Howard and Marion's nephew Roger Phillips comes to Milwaukee to start a new life. He is clean-cut, straight-laced and quite naive for a college graduate. The Cunninghams give him Richie's old room, but it may take more than their advice to help him fit in to his new surroundings.

On a very snowy Christmas eve, Marion frets over Richie's absence, Fonzie and his friends are stuck in Al's restaurant, and Joanie uses the time spent snowbound with her dad in the hardware store to try to convince him to let her spend summer in New York City with Jenny Piccalo.