Ray Barone is a successful sportswriter living on Long Island with his wife Debra, daughter Ally, and twin sons, Geoffrey and Michael. Ray's meddling parents, Frank and Marie, and brother, Robert, live directly across the street.
Marie gets fed up with Frank after 40 years of marriage and moves in with Ray and Debra. Ray and Robert enjoy being mothered by Marie, while Debra spends quality time with Frank.
When Ray's upper class in-laws come for a visit, he begs his parents to be nice to them. Ray admits to his parents that he doesn't always see eye-to-eye with Debra's folks but manages to fake it, and he'd like his parents to do the same when they all go out and try to have a family dinner.
Ray gets tired of being treated like a kid at his father's poker game, so he decides to ignore his father's advice and ends up losing all his money.
Although Marie has always cooked the traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, Debra decides it's her turn to prepare the holiday meal, but not wanting to compete with Marie's turkey, she chooses to serve fish.
When Ray's free time goes to coaching Nemo's basketball team in preparation for the Pizza League championships, he is reminded by Debra that their kids are growing up fast and he's missing precious time with them.
Ray discovers that the autographed Mickey Mantle ball he got as a kid from his father isn't authentic. Feeling hurt by the fact that his father wasn't truthful about the ball, Ray decides he's going to tell Ally the truth about Santa Claus.
