apartment prematurely at his request, but invites him to move in with her.

Edith Kirky is the 4th patient of the year to be brought to Fisher and Sons from Bay Breeze Hospital where Vanessa works, so David predicts Rico's usual pride over the fact...but no one predicts him, suspicious about her neck-markings, to discover a whole hot dog wedged down her esophagus. When informing the authorities, Fisher and Sons is forced to allow them to bring Vanessa and her partner to be examined since they failed to find the hot dog themselves. Rabbi Ari encourages Nate and Brenda to be honest with each other, but Brenda reacts badly when Nate informs her he's going to be a father (though fails to mention she's unfaithful to him) and he later talks about it with Rabbi Ari, who introduces him to a Jewish client, Aaron Buchbinder, who needs a pre-meet since he has pancreatic cancer. Brenda's reaction after criticizing Nate is to get high and sleep with a pair. At Brenda's bridal shower, Bernard Chenowith asks Ruth what she's done as far as Claire's depression, but when Ruth visits Gray Deitman to see if she is depressed, the answer comes as a different sort of shock. David encourages Keith to stand up to his father when he and his mother ask that Taylor come to San Diego to live with them, and David himself is forced to find some inner strength of his own to get Catherine Collins, supported by Mitzi Dalton-Huntley, not to sue them for "emotional distress" after Nate's showing her husband's mutilated body at her request. He doesn't have any qualms about becoming angry with Ruth, though, after she pays all of Nikolai's debt to Yuri just before David and Nate have need of the money themselves.

The Diazes' friend and former neighbor Leticia Perfecta Perez dies in her sleep at a beauty parlor and leaves his family a large sum of money, causing Rico to remember how he lost his father and got into the funeral business to begin with. However, she also leaves behind a son, never close to her in life, who wishes to give her a more expensive casket than her pre-meet's choice and is jealous of Rico. Nate and Brenda attend her parents' remarriage, he goes to cheer up Aaron Buchbinder, and Keith, David, and Taylor are visited by a social worker. Nikoai responds indifferently when Ruth tries to plan what days they'll meet, and while watching a separate movie than he is, she breaks up with him. Claire likes the prospect of attending LAC Arts school but is disappointed that Gary Deitman is about to transfer jobs. The news that Kroehner is bankrupt and undergoing a federal inspection is overshadowed by bad news for both David and Nate - Keith is found innocent for his shooting, but hours later attacks an argumentative abusive husband he investigates and is judged guilty; and Nate reads Brenda's story then recognizes it's not fiction when one of the subjects Brenda slept with from the night before comes by. Nate breaks off his engagement with Brenda just before Lisa calls to inform Ruth his daughter has been born.

Aaron Buchbinder passes away painfully shortly after Nate arrives to visit (after he argues with Ruth about her visiting and photographing his daughter Maya). Kroehner's last act against the Fisher & Sons funeral home is to hire an inspector to examine the place, and they're fined for the problematic drainage system. Nate has a bleed requiring a cranial surgery to cure. Vanessa encourages Rico to ask for permission to be a partner since he has the money to pay the fine, and he's given 25% of it only when Nate reminds David he may need a replacement for Nate. Ruth quits her job at Nikolai's since she feels they can't easily share an environment. Claire goes to an interview at LAC but remembers her father's loss was the reason she began artwork, so cries for the first time since his death. Nate goes by to see Brenda one last time to attempt reconciliation and announce he'll be getting surgery, and finally tells Ruth about the surgery and its cause on their way back from seeing Maya. Ruth, still trying to keep control, insists Claire and David go to the gradation Claire doesn't care about rather than be with Nate. At the hospital, Nate receives anesthesia and dreams that he's running in the desert when a bus pulls up next to him. He boards it to find it's empty and doesn't start moving...yet.