I believe I do have a timeline of events that you might find informative.
The Nightingale family are celebrating Christmas with a family friend, Monty James.
Patrick opens a Christmas cracker. He reads the joke, but sets his hat aside without putting it on.
His son, Oswald, and daughter, Gally, both protest that he should wear the hat. Even his wife, Lettie, points out that Mr. James is wearing the hat that he won from his own cracker. Patrick is unmoved and does not wear his hat.
Oswald opens his cracker next and is excited to find a kazoo inside. After requesting permission from his father, Oswald attempts to put on his own hat, but it rips as he is doing so.
Gally blames the rip on the large size of Oswald’s head, but suggests that Oswald should take their father’s unused hat. Patrick refutes the idea, saying that Oswald should have taken better care of his hat.
Seeing an opportunity to lighten the mood, Mr. James seizes Patrick’s hat and rips it. The family laughs as Patrick then rips Mr. James’ hat and Gally rips her mother’s one.
Patrick describes this round of hat ripping as “fun in its proper place”.
As the laughter dies down, Gally tells Oswald to let their dog, Toby, out.
At the end of the meal, Patrick reveals to the children that Mr. James is known for his ghost stories, and that he has kindly consented to tell them one now.
Uncle Newt is walking his dog, Monty – named after old family friend Monty James.
Vanessa approaches him and asks that he tell her a story. Uncle Newt replies that he does not know any stories. Vanessa is incredulous, believing that all uncles should know stories. Uncle Newt reminds her that he is not truly an uncle, but just poses as one to get free pipe racks at Christmas.
Instead, Vanessa tells Newt the story of Cinderella. He repeatedly interrupts to question elements of the story, such as the priorities of the Fairy Godmother and the practicality of glass slippers.
When Vanessa has finished, she repeats her insistence that Uncle Newt should learn some stories. He agrees to attend to the matter.
Uncle Newt is telling Jerry a bedtime story. The final line says that the villagers sang “paeans of praise” to their returning hero.
When asked by Jerry, Uncle Newt explains that a paean is “a long poem about how wonderful you are”. Jerry asks if he can have one. Uncle Newt tells him that he can maybe have one for his birthday.
They wish each other goodnight, to which Jerry adds: “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Uncle Newt is babysitting Myra and Deborah. As he is putting them to bed, they plead with him to tell them a bedtime story.
Deborah wants a story about ghosts, while Myra wants a story about gardens. Uncle Newt compromises by telling them a story about a haunted garden.
The Wilkinson family pull Christmas crackers around the table, starting with Vanessa and Uncle Newt. Vanessa wins and immediately takes the hat from inside and rips it up.
She also gets a small plastic cowboy from the cracker, which she gives to her grandson, Benji. Benji is warned not to snatch by his mother, Hilla, who reminds him that “Level 3” behaviour is expected.
Jerry says “onwards and upwards” and nominates Deborah to pull the next cracker.
Deborah chooses to pull her cracker with her grandfather, Walter. Vanessa indicates to Walter that his cracker is on his side plate. Deborah wins, but questions if she has to rip up her hat. She asks if that tradition comes from them being a bit Jewish.
Hilla tells her that lighting the candles is because they are a bit Jewish, but that the hat ripping comes from the Wilkinson side. It transpires that the tradition dates back at least as far as Uncle Newt’s childhood.
Uncle Newt prepares to tell the story of why the family rip the hats, but he is interrupted by a kitchen timer. Hilla bustles out of the room to fetch the pudding, enlisting help from Myra.
On the way to the reception of Myra’s wedding, Uncle Newt, Vanessa, Jerry, Deborah and Russ share a car. They represent five generations of the family.
Deborah is surprised to hear Jerry ask if he should start his speech with a poem, since she had just assumed that he would.
Vanessa and Deborah swap theories about the marital status of the registrar at the service, based on their observations of biro marks and reading glasses.
As they travel, Russ starts to feel unwell. Uncle Newt offers his top hat, should it be needed.
In an attempt to distract Russ, they all start to play a storytelling game by each saying one word at a time, but this fizzles out as Russ feels worse.
Next, they try to think of a song which they all know so that they could sing it to Russ. Uncle Newt is too elderly to know Yellow Submarine and Deborah is too young for Knees Up Mother Brown, but there is one song which spans the generations of the family.
Jerry counts them in and they all sing Woof, Woof, Woof together.
Unfortunately, they cannot prevent the inevitable, and Deborah is forced to apologise to Uncle Newt.
Newt replies: “Oh, not at all my dear. It was a very old hat.”
At Vanessa’s funeral, Deborah leaves Russ in the care of Uncle Newt while she finds her father to prevent him from doing a poem. Deborah leaves Russ with instructions to be “Level 5 good”.
Russ learns Newt’s name, which leads to a discussion of amphibians and, in particular, why turtles are not amphibians. Newt gives him a brief scientific explanation of the difference between reptiles and amphibians, but Russ does not want to hear more.
Instead, Russ asks Newt for a story about Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Having been informed that the turtles names are Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Leonardo, Newt tells Russ a story about turtles in Renaissance Florence.
At Uncle Newt’s funeral, Jerry gives a eulogy in the form of a poem that he has composed about Newt.
In the poem, Jerry tells the audience of the years he spent living with Newt during the war. It was there that Jerry first started writing rhymes, for which Newt would pay him a ha’penny each (on condition that they scan).
He praises Newt as a teacher, storyteller and friend, before concluding with the lines:
Well, since you ask me for a toast…
O Nightingale! O Uncle Newt!