A Cheerful Christmas

Generally speaking, I’m trying to keep up with the new movies for 2020. We are now officially in a stretch where there is a new movie every day for 10 days straight, and I am not mentally or emotionally prepared for it. That being said, sometimes I tape really really bad movies from prior years at 2am that I like to share with you for the laughs. See: Baby’s First Christmas. This one is not Baby’s First Christmas bananas from a plot perspective, but it was a movie where every single person involved had totally phoned it in, which made it utterly fascinating.

In A Nutshell

We open with two blonde ladies who are best friends and have gone into business together as professional Christmas helpers. I’m kind of confused by this business model – do they only work two months of the year? Do they make other holidays magical as well? Unclear. Blonde Lady 1 is on the phone with a client and saying they will do everything possible to make it snow on Christmas. Sure, seems like a good promise to make. Then she gets off the phone and tells the other blonde lady they should toast with some eggnog because they opened their business four years ago today. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORK DAY? You’ve just got eggnog out and at the ready? I’m assuming it’s boozy eggnog, or why are you toasting with it? I’ve got questions already and we are less than 5 minutes in. They reminisce about their first ever client, where they seamlessly blended Irish and Hungarian Christmas traditions to help a family make a magical Christmas. Ok, what is even happening right now?

Blonde Lady 1 then checks her email, and says “Oh my gosh, we booked THE Andersons!” Blonde Lady 2 is understandably confused until Blonde Lady 1 explains that THE Andersons are 53rd in line for the throne (British throne, I assume?). I’m no expert in royal bloodlines, but I’m pretty sure that no one knows the royal lineage well enough to casually know who is 53rd in line for the British throne. Blonde Lady 1 thinks that this will catapult their business to the next level as THE Andersons refer them to other rich and famous and mildly royal clients.

I think part of the problem is that both of these actresses are just really not great. Now I try to be fair around here. I do not expect Oscar-caliber performances. In fact, if you are an actor of a certain stature, I get worried about you if you appear in these movies (still want to know if Danny Glover is ok). But we have a stable of cute and plucky actresses to pull from who can deliver a line, and these girls sadly are not it. It literally felt like this was the last movie Hallmark was making in 2019 and the lead actress had to pull out because she booked a three episode guest arc on Grey’s Anatomy and then one of the assistant directors was like “My cousin was on an episode of Saving Hope once!” And everyone said, “Sure, why not, bring her in! Let’s knock this out so we can all go home.” (Did I look up the name of a super Canadian TV show strictly for the purpose of making this joke? Sure did).

But really, it’s not all on the acting. It also somehow feels like someone in the writers’ room wrote a parody movie, but then his supervisor picked up the script, did not realize it was a parody, and decided to shoot it super straight. For example: the girls go to see THE Andersons, where everyone appears confused by their presence despite having paid them money to do this job (did someone hire them, or did Blonde Lady 1 hallucinate that email?). Blonde Lady 2 proclaims “We are here to help you have the best Christmas ever!” Terrible line read of an absolutely awful line.

The blonde ladies proceed to snoop around the house uninvited to try to get a sense of who THE Andersons “really are” in order to give them a better Christmas experience, and we watch the visualize Christmas magic in every room. Now I cannot prove this, because as you know I don’t always give these movies my full attention, but I SWEAR that in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, they were setting up Blonde Lady 1 to be the heroine and Blonde Lady 2 to be the best friend. I thought that we saw Blonde Lady 1 on the video chat with her father (“I’d love to come for Christmas, but I’m so busy with the charity!” is the dad’s actual line, proving again that they were not trying super hard on the writing). But then it is Blonde Lady 2 who has a run-in with James while she is inappropriately snooping through his house. James is one of THE Andersons, and he would like to know what she is doing in his house thank you very much. Blonde Lady 2 gives a real crazy ramble-y answer about trying to help his family have the Christmas of their dreams. I don’t think that’s what they were hired to do, but then again I am not clear on who actually hired them and for what purpose. James is suitably unimpressed and would like to get back to doing Business Things without being bothered by Christmas, thank you very much.

Even though Blonde Lady 1 is the person who is obsessed with THE Andersons, it soon becomes clear that this pair is too busy with all of their other client work (…ok…) so Blonde Lady 1 tells Blonde Lady 2 to just run with it and like do a really really good job, ok? Yes, exactly how you would handle the client that you believe will make or break your business. Blonde Lady 2 decides she is going to thaw James’ heart and give his family the best Christmas ever, whether they want it or not!

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

There is a Corporate Lawyer Lady in this movie. I think we are supposed to believe she is British, but her accent is aaaaall over the place. She is working on a Business Deal with James but is not so subtly letting him know that she would like to be more than friends and that she does not think much of Blonde Lady 2.

THE Andersons haven’t done much with Christmas since they left England, which makes James sad and wistful as he starts to open up to Blonde Lady 2. Which is ok, because Blonde Lady 2 is here to make Christmas great again. James’ Business Deal also involves a takeover of someone’s family business, which is giving him a lot of feelings because he doesn’t like to take away a man’s life work. But don’t worry, all those other Business Deals up until now were fine.

Blonde Lady 2 believes her own awkwardness is an impediment to her potential romance with James, because why would he ever want to date someone like her? She doesn’t understand the world of polo! I mean, she’s probably not wrong, soooooo…

But Do They Find The Meaning of Christmas?

Blonde Lady 2 convinces James to help her get a real Christmas tree for the house. It is worth pointing out that when they get the Christmas tree home and start decorating it, it is very obviously not a real Christmas tree. In fact, it is one of the worst fake Christmas trees I’ve ever seen on television. You can see the middle pole in several places. It felt like a metaphor for this movie. Even though Hallmark has a sponsorship deal with Balsam Hill, we’ve somehow ended up with this nonsense because no one could be bothered.

I believe they also decide to hold THE Anderson family Christmas party at THE Anderson’s house, and Blonde Lady 2 gets all the gifts to make charity donations in envelopes just like James’ family used to do when he was little. He is very touched by this and realizes that he is in love with Blonde Lady 2.

There are also Christmas cookies and decorating and the usual. You know the drill at this point.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?

James invites Blonde Lady 2 to a polo match (do those happen in the dead of winter? Always thought it was more of a summer sport). She goes wearing what appears to be a set of long johns and is very embarrassing, waving and yelling things like “JAMES, OVER HERE! GOOD JOB WITH THE POLO!” (Again, that’s pretty much the actual line as delivered). Corporate Lawyer Lady is there and refuses to let James go talk to Blonde Lady 2, which makes Blonde Lady 2 sad. But wait! We find out at the party that James was really charmed by her awkwardness and inspired not to do the Business Deal that is a hostile takeover of someone’s family business. I think there was briefly a thing where Blonde Lady 2 thinks he’s getting together with Corporate Lawyer Lady and runs away, but I might be confusing this with six other movies I watched that were better than this one.

The leads had zero chemistry. I felt no excitement that they were getting together at the end.

The only part of this movie I genuinely enjoyed was that they found Corporate Lawyer Lady a love interest at the end when James rejects her. It was James’ obnoxious American cousin who was talking loudly about sports. Turns out Corporate Lawyer Lady also loves sports and made snide asides while listening in on his conversation. Can you believe that? A girl who likes sports? Crazy.

Should I Watch This Movie?

I want you to watch this movie so we can talk about it, because you really have to see it to understand how much phoning in was happening here. Obviously the plot was phoned in – we all know there are only 6 possible plots for a Hallmark Christmas movie. But usually movies with this plot give us SOMETHING, like plucky Jill Wagner and her sassy child. This is what would happen if you sucked all the charm out of a movie and said “Here, watch this!” I want someone else to experience it and then text me and tell me how weird it was.

On the 12th Date of Christmas

If I don’t get promoted to Head Christmas Blog Content Creator, I have to go back to Iowa. It’s the law.

In A Nutshell

Our plucky heroine Jennifer is up at 5am baking cookies to bring to work. Through a conversation with her supportive roommate, we find out that Jennifer is going to ask her boss to put in a good word for her for a promotion to Head Game Creator. You are not alone if you immediately said “Wait, what is this now?” You better believe we are going to get into this in a minute.

We then see a man riding his bike over to his sister’s house in order to fix some broken plumbing. I recognize the actor immediately because I watch too many of these movies, and I immediately wonder – is he going all in as the dorky dad, or are we doing cranky jaded man who is secretly a softy? Good news: it’s the second one! Aiden has a big presentation today that he thinks will help him get the promotion to Head Game Creator (uh oh…). We find out that Aiden’s sister lives in their grandfather’s old house and is trying to fix it up so that their dad can retire there. However, renovations are harder than HGTV makes it look, and she has a child, and also her husband is deployed. Sometimes Hallmark is like “oh, I’m a harried mom, I’m so stressed! Look at how frumpy I am with my hair in a perfectly curled ponytail!” This time they actually made the mom seem overwhelmed by her life. I really appreciated this detail considering I viewed this movie while staring at a pile of clean but not folded laundry, a stack of Amazon boxes full of stuff that need returned, and a salad spinner that lives in our living room now because my daughter keeps putting her toys in it and at this point I’m just going to wait to wash it until I actually need to use it for salad.

Aiden’s big presentation is with his friend and collaborator Bill. It turns out they work at a company that produces scavenger hunts. They are pitching a boutique hotel that has fired its last two scavenger hunt companies (…ok…) on a hunt for the hotel’s grand opening in six days. The problem is that Bill’s head is not in the game because his very pregnant wife is having contractions. Despite allegedly being his friend, Aiden is very openly annoyed by these developments. At one point Aiden utters the line “I don’t know anything about what you just said…do you want to go to this meeting?” I’m not quite sure why you would put a man with a very pregnant wife on a very time sensitive account unless we assumed he was going to go full Mad Men and just show up with a cigar to wave at the baby through glass hours after his wife had done all the work. The presentation is just getting started when Bill’s wife calls and says that she is having this baby in like 30 seconds, so Bill runs from the room never to be seen again.

The head of their company is a man named Alastair whose title is, I kid you not, “Creative Overlord.” He takes the very practical business approach of walking out into the hall and grabbing the first person he sees to come join Aiden in the pitch…who just happens to be Jennifer. This is very fortuitous, for you see Jennifer has just learned that her direct manager (for whom she baked the cookie bribe) has suddenly left the company, and she was trying to work up the nerve to go put in a good word for herself with Alastair. Alastair explains quickly that this pitch is very important, because if they do a good job for this hotel they may be asked to do other work for the hotel chain. Ah yes, seems like the perfect place to plug in a random person who has literally never seen the proposal before. Sure, throw her in the room! Aiden is not pleased with this development, and frankly I can’t say I blame him.

Jennifer quietly mutters to herself during the meeting, which the hotel client overhears and asks her to clarify. Turns out this hard as nails client who has ruthlessly fired her previous events company a week before her event just wants to help out this girl who is too afraid to speak up in meetings. She loves Jennifer’s idea of making a scavenger hunt through Chicago’s neighborhoods and incorporating a romance theme – the twelve dates of Christmas, if you will. Aiden has some sassy remarks, including at one point asking Jennifer if she is even from Chicago. Surprise, she’s not! Just a small-town girl from Iowa trying to make it in the big city.

Jennifer and Aiden now have six days to make this scavenger hunt happen. Aiden wants to work alone, Jennifer would rather collaborate. She makes him collaborate. Christmas spirit ensues.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

Alright, let’s dive into this foolishness. Both Jennifer and Aiden claim they NEED to be promoted to Head Game Creator. Aiden needs it because he needs the raise that comes with it in order to fix up his grandpa’s house properly. Jennifer needs it because if she hasn’t shown concrete progress at her job, her family will make her move back to Iowa.

I will say this again: if she has not risen through the ranks of this scavenger hunt company, she will be viewed as a failure by her family back in Iowa and will have no choice but to move back there.

GIRL, WHAT?!?!?!?! Does Iowa have secret police that are going to drag you back to Grandma Sue’s farm? Who told you this was a rule? You’re a grown ass woman who lives in an apartment with only one roommate and who seems pretty happy making nice little scavenger hunts. Nobody should be making you move anywhere. I believe at one point it is thrown out that she’s only been with the company for a year and a half. Why are you putting this pressure on yourself to succeed so quickly? Just like live your life for a bit, friend. Nobody in Iowa will understand the difference between the promotion and your current job, because none of us do either. I think the writers were trying to make the stakes seem higher for Jennifer so you weren’t automatically rooting for Aiden, since his reason for needing the promotion is an actual thing. In doing so, they just succeeded in filling me with rage.

Also, does anyone understand what the Head Game Creator does, or what the qualifications are for this job? Are you managing the other scavenger hunt creators? Because Aiden seems to hate people, and Jennifer seems to be afraid of them. Are you approving the clues people write? I kind of hope that’s it, because Alastair seems pretty checked out in that regard — he’s betting the company on getting the business of this hotel chain, but then he is hearing his employees’ pitches AT THE SAME TIME AS THE CLIENT. Makes no sense. The corporate structure here is confusing at best, which makes it tough to care who gets promoted.

Jennifer has lots of Christmas spirit, but we are to believe that her obstacle is that she clams up around people who are in charge of her. I mean, maybe, I guess, but she seems pretty vocal in every meeting she’s in and also spends a lot of time sassing Aiden, which isn’t really consistent with what we’re being told.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas?

Jennifer and Aiden have to think of 11 clues for their scavenger hunt (the 12th clue sends everyone to the hotel for a big party). I’m very confused by their process. They have a meeting with the hotel client the day after their pitch and she wants to hear all of their clues. They go into the meeting and are basically like “OH NO WE FORGOT NINE OF THE CLUES!” The client, who again has already FIRED TWO COMPANIES, seems charmed by their lack of preparation.

They spend most of the rest of the movie trying out different date locations, including a place that makes pear cider and also hosts a couples painting class in the middle of a weekday. They cook together at a French restaurant, where they claim that making a chicken dish is too intimidating so the cooking class should be teaching couples how to make a Buche de Noel (a French Christmas cake that looks like a Yule log and is NOT ACTUALLY EASY TO MAKE).

They also go to a Christmas tree farm outside of Chicago, which is run by Jennifer’s next door neighbor. Because a very logical thing to do when you are an older man whose wife has just died is to rent an apartment in a trendy neighborhood of Chicago and reverse commute to your Christmas tree farm in a distant suburb. Anyway, Jennifer thinks the neighbor hates her because he never acknowledges her when she says hello but really he turns his hearing aides off at night. Cool cool cool, glad we spent 10 minutes on that. Really moved the plot forward.

Aiden finds his Christmas spirit by falling in love with Jennifer and learning how to collaborate, but also because he runs into a former student of his grandfather’s at an elementary school charity sale who tells him that a lot of his grandfather’s former students went on to become architects, engineers, and general contractors. So Aiden finds a lot of free labor to help out on the house.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?

Of course they do.

Aiden tells Alastair that Jennifer should be chief game creator. Alastair says he agrees, which is why he is offering Aiden the role that Jennifer’s boss used to have. Still a promotion, still a higher salary, still unclear what the job actually is. Everybody’s problems are solved, hooray! Oh, except Alastair decides to be a dick and not tell Jennifer about her promotion right away, so she thinks Aiden got it and not her and she starts packing her bags to go back to Iowa. Grandma Sue even shows up, presumably to drag her back. But then hooray, they all go to the hotel’s big party and they clear up their misunderstanding and Jennifer and Aiden share a moment on the roof and finally kiss.

I sort of can’t with Jennifer. She’s just a little too precious, and she delivers lines like “I thought he was one thing, but he’s actually something else…it’s just different here [in Chicago].” Yes, I’m sure there are zero men in Iowa who make a bad first impression but then turn out to be really nice. That’s exclusively a big city thing. Also, her office has a creepy amount of Christmas decorations in it.

The actor playing Aiden is trying here. It’s not as bad as having to act opposite LeAnn Rimes, but Jennifer is no Kellie Pickler.

Should I Watch This Movie?

Now, you all know that one of my favorite things is when they use Chicago establishing shots at the beginning of the movie, because then I get to complain about all the ways that Canadian writers know nothing about Chicago. However, when Jennifer started listing neighborhoods to highlight in their scavenger hunt, she included Andersonville. Andersonville is a very cool little neighborhood on the North Side, but I don’t think you would know about it if you weren’t from Chicago. I thought “huh, that’s a pretty deep cut for our Canadian friends…” BUT THEN while coming up with clues, the two main characters NAME CHECKED PORTILLO’S. Portillo’s is a chain of restaurants that only exists in Chicago and one very small part of Florida (I’m assuming because Dick Portillo’s brother retired there or something). It’s certainly not the original or even the best Chicago hot dog, but it’s the place all of us suburban kids grew up on. I try to go every time I’m home. Even though I’m a human adult who should know and do better by now, I always order two hot dogs with mustard only (no ketchup unless you are under 10) and a cheese fry.

Anyway, I tell you all of this because this was the point where I actually went on IMDB to look up who wrote this movie. This kind of crushed my fantasy of these movies being written by committee in a writer’s room in Canada where they just churn out the scripts for one after another as a collective Hallmark Writers hive mind, but I had to know. And wouldn’t you know, one of the two listed writers for this movie is also a producer on Chicago PD! The Dick Wolf Chicago shows actually film in Chicago (my cousin was an extra on Chicago Fire once—hey Nikki!—and my mom called me while I was in the hospital after giving birth to my daughter to make sure I was taping it). All of this is a really, really long back story to explain that the Chicago references in this movie were pretty legit.

Why is this important to know? Because it means I liked this movie much, much, MUCH more than I actually should have. Guys, the plot is so weak and weird and terrible, but I was having a blast. Couple this with my love for movies where the man is a curmudgeon with a heart of gold, and I found this very enjoyable. However, you as a normal person will probably not like it. The stakes aren’t there, nor is the chemistry between leads if I’m really being honest. So I have to say you can probably pass on this one, even though I was totally engrossed. I’m big enough to recognize my own biases here and give you an honest recommendation.

Jingle Bell Bride

Well hello again, and Merry Christmas even though it is clearly November. I think we can all agree that in 2020, October 15 was a perfectly acceptable day to start celebrating Christmas. Or July 15. Or whenever. We need a win somewhere.

I wasn’t sure that the blog was going to continue this year — we changed to a different provider for live TV that doesn’t include Hallmark in its lineup. But then I realized that I desperately needed an escape from election coverage, and the next thing you know I was subscribing to something called “FrndlyTV” for eight bucks a month. Now I get all three Hallmark channels, Game Show Network, QVC, and the Weather Channel. I’m going to end up on some weird mailing lists when they inevitably sell my information.

Per tradition, I am kicking things off with the first new movie of the year, which aired on October 25. I genuinely don’t know how Hallmark decides what sacrificial lamb to air in October. Sometimes they are very bad, sometimes they have too many Pride and Prejudice-themed movies…I am scared that the reason here was “leads who are not white people.” Hallmark is trying this year, but in the way that makes you nervous because you just know something is going to be offensive by accident and it’s just a matter of time.

Anyway! This movie was enjoyable once you got past the fact that the main plot elements made zero sense.

In A Nutshell

Jessica is a wedding planner in NYC. She and her sister meet outside one of those very famous Manhattan strip malls (come on, Canadian Hallmark writers) to have coffee and talk about Christmas plans. Jessica is planning a wedding for a celebrity and is trying to get a promotion for a far-away office (I didn’t write down if it was London or San Francisco…it’s ALWAYS London or San Francisco, so we’ll assume it’s one of those). Having It All is really hard so she just doesn’t know if she’ll have time for all the usual festivities. Jessica’s sister understands, even though her precocious and adorable daughter will be disappointed. They speak a little Spanish (again, Hallmark is trying, guys) and go their separate ways.

Jessica’s celebrity client is a singer who is very nervous and needs a lot of hand-holding. Of course a week before her wedding, she springs on Jessica that she really wants a rare flower that looks like a jingle bell in her bouquet. They were in her grandmother’s bouquet, you see, and this is an incredibly important and sentimental detail that means so much to the singer that she forgot about it until a week before her wedding. Jessica tells her incredibly demanding boss about the flowers, who makes clear that they cannot possible drop the ball on a single client request, no matter how unreasonable. They also have this excellent exchange:

Boss: You know what I see?

Jessica: A bit of yourself?

Boss: No.

Jessica: (crestfallen face) Oh.

Jessica’s obnoxious blonde coworker is lurking to make clear that she also wants the promotion and that she thinks she’s better than Jessica. Jessica is thus determined to track down these jingle bell flowers. But wouldn’t you know, the only place to get them is at the source…in Alaska. Jessica resolves to fly to Alaska and pick up these flowers personally after promising the mayor of the small town where they are grown that she will provide some kind of public arts funding or something.

Look, I simply do not believe that Jessica is planning a hugely important celebrity wedding without AT LEAST three assistants. If The Home Edit ladies bring three assistants to organize a celebrity’s pantry and put Cinnamon Toast Crunch into clear containers, Jessica is not doing the whole wedding by herself. Even if we believe that the only way to get these flowers is to go pick them up in person, one of those 25 year olds would have been on the first plane to Alaska. We would have been watching a very different movie. Well, really the same movie because she still would have fallen in love and found her Christmas spirit…but the work stakes would have been much lower.

Jessica goes to Alaska and ends up at the small town airport where she has a meet cute at the vending machine with Matt. Matt and his aunt grow the jingle bell flowers, and the mayor paid them a visit to implore them to share the flowers with the wedding planner and also maybe do her a solid and pick this lady up at the airport. Jessica is dismissive because she is on the phone and she doesn’t realize Matt is the person who is supposed to pick her up despite him being the only other human in the airport. Matt, in turn, steals the vending machine snack she just paid for, which I very much enjoyed.

They go to the greenhouse, pick up the flowers, then I guess turn right around to go back to the airport, but wouldn’t you know there’s a moose in the way and Jessica ends up missing her flight? I have like a million questions about why this tiny charter plane to this tiny Alaskan town runs on a very precise schedule and cannot wait for one of its three passengers who is two minutes late because of a moose crossing incident but then later (spoiler alert) manages to make a totally unscheduled run for her in the middle of the night. I wish they would have gone right to “plane’s broken, we don’t have the part,” which is what Jessica is told the next day — but again, they miraculously find the part in the middle of the night a few days later, so…it’s all feeling pretty thin.

Well wouldn’t you know there are no hotels in town, so Jessica ends up staying with Matt and his aunt. Christmas ensues.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

Jessica’s job is definitely getting in the way of her Christmas spirit, since the celebrity bride who is getting married in mere days keeps calling Jessica needing things. Which, OF COURSE, because that’s how weddings work and Jessica should not have jaunted off to Alaska. Jessica’s obnoxious blonde coworker swoops in and convinces their boss that Jessica cannot effectively do her job for this client from Alaska (again, accurate). The celebrity bride is sad because she really likes Jessica, but she agrees to go with the obnoxious blonde lady. This also feels like a good place to address the fact that Jessica somehow came to Alaska without a phone charger. I’m sorry, but there’s no way. Anyone whose job revolves around being insanely detail oriented has at least two backup chargers in her purse at all time.

We also find out that Matt actually lived in New York up until a few years ago. He supposedly moved home to Alaska to help his aunt with the jingle bell flowers after her husband passed away, but he was also fleeing a bad breakup (or maybe a divorce? Missed the exact explanation). He had been a college professor and is now supposedly working on a dissertation about jingle bell flowers, but his college wants him to come back and keeps sending him snail mail letters in Alaska. His aunt is trying to encourage him to get back to his life, but he just wants to stay here and grow flowers and chop wood and not connect with humans.

One final obstacle is coats. This happens in every single move set in a cold weather climate where a Corporate Lady comes in from the Big City: everyone who lives in the cold weather climate makes a big deal about how inappropriate the woman’s wool dress coat is and insists that she get a new coat. This is actually true – I am from Chicago, and we have all just accepted the fact that we will walk around in pretty unflattering puffy sleeping bags from October to April (or whenever it stops snowing) if we have to be outside for any length of time. BUT my real issue is that whenever they go through all of this, the characters proceed to walk around with unzipped jackets for the rest of the movie. Also, the man is usually not in a parka either. Matt is wearing what is, at best, a coat for 45 degree weather. So I guess we’re all getting hypothermia, which seems like an obstacle to celebrating Christmas and falling in love.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas?

Jessica is somehow named the Christmas Princess of this town or something, which means she has to do photo ops at Christmas events I think? There is also an issue with the venue for the town Christmas dance, because of course there is, so Jessica helps them really up the ante on their party using her event planning skills and detailed knowledge of catering (don’t serve lasagna if there aren’t going to be enough seats, people).

Matt has a nephew who comes to visit that needs some Christmas cheer (they get around the whole broken plane thing by saying they drove in…FROM WHERE? WHAT IN ALASKA IS DRIVING DISTANCE FROM ANOTHER THING IN ALASKA?). My understanding is that he has to practice the piano for an hour a day and doesn’t get to have enough Christmas fun. But then later he keeps missing a very basic note while playing “Jingle Bells” which Jessica helps him figure out, which suggests to me he is probably not actually practicing for an hour a day. They all build snowmen together, I think.

Also, it is impossible to have an Alaska movie without Northern Lights, so Jessica and Matt have a nice romantic moment involving that.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?

Here’s why I think I actually really enjoyed this movie: our female protagonist DOES NOT MOVE TO ALASKA. That’s never even on the table. What she does take away from this journey is that being far away from her family is very difficult for her, especially at the holidays. Alaska helps her reconnect with all of that. So she goes home to New York and doesn’t quit her wedding planning job, which she loves, but instead says that the awful blond woman can have the far away promotion because Jessica would like to stay in New York. Then she goes and has a wonderful Christmas with her sister and niece. This feels very true to life to me!

Matt is sad she is going and gives her the vending machine cookies he stole from her earlier as a snack, which is a nice callback. Also, we have some throwaway lines about calling ahead to the Anchorage airport to make sure they know how to properly handle the flowers. Oh yeah, the flowers! The whole point of this movie! How have these very delicate flowers that no one can get been holding up in those styrofoam boxes? I think at one point when she first misses the flight they say they will use those flowers for the festival and cut her new ones right before she leaves. Were the flowers supposed to be rare? We just have extras to throw around but no extras to sell to florists who could have shipped them to other parts of the states? Am I falling down a plot hole? Should I just move on? Ok, sounds good.

Let’s get back to what feels remarkable about this movie: THE MAN MOVES FOR HER! Well, arguably it’s for her but also because he’s moving back to the life he was running away from in New York. It would have been even better if they went full Lloyd Dobler “Imma drop everything and support your career, let’s get on the plane to England” but this is Hallmark and we are taking baby steps. (Sidebar: if you don’t understand that Lloyd Dobler reference please go watch Say Anything before you do one single other thing). But they do NOT end up in the small town, they are going to start dating each other in (GASP) the Big City! This would have been unthinkable in early Hallmark movies. The times they are a-changin’.

I would like to point out some things about the celebrity wedding at the end. One: all of the guests are dressed super normally for something that is supposed to be the wedding of the year. Two: it’s bananas that Jessica does not have anything to do at the reception and can just attend as a guest WITH A DATE WHO WAS NOT INVITED. Yes, I get that Obnoxious Blonde Coworker had successfully taken it over, but I’m assuming dinner is like $500 a plate and they probably don’t have extras for the fired wedding planner’s last second boyfriend. Three: is there no security here? A rando can just walk up to the front of the church to confess his love real quick? Calling shenanigans on that one. Four: the groom gets zero lines but is really, ridiculously attractive and I would like to call all of your attention to that.

I thought the couple had pretty good chemistry, and I thought they had realistic fights. That sounds like a weird thing to say, but sometimes Hallmark fights are really boring and are totally based around someone overhearing something they weren’t supposed to hear and taking it out of context, and then it gets resolved two seconds later. Whereas Jessica is calling Matt out for “hiding out in Alaska and putting his life on hold,” which feels like a very real thing for someone to say in the heat of the moment.

Fun fact: I couldn’t figure out why I knew the actress who plays Jessica. Turns out she was Amber (the cheerleader Justin Long had a crush on) in Dodgeball. The actor playing Matt is apparently on Star Trek: Discovery, which I think is on a streaming network that I would have to pay for and am not going to pay for because FrndlyTV is absurd enough. But I hope he pops up in more Hallmark movies, because I really liked him.

Should I Watch This Movie?

Officially starting the season with a recommend. It was cute and watchable, and the plot was just different enough. Caveat: don’t watch this if you live in Alaska or have ever been to Alaska, in which case you will probably get caught up in all the ways this movie in no way resembles Alaska.

A Gift To Remember

I realized halfway through watching this movie that I had actually already seen it when a character delivered the line “I had a tenant once who was breeding ferrets—it was a situation!”  However, I went back and confirmed that I never actually wrote about it.  It’s all a blur of Christmas cheer over here, guys.

In a Nutshell

Darcy (you might remember her as Blonde Vintage Friend from one of my all-time most bonkers movies) works in a small bookstore in Philadelphia and has an apartment that is far too nice for someone who seems to only be working retail part time.  She rides her bike to work, and her best friends are her coworkers, her landlady (who is the MVP of this movie, and who Darcy continues to call “Mrs. Henley” at all times even though they are clearly besties) and a man named Luigi who owns an Italian restaurant and sells her food at a discount. Darcy loves books and does not enjoy dates with men who do not read. So far so good. A handsome man keeps peering into the windows of the bookstore while walking his dog. Darcy finds this charming.

One night Darcy falls asleep reading in her comfy chair and forgets to set her alarm. In her rush to get to work, she barrels into a pedestrian with her bike. Turns out it is the handsome man with the dog, except now he’s in a coma. The paramedics hand her the man’s dog and say “OK BYE!” A helpful police officer (who is somehow not taking a detailed statement from Darcy for seriously injuring someone while on her bike) tells Darcy what hospital the paramedics are heading to. Darcy and the dog walk all the way there, but first we see Darcy pick up the mail and keys the handsome man dropped. We also see the handsome man’s phone wash down a sewer (sure!). When Darcy gets to the hospital, Nurse Nancy rightfully refuses to tell this random strange woman anything about the handsome man. At first I thought she was just closely following HIPAA requirements, but it turns out no one, including the handsome man, knows who he is. AWWWW SNAP, IT’S AN AMNESIA MOVIE Y’ALL!

Darcy goes to the man’s house and snoops around, as one does. She finds a business card and many cashmere sweaters. The handsome man wakes up and seems mostly uninjured except for his amnesia. Nurse Nancy tells handsome man that Darcy has his dog, so the man authorizes Nurse Nancy to call Darcy. Based on what she found while snooping, Darcy tells the man his name is William Anderson. The handsome man says “mmmmmmm but I feel more like an Aiden though” and so he does not have as much amnesia as we thought. It is decided that Aiden must be his middle name. Darcy and Aiden proceed to try to figure out who he is, why he bought an engagement ring, and why he has not decorated his sparse minimalist home for Christmas (an actual line said incredulously by Aiden: “I love Christmas! I know I love Christmas!”)

But Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

Well, the amnesia is not helping things, that’s for sure.

Darcy spends a lot of time trying to figure out if Aiden has a soon-to-be fiancé since he had packed an overnight bag with an engagement ring in it before the accident. She is able to track down a ballerina in New York who is in a picture in Aiden’s room. Despite the fact that Darcy was in such a rush not to be late to her job just a few days ago, she spends a lot of time not working and going on jaunts to New York to try to track down the ballerina in person.

Darcy is apparently her own obstacle in life, because she doesn’t like change or taking on challenges. The owner of the bookstore has decided to move to San Francisco to be closer to his grandchildren, and he announces he will be interviewing general manager candidates to keep the store going after he leaves. Oooof, sir, I hate to break it to you, but with San Francisco real estate prices you will probably need to sell that bookstore. Fortunately, no one has figured this out yet, so there is much discussion about whether Darcy should apply for the job. She doesn’t want to because she knows nothing of business. Fair point, Darcy.

Books Books Books is the name of the rival book store in town. They have created an obstacle by trying to have a Christmas Eve party that is totally copying Darcy’s Christmas Eve extravaganza. The owner of Darcy’s store correctly points out to Darcy that “we don’t have the market cornered on Christmas Eve events” but Darcy is having none of this. Don’t worry though, she has plenty of time to plan a killer Christmas Eve party while not actually working her shifts at the bookstore.

I thought for sure Nurse Nancy was going to be an obstacle, because she definitely seemed to have feelings for Aiden outside of the caregiver/patient relationship. Alas, we never went there.

But Do They Find The Meaning of Christmas?

Aiden helps all of the kids in the hospital have a fun Christmas party because he is a Really Good Guy Who Loves Christmas. When he gets permission to leave the hospital for brief periods, he and Darcy spend time doing Christmas-y things like looking at lights.

Who am I kidding, we’ve got to use this time to talk about Mrs. Henley. So Mrs. Henley owns the building where Darcy lives, and she CANNOT CONTROL HER CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. She has decorated everything to the nines, and she apparently spends all day baking things and then standing in the hallway with plates of cookies waiting for tenants to come home. Like, this is objectively weird, but I also think I would kind of like to have a lady greet me with baked goods every single day when I arrived home. Mrs. Henley offers up all kinds of wisdom like “Have a tough day? Bite the head off this gingerbread man, it will make you feel better” or “Darcy, you’re tough as nails and twice as sharp.” We also find out that she used to be a ballerina herself back in the day, which is why she can identify the woman in the photo at Aiden’s house as a dancer. I really just want to hang out with Mrs. Henley and ask her questions about the 70s. I feel like that would be a fun way to spend an afternoon.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?!?

OK, spoilers below, so if you think you’re going to be super invested in the mystery I’d say stop reading here.

….

I’m serious, I’m going to spoil it. If you keep reading you have no one to blame but yourself.

…

OK. So Darcy and Aiden and Mrs. Henley are decorating Aiden’s minimalist house for Christmas by having Christmas throw up all over it when a man walks into the house and is all “Uhhhhh Aiden, what are you doing?” It turns out that Aiden was actually staying in his friend William’s house in Philadelphia while William was out of town. William is the publicist with the ballerina girlfriend and all the cashmere, while Aiden is an art teacher in Ohio. William does not have time for the foolishness of Mrs. Henley’s holiday enthusiasm and is very confused by the whole thing. Once they get everything sorted, William calls Aiden’s dad. Darcy and Aiden have a romantic moment that is once again interrupted when his dad gets on the hone. We then see William drive Aiden to Ohio, where Aiden gets out of the car and has a child run into his arm while a woman looks at him lovingly from the doorway. “I REMEMBER!!!” Little heavy handed, but sure.

Darcy is sad over Aiden’s departure and throws herself into the Christmas Eve extravaganza. They were able to score a real victory over Books Books Books because the real William Anderson is the publicist for Darcy’s favorite author. To repay all of Darcy’s kindness towards Aiden while he was broken, William convinces this poor writer to fly across the country and spend Christmas Eve doing a publicity appearance. But wait! Aiden is there too–“I went to Books Books Books, and man it is dead over there.” His family wants to say thank you in person…BUT WAIT THAT’S NOT HIS KID THAT’S HIS NIECE, AND THAT’S NOT HIS WIFE THAT’S HIS SISTER! Darcy is so excited that he’s not actually married to someone else that she chooses to overlook the fact that it’s a little weird that Aiden went to an antique store in Philadelphia to buy an engagement ring for his sister. Yes, I know it was their mother’s engagement ring. I’m still not ok with it. Especially the way the sister excitedly held up her hand at the end as though she were an actual engaged person…that’s weird, sweetie. Calm down.

So yeah, Aiden is not engaged to his sister, but he does tell Darcy he’s considering a move to Philly. They kiss. Yay Christmas!

The actress playing Darcy is doing her best 90s Meg Ryan impression while teetering on the cusp of “oof, way too much.” I think she mostly kept it on the “adorable book nerd” side of things though. I thought for some reason I did not like the actor playing Aiden, but he was actually better than I remembered. They make a cute enough couple. I was rooting for them. Sorry, Nurse Nancy.

Should I Watch This Movie?

I would say yes.  This movie is what would happen if While You Were Sleeping and You’ve Got Mail had a baby, except the baby is Canadian and there is no Dave Chappelle (I have never gotten over the fact that Dave Chappelle is in You’ve Got Mail; it makes no sense and yet is very pleasing).  They did a decent job of unfolding the mystery, even if a person getting amnesia is pretty played out.  Also, they made a sequel to this movie this year, and I have a feeling you will be tooooooootally lost if you didn’t see this original. Haha, just kidding.  We all know how every movie ends. Maybe Nurse Nancy will make a comeback and try to move in on Darcy’s man, or maybe we will hear more about Mrs. Henley and Luigi’s date (oh yeah, that was a thing that was happening at the end)– stay tuned!

The Mistletoe Secret

Lest you think I’m just hear to insult bad scavenger hunt clues and candy canes in March…here is one I watched that I loved!

In A Nutshell

Kellie Pickler plays Aria, the owner of a small town diner that is hilariously located in Midway, Utah despite her unmistakable Southern accent. I do appreciate that the writers at least attempted to address this with a throw away line about her originally being from North Carolina, but we are already absurdly setting so many of these movies in the South, so what’s one more? She is the president of the town’s Christmas Council and is strategizing with her fellow council members about how to bring additional tourists to Midway now that the big ski resort has opened a few towns over. The big theme for Aria is that she tries to do everything herself all the time. We know this because multiple characters say to her “You don’t have to do everything yourself, you know!” For example, Aria learned out to fix her own oven door by watching internet videos. I felt a connection here because this is also how we fix 50 percent of the things that break in our house (the other 50 percent are fixed by asking my dad what we should do…usually he tells us to watch an internet video).

Aria’s big play to keep their Christmas events alive involves a TV travel personality named Sterling Masters. She shows everyone a clip of his show, and it truly made me laugh out loud. He’s this tall goofy guy with a giant smile and a truly insane winter hat, standing in front of what is clearly a green screen while he does bad line readings about travel. Anyway, Sterling Masters features a Christmas destination every year on his website. He announces on the show that he has narrowed it down to Tokyo, Austin, or…you guessed it, Midway, Utah! The Christmas Council is thrilled that they might get to meet him, especially the older woman who fancies herself an actress and apparently has appeared in infomercials (this is your sequel, Hallmark).

Meanwhile, Sterling Masters is having a meeting with Alex in San Francisco. Alex is his best friend/business partner. Apparently Sterling Masters is only good at reading the teleprompter, so Alex is his ghostwriter who is responsible for all of the website content. I would imagine that in television this would just be known as having a writer/producer, but for some reason they have developed some arrangement where Sterling pretends he is doing the writing too and Alex is just an invisible person. This makes no sense, but we need it for plot purposes, so wheeeeeee! Alex wants to pick Tokyo as the Christmas destination, but Sterling insists on Midway because he needs to stop over somewhere on his way to the West Coast (wait…but aren’t they in San Francisco? But Canadian Hallmark writers, that’s already…you know what, doesn’t matter. I’m moving on). Alex rightfully points out that it will be much harder for him to secretly do all of the writing for Sterling in a small town because people will notice outsiders and ask why Alex is there. Also, as we will later learn, Sterling is kind of a doofus who is bad at keeping secrets. Sterling pays him no mind and sends Alex to Midway, promising to follow him a few days later for a brief appearance.

Alex ends up in Aria’s diner after closing time, but fortunately Aria is still there belting Christmas carols (Kellie Pickler was on American Idol, and the Hallmark writers want to make sure you remember that) and hanging ornaments from the ceiling. Alex arrives just in time to catch a precious mistletoe ornament that she is about to drop. Then he is the opposite of helpful by turning on the overloaded outlet and plunging the room into darkness. This is why Aria does not need any help, guys. Aria still sells him some pie even though the diner is closed, and Alex tells her he is in town working on his novel.

Alex and Aria run into each other at the lodge the next day. Alex is clearly smitten, but Aria is just too busy to have time for this handsome stranger who is just passing through anyway. Aria tells Alex about the Christmas Council’s passport, which you can get stamped whenever you attend a holiday event in Midway. Alex decides he will start a passport. Aria thinks he is procrastinating on his novel, but since Alex is secretly writing for Sterling Masters, it’s the perfect chance to experience everything that Midway has to offer while he prepares the articles.

Oh, I can’t believe I forgot this part: PATRICK DUFFY IS ARIA’S DAD AND HE HAS THE BEST MUSTACHE EVER. He walked into the first scene and I wrote “Patrick Duffy’s mustache won Christmas.” So there’s that too.

But Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

You know how you have that friend who you love because they have been your friend forever but if you met them today as the current version of yourselves you would probably immensely dislike each other? That is Sterling and Alex in this movie. I don’t think Sterling is intentionally awful, but many of the things he chooses to do are objectively the worst possible choice. And Alex just kind of shrugs and goes along with it because college roommates, what are you going to do? Sterling is only supposed to come to town for a quick stop, but he is charmed by the town and Aria, so he decides to stay for longer. Alex hates this. Sterling also casually mentions to Alex that he has a meeting about his book deal…which is actually based on all of Alex’s writing. That’s a pretty garbage person thing to do. Plus Aria will not stop telling Alex about what a great writer Sterling is, and so Alex should really try to get some tips for his novel. Oh, and Alex is trying to do a thing where he bids $500 on this mistletoe ornament in a silent auction based on a story that Patrick Duffy told him that is supposed to help him win Aria’s heart, but then Sterling swoops in and bids $1000 because he sucks. It’s basically just gut punch after gut punch for poor Alex.

Aria goes on a date with Sterling after he buys the ornament (Patrick Duffy tried to stop her because he is the best, but she wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise). Sterling says a bunch of dumb nonsense that very clearly reveals that he is not writing his own stuff about Midway and did not think of bidding on the ornament on his own. I would like to think he would at least READ what was posted in his name, but I also totally believe that this guy would not. Despite the fact that earlier in the movie Sterling was very insistent that “NO ONE CAN FIND OUT ABOUT THIS IT WILL VOID OUR CONTRACT” he now just casually admits everything to Aria over dinner. Aria is a little upset about Sterling, but she is mostly upset that Alex has lied to her and also she thinks he was using her to get a book deal. She goes to find Alex and tell him off, and Alex’s pining sad face gets even sadder.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas?

There’s a lot of great Christmas stuff here. You’ve got your silent auctions in diners, your Christmas high teas, and your more traditional scavenger hunts to find pieces of a snowman (when Hallmark makes the sequel about the older lady who fancies herself an actress, I want Alex to be in like the best friend role while she looks for age appropriate love — they made an excellent pair at the scavenger hunt). The Christmas Council made sure everyone was feeling festive. Take that, ski resort a few towns over! Sidebar — at one point Aria said the line “LOOK AT HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HERE!” but there were maybe 20 extras in the room, and it made me laugh and laugh.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?!

It looks like these crazy kids aren’t going to make it work because Alex tries a declaration of love in person and Aria is having none of it and just continues right on cleaning the diner while wearing full-on sequence, like one does. But then Alex and Sterling has a heart to heart, and Sterling is like “Oh, it’s cool, I’ll just put your name on the website. Write her a public love letter as yourself. I’ll take care of the legal stuff.” Again, this contract seemed very serious before, and now apparently no one cares. Alex writes an article about his love for Aria and publishes it for the world to see. Aria comes to her senses (with an assist from Patrick Duffy) and rushes to make a grand romantic gesture for Alex. We get my favorite would-be actress involved in stealing the car keys to Alex’s rental car so he can’t leave for the airport. Someone named Craig from the Christmas Council drives Alex to where Aria is waiting…Alex seems genuinely fearful that Craig has gone off the deep end, as well he should. He was like “Don’t you need to see your family on Christmas Eve, Craig?” And Craig was all “NAH I’M GOOD HEY GO LOOK AT THESE LIGHTS IN THE CANYON IT’S COOL FORGET YOUR FLIGHT JUST GO LOOK AT THE LIGHTS.” Not smooth, Craig. Anyway, Aria is there with her own little speech and she and Alex kiss and now they are in love again. And everyone comes to family Christmas dinner the next day, including Craig who has apparently decided to abandon his family forever.

Look, my love for Kellie Pickler is well documented. I think she’s adorable. I told my husband that I really hoped there wasn’t anything on the internet revealing that she was secretly a terrible person because it would make me really sad. So obviously he immediately started looking for internet evidence that she is a terrible person, because that’s how we roll in our marriage. The worst thing he could come up with is people complaining that she is a terrible actress. Is she going to win an Academy Award for this performance? No, she is not. Is she pretty much just being Kellie Pickler in this movie? I believe that she is. But I am buying what she is selling because even if she isn’t the best, she is cute and charming and bubbly. I have seen much worse line reads from Hallmark heroines with much less personality. I will take this every time.

The actor who played Alex is named Tyler Hynes, and I thought he was great in this. He is sarcastic and self-deprecating and somehow still very charming, which is how I like my Hallmark leading men. HOWEVER, I was shocked and shook to my core when I looked him up on IMDB and realized he plays LeAnne Rimes’ dorky teacher love interest in that movie I really hated last year. He looks like a completely different person! I mean, yes, the obvious answer is that he has a beard in this movie and did not in last year’s movie…but I feel like there is more going on than that. Or maybe he just needs a human woman and not a robot to act against, because he had great chemistry with Kellie. The scene at the Christmas tea where Sterling orders Aria the wrong kind of tea because he’s the worst, but Alex knows what kind of tea to get and then shares a smile with Aria when he switches the bad tea for the good tea…loved that so much.

Should I Watch This Movie?

You guys, I cannot entirely explain it, but I was ALL. IN. ON. THIS. MOVIE. Was it the infectious charm of Kellie Pickler? The sarcastic male lead quietly pining for the leading lady while the dum dum with a nice smile is winning her over? PATRICK DUFFY’S AMAZING MUSTACHE?!?!?! We’ll never really know why this movie had the secret sauce, but I stayed up late to see how it ended. I mean, duh, it was going to end with them falling in love and finding the meaning of Christmas, but I actually wanted to see how they got there. This is my favorite of 2019 so far. I give it a strong recommend.

Christmas Scavenger Hunt

In which Hallmark posits a world where you can go ten years without hearing anything about what your high school boyfriend is doing with his life.

In A Nutshell

Belinda (there is a creative name choice!) is a Hard Working Business Lady. We know she is still nice because she buys her assistant tickets to The Nutcracker. Belinda also tells her assistant that she plants to return to her hometown for the first time in a while for Christmas because her best friend is engaged and Belinda wants to meet the new guy. Belinda’s boss stops in to tell Belinda about a property in her hometown that he’d like her to look at while she’s there for a developer client. If this goes well, she’ll be a junior partner soon! Belinda realizes that the property is the historic old mill, which is currently a museum. The developer wants to turn it into condos.

While driving into town, Belinda somehow runs into Dustin. Dustin is her high school ex-boyfriend who she has not seen in many years. They have some tense banter about mutual breakups and talk about the Christmas scavenger hunt, which is a big thing in town. Even though Belinda and Dustin were chatting in broad daylight, she arrives at her dad’s in the dead of night. Belinda’s dad is TOM ARNOLD, which caused me to do a triple take because Hallmark did not throw him into the advertisements for this movie at all. My husband and I agreed that Tom Arnold actually looks pretty good for his age, all things considered. Tom Arnold is very involved in the Christmas scavenger hunt and says some nice things about Dustin. The next morning Dustin is in their house to fix pipes for some reason.

Belinda goes to the kickoff event for the scavenger hunt to meet up with her best friend and the new fiancé (who continues in the Hallmark tradition of just kind of being there with no purpose other than to fetch things for his lady and occasionally ask silly questions). While there, Belinda somehow ends up entered into the blind draw for scavenger hunt partners, because this town makes you do a scavenger hunt while paired up with a rando. Wouldn’t you know that Tom Arnold ends up drawing Dustin and Belinda’s names out of the hat as partners? I wonder if they will stop bickering long enough to fall in love…

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

Belinda has a Corporate Boyfriend Who Loves Work And His Italian Tie. They dine in totally empty restaurants together while they talk about all the promotions they are both going to get. He gives her a locket that still have the stock photo in it, which just caused me to type “YIIIIIIIIIIKES” when it happened. He has agreed to go home with Belinda for Christmas, but then he has a last minute meeting and has to take a later flight, allowing Belinda to reconnect with Dustin during the scavenger hunt. I did feel kind of bad for Corporate Boyfriend when he flew all that way only to find his girlfriend close talking with her high school ex in the car.

The main obstacle to their love was the fact that Dustin and Belinda were supposed to go to college together but he decided not to leave their small town at the last minute. Now, these people are weeeell out of college (I think at some point they referenced that all of this happened ten years ago, which made me chuckle a little bit because the actors are most def in their mid 30s, but OK). Regardless of what timeline we are using here, it has been years since Dustin decided not to go away with Belinda. This movie would like us to believe that even though he stayed in his small town along with eeeeeevery other person Belinda knows (including her father), not one single person ever figured out that Dustin’s dad was out of a job and so Dustin had to go to work, and that’s why he didn’t go with Belinda? I will tell you, I am very far out of high school and I graduated in a class of 580, and I’m pretty sure I could figure out what just about any person I graduated with is doing right now between a combination of searches on Facebook and asking my mom if she’s talked to any of her friends about their kids lately. In a small town people would have talked, it would have gotten back to Belinda’s dad or her best friend, and someone would have told her the truth. Her best friend acted like this was shocking new information when Belinda told her, which is insane. For goodness sake, Dustin is doing light handyman work for Belinda’s father!!! He definitely would have let her know at some point in the last ten years!!!! So yeah, I’m calling shenanigans on this alleged obstacle, because this is not how small town gossip works.

The other conflict is that Dustin works for the mill museum but he doesn’t know that Belinda’s job is to help the developer turn the mill into condos. Which is going to happen pretty quickly, because the mill is way behind on its mortgage payments. Belinda is very worried about revealing this fact to Dustin, but Tom Arnold reassures her that Dustin will understand that it’s just business and that she would save the mill if she could. Of course, there is about 20 seconds of tension when she reveals this fact, but then Dustin is like “Oh, that’s cool, I know it’s not your fault!” I guess I shouldn’t be really be mad about this quick resolution, because the movie is depicting normal human adult communications instead of the usual “I can’t believe she would do that, I better not ask her to explain herself or the situation at all and just storm off instead” move. The town decides to raise money for the mill museum through the scavenger hunt, but Belinda knows it won’t be enough to get the mill out of debt.

Also, Belinda has a lot of melodramatic pronouncements about Dustin dating her high school long jump rival. I would like to watch a movie about that high school long jump rivalry please, Hallmark. Or maybe a movie about Tom Arnold and Jenny from the diner who he is apparently dating, because judging by Belinda’s face when she figures out her dad is dating again there are a loooooot of issues we need to unpack about that.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas?

Unsurprisingly, I missed the part of the movie where they explain the actual rules of the scavenger hunt. From what I can piece together, people are supposed to take and submit photos of themselves doing the Christmas activity that is revealed in the clue. So instead of having to bring back a snow globe, you just take a selfie with the snow globe and send that in to the judges. I can totally get how this would be fun, and I wish they would have taken the time to write some more interesting questions and prompts. The riddles were painful, but it did get us to all of our favorite Christmastime tropes — snowman! Cookies! Gingerbread houses! Christmas karaoke!

One of the prompts is to do a kind deed for someone, and so Dustin and Belinda go to see this older gentleman who…yeah, I totally missed the set up for this and who this man is and why Belinda knows him. Sorry about that, guys. What you really need to know is that he was very grateful that Belinda invited him to Christmas dinner and thinks that Dustin and Belinda make a very cute couple.

OH I ALMOST FORGOT: there is a little kid who Dustin knows for some reason who talks about his mother being across the ocean at army (my husband called from the other room “IS MOTHER AWAY AT ARMY WINNING TROPHIES FOR MARKSMANSHIP?” in his best Buster Bluth voice when he overheard this part). Somehow Dustin makes like two phone calls and the next thing you know that mother is back giving that awkward little kid a big Christmas hug. He basically explains this as “I know a guy and called in a favor,” but I think this would have been a pretty tight turnaround to get her back from a foreign country…but it’s ok, because Christmas magic!

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?!?

Well, Corporate Boyfriend arrives and is cramping their style, but Belinda just awkwardly makes cookies with both of them. Belinda and Dustin lose the scavenger hunt to Belinda’s best friend and her fiancé, which I would tell you more about but I have no earthly idea how this thing was scored. But the true prize is that they raised $15,000 for the mill somehow through this scavenger hunt that did not actually seem to involve fundraising of any kind. Corporate Boyfriend was not happy to learn that the whole scavenger hunt was raising money for the mill. Doesn’t Belinda even care about her promotion? Don’t worry though, he makes a graceful exit when Belinda tells him they want different things out of life.

Sidebar: has anyone else noticed how amicable all the breakups have been in Hallmark movies lately? This is the second or third movie I’ve watched so far this year where the boyfriend who is being thrown over for another guy just respectfully said “You know, I get that we want different things.” Didn’t Corporate Boyfriends used to be bigger jerks in these movies who would just like drive off in their sports cars while yelling? Wasn’t there more conflict and a more satisfying feeling of kicking the d-bag to the curb? I’m thinking of the guy who doesn’t shake hands and the guy whose mom was on a macrobiotic diet…I don’t think they were really super dramatic breakups, but you came away with this really satisfying feeling of “Thank goodness the heroine ditched THAT dude, he was the worst!” I feel like a conscious decision has been made to not make the existing Corporate Boyfriends the worst anymore so that there is very real little conflict in the movie. I can only hope that somewhere a sociology student is writing her thesis on the evolution of Hallmark movies and how they are representative of escapism in this day and age where our everyday lives are riddled with conflict.

OK, back to this movie — the old man of undetermined origins steps up on stage and says that Belinda and Dustin were so kind to him and reminded him of the true meaning of Christmas, so he is going to donate all the money needed to save the mill from the developers. Surprise! He was rich this whole time! I strongly encourage someone to vet this donor. The mill is saved, Corporate Boyfriend is out of the picture…time for Belinda to go to Dustin’s house on Christmas and deliver a teary monologue about how she has always loved him. Boom! Back in love!

I was obsessed with the fact that the actor playing Dustin looks like Mikey Day from Saturday Night Live. My husband adamantly disagreed and says he looks like Matt Bomer, which I personally do not see at all. Feel free to vote in the comments. I thought these two were fine together. Dustin was giving me a slightly creepy vibe because he was reaaaaaaaaaally calling back to a lot of their high school history like he has maybe built a small shrine to Belinda in his room that he’s been worshiping at for the last ten years. Or maybe he’s just a super nice earnest small town guy reconnecting with the love of his life. Could go either way, really.

Should I Watch This Movie?

The trailer made this movie look absolutely terrible. They picked the worst possible line deliveries from both actors to put in the commercials (“Wow, we seem to be uncovering a lot on this scavenger hunt” made me cringe so hard I almost hurt my face). I started off this movie thinking that the actress playing Belinda was not good at all, but she won me over with some sassy line readings. So overall, better than expected, but not good enough to get me to pay attention to approximately 30 percent of the major plot points.

Merry and Bright

In which we learned that CHOCOLATES. ARE. NOT. CANDY. CANES.

In A Nutshell

Jody Sweetin (hereinafter Stephanie Tanner, because I cannot train my brain to think otherwise) has taken over her grandmother’s company. Merry and Bright is a company that makes candy canes. I think Stephanie Tanner used to live somewhere else or do something else or…something. It becomes clear that she was initially reluctant to take on this CEO role for some reason that I don’t think was adequately explained, but also I was super not paying attention if I’m being honest. The company’s board of directors wants to send a corporate consultant because the company isn’t doing great. Enter Gabe, a Corporate Guy From New York City. Gabe and Stephanie Tanner get off to a weird start when she thinks he is a guy her mom is tying to set her up with instead of the corporate consultant. But then they realize they get along pretty well after some heart to heart conversations. Gabe ends up lining up a pitch for Stephanie Tanner with an investor in New York (which he initially forgets to tell her about…really doing a great job at your job there, buddy). She decides to bring in her grandmother’s chocolates to show the range of what the company might be able to do. Gabe and Stephanie Tanner have a fun time making chocolates, which is how you know they are falling in love.

They go to New York and make the pitch. It goes ok. The investor doesn’t seem wildly enthusiastic about candy canes or Stephanie Tanner. Stephanie Tanner and Gabe go to a toy store to…make themselves feel better, I guess? Turns out Gabe also forgot to tell Stephanie Tanner that his company’s holiday party is tonight, and she is invited. Buy a planner or something, Gabe. Anyway, we also learn the head of the company is Gabe’s mom, and that she started this corporate consulting business helping smaller companies but now it is Very Important and Corporate.

It kind of felt like maybe this movie wasn’t long enough when they filmed it, so they added two subplots that seemed veeeeery unrelated to the main plot. First, Stephanie Tanner’s mom (played by Sharon Lawrence) got her a shelter dog. You may recall that Hallmark adopted a dog, and so I think that this is why the dog adoption plot line gets worked in quite a bit. I do appreciate the effort to encourage pet adoption. However, Sharon Lawrence is a pretty cool lady who pretty much gets nothing to do. There’s just like 15 minutes of her trying to hide the dog from her daughter and deciding that even though she didn’t like dogs initially, now she likes this dog.

Second, Stephanie Tanner’s friend is dating the scattered guy at the front desk of the inn. The friend wants him to propose, he maybe bought her a mountain bike. Stephanie Tanner spends a while trying to get him to tell her if he’s going to propose. That’s pretty much what you need to know about that one. Oh yeah, the scattered guy forgot that Stephanie Tanner broke off her engagement last year at the nicest restaurant in town even though he’s dating Stephanie Tanner’s best friend and this surely would have been discussed A LOT. Because he forgot, he tells Gabe to take Stephanie Tanner there on their This Is Not A Date Because We Are Professionals But Like It’s Obviously A Date date. It is awkward for 15 seconds and then immediately forgotten.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

Ok guys. I recognize that the happy ending to a Hallmark Christmas movie is always going to be “Hooray, we hired a Corporate Guy From New York to fix our thing but instead he learned our thing was great because Christmas and told us to change as little as possible and now everything is ok!” Thanksgiving parades! Kringles! Companies that only sell Santa hats year round! I accept that this is kind of the deal. But this one…this was too much. From what I understood of this film, Stephanie Tanner was making chocolates from her grandmother’s recipe. After giving her a lukewarm reception in person, the potential investor in her company thought the chocolates were so good that he wanted to make chocolates the primary product of the company. They would still be called Merry and Bright. They would still make candy canes. NO ONE IS ASKING YOU TO ABANDON THE CANDY CANES. Gabe and the investor are very clear about this.

And yet…

The obstacle is this movie is that Stephanie Tanner cannot believe that Gabe would even remotely consider asking her to make candy canes her secondary product. Her grandmother would not have wanted this. She thought Gabe knew her, but clearly he does not. NO DEAL.

This is insane, and I cannot with it. The company seems to be struggling, so maybe taking the “what would Grandma do?” approach is not the way to go. Also, MAYBE YOUR GRANDMA WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL WITH SELLING CHOCOLATES TOO IF IT MEANT YOU GOT AN INVESTOR. I do not understand why the writers made the stakes of this so stupid when it would have been SO EASY to have the investor demand that they just flat out stop making candy canes because no one likes them and they are basically long pointy mints. Then Stephanie Tanner could rightfully question whether this was the best way to honor her grandmother’s legacy. But the candy canes were always going to remain in play, and so none of this makes any sense. Especially because SHE WAS THE ONE WHO PITCHED THE CHOCOLATES IN THE FIRST PLACE. It got so under my skin that I was just yelling “WHAT?!?!?!” at my iPad over and over again. I’m getting really mad again thinking about it, so I just need to move on.

Yeah, so they misunderstand each other about the chocolates or the candy canes or whatever, and now they maybe aren’t in love anymore?

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas?

Stephanie Tanner invited Gabe to light the town Christmas tree and then he got all excited about the magic of Christmas. There was also a painting in Gabe’s mother’s house that as a child he thought was the epitome of Christmas, and then he decided that this small town looked like the painting, so it must be the most Christmas-y place on earth. I may or may not be correctly identifying this plot point because at this stage in the movie I was cleaning my fridge. I did, however, see the part where they walked around Vancouver…er, I mean, New York City…and took in all of the Christmas magic that city had to offer too. Big cities, small towns–these two will find Christmas spirit wherever they go.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?\

First, let’s acknowledge that this is a rare movie where the two leads kiss before the end! They kiss at the Christmas party Gabe forgot to tell her about. They immediately declare it to be a fluke because of the magical day in New York City, because they couldn’t possibly admit that they like each other. They are Very Professional Businesspeople.

In the end, they manage to get past the chocolate rift when the investor calls Gabe back and says “Wait, I just tried the candy canes in weird flavors! They’re great! Forget the chocolates, we’re doing candy canes year round now!” There are no questions about how her grandmother would have felt about odd combinations of candy cane flavors (key lime for St. Patrick’s Day?). So they do candy canes year round and Stephanie Tanner and Gabe are back in love and now Stephanie Tanner leads factory tours too because she has no other demands on her time as the CEO of this very successful candy cane company. Gabe quits his mom’s company to move to the small town in Ohio and start a consulting business for small companies.

I was not feeling the chemistry here. Andrew McCartney played Gabe–you may remember him marrying a crazy person who wears tights under shorts on a bet. He’s a pretty decent actor on the Hallmark movie scale, but there’s not a lot to work with in this script. Stephanie Tanner is just kind of there.

Oh, Stephanie Tanner told her mom to just keep the dog because clearly her mom and the dog loved each other, and Stephanie Tanner’s friend gets engaged to that awkward man. Sure!

Should I Watch This Movie?

I have no idea why I fell in these plot holes so hard, but I did. Leaving that aside, I didn’t think anything interesting happened here. If you are a die hard Full House fan who religiously follows Stephanie Tanner’s filmography, go for it. For everyone else, there are probably better ways to spend your time.

Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses

Welcome to the 2019 Christmas season! If you’re new around here, I recap Hallmark Christmas movies. I started doing this to amuse my friends, and that’s pretty much the reason I’m still doing it (and why I use a terrible free WordPress template).

A couple of things to note for the good of the order:

(1) There is way too much freaking content out there. Lifetime is getting in the mix with like 30 new movies now. Netflix is probably preparing to put out 1000. I am but one woman with a full time job and a child who now has the ability to call me out when I’m not paying attention to her. If you’ve been around for the last few years, you know I usually lose steam on this thing by mid-December anyway. I have to put a boundary somewhere, and since Hallmark is basically the O.G. on all of this (and, you know, since I went and put Hallmark in the name of the blog), I’m planning to stick to Hallmark movies. I may make an exception if another provider puts out something so bananas that I can’t ignore it, but it will need to be truly next-level bananas and not just run of the mill “Vanessa Hudgens is a princess and now there’s a knight for some reason?” bananas.

(2) The best comment I ever got on this blog was someone who really did not like how much I disliked a particular movie and accused me of being a bitter failed actress who couldn’t even get a role in a Hallmark movie if I tried. I am technically a failed actress in that I once played a Hot Box dancer in my middle school production of Guys and Dolls but then when my high school inexplicably performed the same play two years later I got demoted to “Chorus” and only got to walk across the stage twice in the background. However, I think it’s important to make clear that I’m not just here to insult these movies. In fact, the whole reason I started watching these movies in the first place is because I genuinely like them. Alan Thicke makes me cry real tears every time. I love watching Meredith Grey’s sister realize that she’s in love with that guy who sleeps in the department store display because he can’t afford a New York apartment. Joey Lawrence is a national treasure. But when you churn out 30 movies a year, they can’t all be winners. I’m really here to help you decide where to spend your time if your schedule only allows you to watch a normal number of Hallmark Christmas movies per year.

OK, now that we have all of that out of the way, let’s kick off the 2019 holiday season

In A Nutshell

Jill Wagner is a former interior decorator named…Jill Wagner? I probably should have written this down (I did write down the male lead’s name, which seems silly looking back on it because of course it is Nick). Jill Wagner has an adorable son (who says things like “Mom, I’m hungry and Grandpa won’t feed me!” which made me guffaw for some reason) and an affable dad who encourages her to follow her dreams. She gave up the high stakes world of interior decorating years ago because her son’s dad is not around for reasons that I don’t think were ever explained. She is now a programming director at a nursing home, which seems like it would be kind of lovely.

One of the board members of the nursing home is a lovely older rich lady who encourages Jill Wagner to come apply for an interior design job with her son Nick Sinclair. He is a Corporate Guy Who Lives In New York City but he has returned to his hometown because his company is going to be “expanding its territory into the Southeast.” Where is this supposed to be taking place? It may just be yet another Hallmark movie where the writers out themselves as Canadians because they do not understand U.S. climates. Anyway, Nick is both living in and working out of his grandfather’s estate, and they want to make it pretty for a gala of some sort. He brought his Senior VP Kate, who is a Corporate Lady Who Lives In New York City And Is Not Swayed By Your Small Town Charm Because She Loves Mergers. Kate is not impressed with Jill Wagner, and it seems clear that she and Nick are just humoring Nick’s mother by giving Jill Wagner an interview at all. Jill Wagner stumbles her way through the interview (kind of surprised that she wouldn’t have a lawn guy at the ready…that felt like a softball question). She yells at Nick and Kate when it becomes clear they are being dismissive. Nick likes her moxie and her gumption. She is hired.

Jill Wagner feels like she needs to involve Nick in a lot of her decision making for some reason. He is reluctant at first because he has a business to run, but then goes to an antique market with her when one of his Important Business Meetings is cancelled. He makes a bad joke while they sip peppermint hot chocolate. Jill Wagner didn’t realize he had a sense of humor, but now that she knows she is into him in a big way. They spend the rest of the movie gazing at each other longingly while doing Christmas-y things.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

One of the elderly residents of the nursing home where Jill Wagner worked at the beginning tries to be sneaky and set Jill Wagner up with his grandson (sidebar: it just now occurred to me that Jill Wagner must have quit her job for this one interior design gig, which seems bananas). His grandson is a handsome pediatrician. He’s there to create a love triangle I guess, but he doesn’t really do anything and respectfully bows out when he realizes Jill Wagner is in love with Nick. Oh wait, he does come up with a plan during the gala to make Nick jealous by dancing with Jill Wagner and making her laugh. Nick looks sad over this, so I suppose it worked.

Then we have Kate. Poor, misunderstood Kate. You know I gotta defend my corporate ladies when Hallmark decides to throw them in as villains. Look, you guys, Kate just loves mergers. She loves them in a way Nick never will. Why can’t she just do the thing she loves without having to remind her boss every 3 minutes that he should actually be doing his job instead of doing Christmas-y things with his interior decorator? She called him out for missing the big call with the merger partner (oh yeah, they were doing a merger. Not clear why the business needs a merger to survive when they are also expanding to the Southeast. Maybe put a pin in those expansion plans, chief). But why should she have to cover for her boss while he makes gingerbread houses? Maybe Kate would also enjoy making gingerbread houses, but SOMEONE HAS TO GET THIS MERGER DONE AND IT CLEARLY AIN’T GONNA BE NICK. Yes, she’s being cold to Jill Wagner, but if I were her I’d be like “Why did you drag me down to wherever we are in the Southeast to oversee the restoration of this house WHEN I JUST WANT TO DO MERGERS?!?” Is this in her job description? We needed CCB to executive produce this movie so we could have thrown in a swipe or two at the fact that a woman is being asked to put her actual job on hold to oversee a Christmas gala and tell Jill Wagner what color couch to buy.

So yeah, I’m going with the patriarchy that pitted two female characters against each other unnecessarily is the obstacle. And I used “patriarchy” in the first blog post of the season. 2019 is going to be a banner year.

Ok, so Nick realizes that he’s not really been doing his job and he has to stop leaving in the middle of the day to help Jill Wagner find old boxes in the garage and talk about his dad doing the 12 Days of Christmas for him before he got too busy working all the time. Jill Wagner is sad and thinks they aren’t in love anymore.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas??

Sure! For you see, Jill Wagner is determined not to miss any Christmas things for her son even while she does this job that she went all in on by presumably quitting her other stable salaried job. They decorate 200 Christmas ornaments in one night, because that seems like a thing that one would ask a child to volunteer for. They make gingerbread houses! There’s a pageant rehearsal that Jill Wagner almost can’t get to because of the snow, but then Nick saves the day and drives her. Boatloads of Christmas spirit here.

Oh, and for some reason they threw in an excellent British event planner for the gala. I do not know what purpose he served in the film’s plot, but I enjoyed that his presence allowed references to be made to figgy pudding.

Also, actual line from my notes — “It has not snowed on Christmas Eve since her mom died? Ok Hallmark”

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?!?

You better believe it. I think we tried to do a thing at the end where there was a terrible misunderstanding on Jill Wagner’s part and she thought Kate was proposing marriage to Nick but really Kate was proposing that he get out of her damn way and let her run with the mergers and he can stay and run this ill-advised Southeast expansion or maybe just quit entirely because he clearly doesn’t want to be doing this. That felt like it resolved itself pretty quickly. Then Nick confesses his love to Jill Wagner in front of a decorated gazebo (which he got together very quickly, it seems…) and they kiss and it snows on Christmas Eve. Hooray!

I think Nick looks like a discount version of a young Harrison Ford, and I’m not mad about that. Jill Wagner (you probably know her from when she was the sideline reporter on Wipeout if you’re cool like me, or Teen Wolf if you were cool eight years ago, or from her 800 other Hallmark movies) is a delight. For some reason I feel like she’s got a little more substance to her than some of our other Hallmark heroines. I can’t put my finger on it. I liked this couple and the way they flirted with each other as though they were in middle school. That sounds like an insult, but I mean it as a complement of the highest order. When you can’t kiss until the end of the movie you have to show your chemistry in more chaste ways, and they really rocked it out with the playful arm punches and staring at each other wistfully from across the room.

Should I Watch This Movie?

I expected that this movie was going to be garbage because it was released before Halloween. Like last year, I was pleasantly surprised when it met my admittedly low bar. I don’t know why I thought Jill Wagner wouldd let me down. Worth a watch.

Reunited At Christmas

In which a couple is Parent Trapped from beyond the grave…

In a Nutshell

Samantha is a writer whose first novel was a smashing success. Her editor has asked her to make her second effort a Christmas story to be released in some kind of anthology next year.  Of course she has to complete this over the holiday.  She expresses concern to her boyfriend Simon over having to write about Christmas, because her Christmases just haven’t been the same the last few years.  Her beloved Nana recently passed away, and her parents split up a few years ago, making family Christmas an awkward affair.  Simon promises that the two of them will take a romantic trip to Aspen at Christmas and forget all about her family drama.  As soon as he said the word “Aspen” I thought “Aaaaaa, so this is the workaholic douche boyfriend.”

Not so fast! Samantha gets a call from her sister telling her to check her mail.  Apparently her late grandmother coordinated something with her lawyer so that all of her family members got very detailed instructions about spending one last Christmas together.  This includes both of her divorced parents.  We find out their divorce was amicable because Samantha’s mom wanted to take her law practice to the next level, and then they just sort of grew apart.  Add another one to the Hallmark Amicable Divorce tracker.  Anyway, Samantha’s mom was always very close to Nana, so she agrees to honor these final wishes and spend Christmas with her daughters and ex.  Samantha has to tell Simon to ditch the Aspen tickets.  In a move that is very uncharacteristic of a douche boyfriend, he gladly agrees AND offers to come with to Samantha’s hometown.

Everyone meets up in the small town at Nana’s house.  It seems Samantha’s dad still lives in town, but is living in his deceased mother’s house instead of his own? I’ve got questions on this that are best tabled for another day.  Samantha’s mom shows up and she and dad have some curt (but not entirely unpleasant) exchanges.  Samantha’s sister is there too, as is her husband Mark.  Poor Mark is given virtually nothing to do.  There’s no role more thankless than being the sister’s husband in a Hallmark movie.  He’s mostly there to act confused about things, I think.  Samantha’s sister wants to dish about how things are going with Simon and to ask if there are wedding bells on the horizon.  Samantha says she is just really happy with where the relationship is, and they haven’t talked about marriage.

…so obviously, Simon proposes that night. It’s a very sweet proposal. However, you read the panic in Samantha’s face immediately. Also, her family is all up in her face like 2 seconds after she proposes.  She says yes, but the next day she asks if they can have a long engagement, because she’s just not sure she’s ready for all of this. Simon thinks they need to think about things and talk when they get back to the city. Samantha isn’t sure if this is a breakup. However, Simon has to stay in town for the story he is working (he’s a reporter for a local news station) so he continues to participate in the Christmas list as they allow Samantha’s family to believe they are still engaged. So you started out thinking we are doing “Girl returns to hometown and realizes she loves her high school ex and not her corporate douche boyfriend and thus stays in this small town and becomes a baker” but we are REALLY doing “I have a fake fiance for the holidays so I don’t ruin my family’s Christmas, because God forbid there be a single person at Christmas.” PLOT TWIST!

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

We discover that the point of Samantha’s sister in this movie is to have a heart to heart with Simon in a coffee shop shortly after things go south with the engagement.  Samantha told her sister that she thinks they may have broken up but begs her not to tell anyone else (does Mark get to know, do you think? I feel like no).  Samantha’s sister tells Simon not to give up on Samantha yet.  You see, she was engaged before.  Simon says he knew that.  What he DIDN’T know was that Sam’s ex called off the wedding just a few days before, and it coincided with their parents’ divorce.  So a whole bunch of commitment issues are the obstacles.  I honestly loved this sequence, because it felt like what a sister would do in these circumstances.  Makes me root for Samantha and Sam even harder.

Also, Samantha’s entire family is throwing up obstacles because they keep asking super pushy and invasive questions.  Samantha’s mom asking them the morning after they got engaged if they’ve set a date yet? Samantha’s dad thinks they should all be on the video chat when Simon tells his parents they are engaged? Come on. Samantha’s sister is complicit by not shutting down this entire line of questioning immediately once she knows what’s going on with Samantha and Simon.  Mark is not included, if only because he doesn’t seem to understand what is happening.

I don’t get what the obstacle is for Samantha’s parents.  This was almost TOO amicable of a divorce, which makes it super easy for a deceased person to Parent Trap them by making them stay in the same house at Christmas.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas?!?!?

Heck. Yes! Nana left them a list.  They have to decorate and ice skate make gingerbread and take a family picture with Santa in a public place and cram two people into single armchairs while they open gifts because they are COUPLES who are IN LOVE! Simon continues to participate in the list activities so that the parents don’t catch on that the engagement is in trouble.  They can’t find the tree topper, which is very important to Samantha, but it turns out that Nana secretly wrapped it as her final Christmas gift for Samantha because of how much it meant to her as a little girl.  I’m not crying, you’re crying.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?

They sure do.  Samantha realizes that there is no reason to be afraid of taking the plunge with Simon if he is the one for her.  She comes to the realization after talking to her mom, who seems to maybe be talking about her own relationship with Samantha’s dad instead of Samantha and Simon.  Anyway, Samantha runs out of the dance (oh yeah, they’re at a dance, because sure) and takes Mark’s car to catch Simon before he returns to New York without her.  Mark is left going “Wait, what is happening?” Samantha tells Simon to ask her again.  He re-proposes.  I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING.

I liked this couple together.  We last saw the actress who plays Samantha married to a wildlife photographer and wishing for a different life.  I think she does a good job with this material. I don’t remember ever seeing the actor who plays Simon in another Hallmark movie, but I liked him too.  I just think the whole “we never talked about marriage, but I assumed you wanted to marry me because we love each other, and oh no maybe I should have asked you if you were interested in marrying me prior to asking you in front of your entire aggressive family” thing is probably something that happens to a lot of couples.  Like, it’s probably more common than being asked to be a bridesmaid/wedding planner for a total stranger and falling in love with her rich actor brother.  They still resolve everything in a very sweet and satisfying way that you would expect from Hallmark.

Oh yeah, are the parents back together? The mom says she’ll come back again next Christmas, but I don’t know that they explicitly end up together.  Do we talk about that? I hope this worked, Nana.  Get Lindsey Lohan for the sequel and you’ll have them.

Is This Worth Watching? 

I think this one was my favorite so far this year, honestly.  I liked the couple, I like that we have real life problems about communication in a relationship without making those problems tooooo real life (really, your big story for an NYC news station is about a couple who got married on Christmas Eve, Simon?)  I was surprised there were so many IMDB reviews complaining about this movie being depressing, including one particularly dramatic individual called caeser7777 who “[f]elt like slitting my wrist during much of this film.” The trivia suggests this movie was originally intended for Hallmark Movies and Mysteries (I am told by Lori Loughlin that Hallmark Movies and Mysteries is for heartfelt stories that might make me shed a tear or two), so that might explain the vibe.  Still, I’m here for it.  I would totally watch the sequel about their Christmas wedding.

Not related to this movie, but I just thought you guys should know that I have only made it through the first 15 minutes of A Shoe Addict’s Christmas.  That’s gonna be a rough one.

It’s Christmas, Eve! / Christmas at Graceland

Hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving with your loved ones! Our house got destroyed over the holiday by a monster cold.  I don’t know if my daughter or I had it worse, although I do have the distinct advantage of knowing how to blow my nose and not screaming hysterically every time someone tries to wipe snot off my face.  Yay parenting!

I was exhausted from all of this, which means I’m behind on blogging.  We’ve got so much to talk about, guys!  And we have to address the pre-Thanksgiving movies before we can get to all of the goodness brought to us by CCB and her amazing silk pants last week.  So I thought we would go ahead and do something a little different today by combining two movies into one post  It’s a battle of the singers turned actresses tonight: It’s Christmas, Eve! starring LeAnn Rimes versus Christmas at Graceland starring Kellie Pickler.  Let’s break down the elements and declare a winner in each category.  I really enjoyed one of these movies and did noooooooot enjoy the other, and I’m pretty sure this is going to become apparent immediately.

Job that sucks the most Christmas spirit right out of you

Eve (I feel like I should use her character’s name because it’s in the title of the movie, buuuuut I’m just going to start calling her LeAnn in like 4 paragraphs) is a traveling school superintendent who cobbles together temporary gigs all over the country. She swoops in, fixes budgets, and swoops out. I would have liked more background on how this became her job, because I don’t get the sense that she started out as a teacher. Anyway, Eve has just accepted an assignment to fix the school district in her hometown.  She quickly decides that things are so bad that her only option is to cut the music and art programs at all schools immediately.  Wouldn’t she be working on the budget for the following school year? Do we have to be this drastic? Ah yes, STAKES!

Kellie (yeah, not even trying to use her character’s name) works for Chicago Financial Corp, because I guess Evil Corporation was already taken.  She does…something? M&A? Sales? I don’t understand her job, but she is up for a big promotion.  Her boss has terrible fake hair and makes her stay late even though her babysitter leaves at 5:30.  This gave me INCREDIBLE STRESS as the person responsible for daycare pickup in our family.  I was also gutted by her leaving the office as the janitor cleaned the elevator bank and receiving the photo of her daughter with the snowman she made with her kindly neighbor that she was SUPPOSED to make with her mom.  Cut right to the core of me.

Winner: Christmas at Graceland

Most Blatant Product Placement

Kellie and her daughter travel to Kellie’s hometown of Memphis to try to help Evil Corporation acquire a very cute small town bank where the owner thinks of everyone as family and refuses to lay off anyone (this makes Kellie’s boss with fake hair very angry for some reason, because EVIL CORP DEMANDS LAYOFFS!!!)  Kellie’s college roommate Sally is supposed to be babysitting Kellie’s daughter while they are there, so I couldn’t figure out why Kellie wasn’t just staying with Sally…but it turns out it’s because The Guest House At Graceland is a very real place that probably paid a steep promotional consideration.

I don’t remember any product placement in It’s Christmas, Eve! Probably because that would have required me to watch closely, which I felt incapable of doing after the first 15 minutes.

Winner: Christmas at Graceland

Best Improbable Romantic Partner

We meet Liam in It’s Christmas, Eve! when he is telling truly terrible dad jokes and anticipating everything his daughter might want to pack for the sleepover.  His daughter is probably riiiiight around the age where she is going to start being horribly embarrassed by him very soon.  She would be correct to be embarrassed by him, because he is basically a worse version of Mr. Schuster from Glee.  Aww, remember when Glee was a thing?  Liam is the high school music teacher who seems to be trying way too hard to be The Cool Teacher to his choir students, most of whom silently lurk in the background.

Eve and Liam have a meet cute in a coffee shop after watching a man spill coffee all over a woman.  Guys, it’s meta! They are having a meet cute while witnessing a meet cute! Someone in the Hallmark writer’s room was really proud of that one. Obviously, his job would be the first one cut by Eve’s proposed cuts.  They only realize that she would make him unemployed like 20 minutes into the movie.

Kellie bumps into Clay outside of Graceland while she and her daughter are checking out the Christmas lights with Sally’s family.  Clay and Kellie used to perform music together and date many years ago.  They are still on friendly terms, it seems.  Clay is now a concert promoter, and he is planning the Graceland Christmas concert.  He hopes this will help to rocket him to the big time in New York City.  Sure, seems like that is how these things work.  It completely makes sense that these two would be together, even though he “doesn’t do Christmas anymore, because he has no one to share it with.”

Winner: It’s Christmas, Eve!

Most Amicable Divorce

Both of these movies feature divorced single parents. Single dad Liam in It’s Christmas, Eve! is raising his daughter, who periodically announces that she just got off the phone with her mom.  It seems that Liam and his ex-wife decided to split up when they realized they just wanted different things. She’s now a surgeon in the big city.  His daughter sees her during summer break.

Christmas at Graceland just sweeps away Kellie’s baby daddy with a “her dad’s not in the picture anymore,” followed by never ever discussing this ever again.  You can tell that she is trying to protect her daughter from deadbeats though, because she says things to Clay like “Don’t be Mr. Promises, there are kids involved!”

Winner: It’s Christmas, Eve!

Best Use Of The Leading Lady’s Musical Talents

So this was an odd choice for It’s Christmas, Eve! We learn pretty quickly that LeAnn’s father died when she was a teenager and as a result she never sang again.  It would have made sense to tell us this once, but literally every person she knew wanted to talk about her father’s death and how she used to be such a great singer back 15 years ago (P.S. I am SO BUMMED that I used up my “Don’t make me sing” joke a couple of entries ago, because it would have been incredibly perfect here).  Why have a great singer who is not a great actress star in your movie if you’re not going to have her sing until the end of the movie? She does randomly sight sing some music that Liam wrote for her, but she makes Liam perform the song that her mom finds that was written for her by her dead dad.

Christmas at Graceland has Kellie singing at her desk, right out of the opening credit.  She will pick up any guitar or sit at any piano.  This is what the people want to see, Hallmark.  Just lean into it.

Winner: Christmas at Graceland

Highest Stakes for the Christmas Concert

I was confused by this in It’s Christmas, Eve! because Liam starts talking early in the movie about having his students come practice for the Christmas concert at his house (you know, because he’s the Cool Teacher).  He explains that this concert involves all the schools in the district coming together to perform.  But then halfway through the movie these two bozos were like “I KNOW, LET’S SAVE MUSIC BY HAVING A CHRISTMAS CONCERT! I hope getting all the permission we need is not too much of an obstacle!” Why do you need permits for this? Isn’t it already happening?!?! Why would anyone be opposed to trying this if there are no stakes and the alternative is cutting all art and music programs in all schools?

Christmas at Graceland‘s concert only has personal stakes for Clay, because he just really needs to do a good job at this for some reason.  He convinces Kellie to perform with him in the concert when an act drops out.  She is willing to do this because she’s trying to raise a girl who is fearless and willing to chase her dreams, and Kellie wants to model that behavior.  Again, all the feels for this mom over here.

Winner: It’s Christmas, Eve!

Worst Band Name

Liam reveals that he was in a band called Bingo Jones.

BINGO.

JONES.

NO ONE ELSE SHOULD EVEN TRY

Winner: It’s Christmas, Eve!

Best Blackmail

The town’s mayor refuses to allow a Christmas concert that would literally save the arts in the school district unless her nephew is given a solo in It’s Christmas, Eve! (Spoiler alert: turns out her nephew has a great voice, so all’s well that ends well, I guess?)

The boss with the hair finds out that Kellie has been doing very little work while in Memphis after some noisy jerk back at Evil Corp sees Kellie’s name listed in the program for the Graceland Christmas concert.  He tells her she needs to come home immediately or risk losing her job, even though the next day is Christmas .

Winner: It’s Christmas, Eve! (sure, the stakes are higher for Kellie, but the blackmail was just so much more blatant and ridiculous here)

Most Hallmarky (yup, it’s a word) Leading Lady

Oh LeAnn.  All of her line deliveries reminded me of Cecily Strong doing her impression of the Serial lady.  She just seemed really bored to be there.  It really tanked the entire movie.

I don’t remember much about Kellie Pickler, other than she was on American Idol and was known for being a bit ditzy.  I think she maybe has a talk show on a cable network now? Is she a good actress? I have no idea.  She might just be that perky and Southern in real life too.  But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because she is a DELIGHT.  I hope those Canadian Hallmark writers continue to get confused about what Southern geography would support snow for years to come, because I would watch a movie a year with Kellie Pickler in it.  Put her up there with CCB and Lacey and, for some reason, Alicia Witt.

Winner: Christmas at Graceland

Best Music

Ah, you would expect that I would pick Christmas at Graceland, because Elvis.  However, there was some Elvis at the beginning and a cool montage of Kellie walking around wistfully while “Blue Christmas” played, but otherwise the music wasn’t doing much for me.  I feel like it was a waste of Kellie’s voice to do that “Silent Night/Silver Bells” mashup for their big concert number.  I would have loved to hear her belt out some “O Holy Night” or something.

No, I’m giving this to It’s Christmas, Eve! because LeAnn can still sing. And because that “You and Me and Christmas” song is cute and it’s been stuck in my head for three days. And because they play a snippet of the first grade choir’s performance and they sound like they are singing full on harmonies.  Maybe this school district actually is spending too much on music?

Winner: It’s Christmas, Eve!

Best Chemistry

This really should easily go to Christmas at Graceland, because I’m not sure that LeAnn is capable of chemistry with any human, let alone this joker.  Plus Kellie and Clay make a cute couple.  HOWEVER, It’s Christmas, Eve! ends with LeAnn throwing coffee at her man and giving a terrible line reading to call back to the meet cute at the beginning…but then Liam kiiiiiind of came out of nowhere with a pretty great kiss.  Shocking enough that I stopped what I was doing (cleaning my fridge, if you’re curious, because that’s how much I disliked this movie) and said “WHOA!” out loud to my dog (everyone else was sleeping).  It was like when Nick Miller kisses Jess on New Girl and you’re like “Wait…am I attracted to Nick Miller now even though he is an insufferable man child?” (Yup).

Winner: tie? Nah, it’s still Christmas at Graceland, because you need two people to make chemistry.  Sorry, LeAnn.

 

Christmas in Love

Do the titles of these movies even mean anything anymore?

In a Nutshell

Ellie works in HR at a commercial bakery in Missouri where they bake and sell something called a Kringle. Her dad is the bakery manager. Ellie likes her job and makes wreaths for fun. She just like suuuuuper busy and cannot find the time to make more wreaths, even though her mom says how much everyone likes her wreaths.

The bakery finds out that someone is coming to visit From Corporate in San Francisco to learn more about how things go on the bakery floor. That someone is the CEO’s son, Nick. He’s going to take over the company on January 1, but his dad isn’t sure that Nick is ready. Nick says he will do the trip to the bakery, but he’s already decided that they should automate in the bakery and also he’s going to use a fake name while he’s there.

Nick and Ellie had a meet cute when Nick slips in ice and Ellie nailed him in the face with her car door. Imagine her surprise when she discovers that the person she concussed is the guy From Corporate! She trains him about the importance of hand making Kringles while he ominously lets on to his evil plan to automate everything (what are you, a Bond villain? Just quietly make the Kringles and take notes in your head, man).

Even though Ellie claims not to like him, she pretty much immediately starts sharing all her views on the world and hopes and dreams. Nick is super supportive of Ellie going for her dreams, perhaps because he knows he is going to downsize a ton of this bakery come January 1. But of course, he falls in love with the town and Christmas and Kringle-making and Ellie.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

For starters, he lies about who he even is, which is always an excellent place to start any new relationship.

Automation is the obstacle. It would be so much faster to not make the Kringles by hand, but Nick’s successful businessman father sent him to the factory to show him that the people matter too.

Another obstacle: computers without a lock screen and new girlfriends who feel like they can just wander into your unlocked hotel room. Especially when you haven’t deleted your evil plan and your real last name from your report yet. Whoops.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas???

Nick says that his family always bought what they needed for Christmas and paid someone to decorate, so he’s not used to all of Ellie’s family traditions. Did it seem really weird to anyone else that Nick’s dad was super up in his employees’ lives but apparently a little distant from his own son? Nick learns the importance of a level tree topper.

Ellie decided to do a booth at the town Christmas fair for her wreaths. It’s a huge thing that she doesn’t think she will have enough inventory, so she gets Nick and her mom and her firefighter friend to help her make a bunch of wreaths. Then she sells out the first day but is like “oh, I’ll just make more” as if this is no big deal when she just spent 20 minutes of the movie telling us what a big deal it was.

So yes, Kringles and wreaths and festivals and tree lightings…so many chances to show Nick what Christmas is all about. Also a lot with the food bank, because giving back is important at the holidays.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?

They actually kiss before the end of the movie! While (gasp!) ALONE IN HIS HOTEL ROOM! If this were a Lifetime movie we would have gotten the tasteful pan the camera away to the ceiling to imply something more is going to happen (perfected by “The Bachelor” and its fantasy suites). Since this is Hallmark, they kiss once and then stay up all night making a business plan for her wreath business. Checks out.

You know they are really in love because she is only mad at him for LYING ABOUT WHO HE EVEN IS for like half a day. As soon he makes a dramatic public pronouncement that automation is out, she is immediately back in love with him again.

The actor playing Nick was the Mountie on a Hallmark show called “When Calls The Heart” that my mother and mother-in-law really love. He was also the guy who “ruined” a nice interior designer’s life by asking if her fiancé had met her cousin yet. He was not doing it for me in this movie as Generic Corporate Guy With A Heart Of Gold, even though he donated $5K to the food bank. He seemed to have developed more of a personality at the end, but he was really meh overall.

Ellie was a pretty interesting Hallmark heroine. More on this in a minute.

Oh yeah, and Ellie’s best friend and her ex fell in love too. Ellie takes this very well.

Is It Worth Watching?

I was on a roller coaster with this movie. The commercials made it look absolutely awful. They took the clips that showed the worst possible acting and made it look not at all appealing. I started watching fully prepared to hate it. But then I kind of liked Ellie. I found her really charming and a little self-deprecating, and you could tell she was really thinking about the next steps in her life. I did feel like she was the kind of person I would be Facebook friends with just to see what kind of inspirational quotes she was posting to her feed, but we would not actually hang out that much in real life. Still, I thought Ellie made the movie really watchable, to the point where I was legitimately concerned about how she was going to take the news that Nick was using a fake last name. I was rooting for these crazy kids.

And then the ending happened, and I just wanted an hour of my life back.

Here’s the thing: this could have been an interesting twist on your typical Hallmark plot, because she seemed to be a woman who wanted more than her small hometown could offer her. She was dreaming about a life in the big city. She had applied to corporate jobs in San Francisco because she was ready to make that move a reality. She broke up with her handsome nice guy firefighter boyfriend because they wanted different things out of life, even though he was still a great guy. She gets together with a guy who himself lives in San Francisco. And then she…starts a business making wreaths and stays in her small town?!?! This was just such a bummer for me. Maybe we are supposed to take hope that she is going to eventually go live with Nick and run her business there, but I did not like the “Come visit me at New Years” nonsense. I think the fact that I thought we were going somewhere interesting and different made it all the more disappointing when the answer was “We Will Sell Wreaths and Kringles All Year Long! Valentine’s wreaths and heart-shaped Kringles for everyone!”

So I don’t know, guys. Maybe I’m wrong for wanting more from this movie, and I should just let her live her happy wreath life. Let’s not forget she’s probably going to marry this new CEO, and this Kringle All Year Long plan will probably make him fabulously wealthy, so if her dumb wreath business fails who cares?

Road to Christmas

In a Nutshell

Maggie is a plucky young producer at a Martha Stewart-type show hosted by Julia Wise. Julia has built a media empire by treating her staff like family (sure). Every year she hosts a Christmas Eve TV special, and this is the first year that is overseeing the big show. And, for the first time ever, it will be LIVE! Everyone is going up from California to Julia’s gorgeous home in Vermont.  Maggie gets a call from her parents and feels wistful that she won’t be home for Christmas, but she knows this is her big break.

Julia calls Maggie in for a meeting.  While she’s waiting for Julia to be free, Maggie meets a young man who seems to know an awful lot about TV production.  Wouldn’t you know that it turns out to be Julia’s son/former producer/maker of nature documentaries, Danny? Danny is played by One Tree Hill‘s own Chad Michael Murray, because he has now been sucked into the Upside Down.  It turns out the network is nervous about the whole special being live, so they want Julia to have some pre-taped material.  Julia wants Danny to help with this. It is somehow decided that even though Maggie is ostensibly in charge of this whole thing, she should not come to all of the rehearsals in Vermont but should instead take a road trip from California to Vermont to get footage of Americans celebrating Christmas traditions with Danny.  Off they go!

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?

The usual nonsense about Danny and Maggie butting heads over professional goals and what have you.  Danny wants traditional Christmases the way they are, Maggie thinks change can be good.  She doesn’t like that he’s muscling in on her show, he doesn’t like…something? I don’t know what his deal was, actually.  He seemed to just be along for the ride with his documentary style camera.

I feel like the love story is kind of secondary in this movie.  Maggie really wants to get Danny’s two brothers to come to Julia’s live show to surprise her.  They keep talking about the fact that the three boys have not spent Christmas with their mom in several years.  I am not sure why this is the case, since this is the first year this show is live.  Wouldn’t Julia just film this on like December 15 and then go see her kids? Something seems fishy…anyway, Julia’s ulterior motive is to stop and see the two other brothers on this road trip and convince them to come to Vermont.

Derick, the youngest brother, doesn’t want to do the show at first.  They make a big show of stating that Derick is adopted, because Hallmark thinks that we the audience could not figure this out from context clues (he is Asian, Julia and the other brothers are decidedly not Asian).  We are led to believe that Derick doesn’t want to do the show because the year that Danny produced the show, Derick wanted to play the ukulele and sing but Danny wouldn’t let him to save Derick from himself.  This was the right call, but it still leads to conflict.  And maybe he is sad about their dad having passed away? I can’t remember if this was stated explicitly.

David is the other brother.  I guess I missed why he really really didn’t want to do his mom’s show, but they keep saying “Oh, David is the hold out, David won’t do it.” I wanted to know what the story was with this.  When the group arrives in David’s city (…somewhere east of Nebraska? I don’t remember where this was supposed to take place), we meet Bradley, who Derick seems to know very well and immediately greets with a hug.  Danny seems a little stilted with Bradley.  Immediately I thought “OH SNAP HALLMARK, this is David’s life partner and THAT’S the reason he doesn’t see his mom at Christmas.”  I really thought this was where we were going, and I. Was. Here. For. It.  It would have been a great emotional payoff to have Julia’s son come to her show and have her accept him for who he really is, and they hug and find the meaning of Christmas etc. Of course this is Hallmark, so they do not go down this path explicitly.  We find out that Bradley helps David run his businesses.  This feels like a wink wink in a movie from the 50s. “This is my best friend with whom I run this dog rescue establishment, and also we are roommates and spend all our time together. Confirmed bachelors, we are!”  David declines to go with the other brothers and Maggie to Vermont.

Oh yeah, and there was something about having a host for the road trip who I guess we are supposed to know is famous, but then she can’t host the segments because oh no she’s sick…I’m not clear what the point of this was, since it seemed to have very little consequence.  Maybe I needed to be paying closer attention.

But Do They Find The Meaning Of Christmas???

They do lots of Christmas-y stuff to film the segments for the show.  Christmas tree farm, complete with adorable old married couple! Snowman building contest! Other such heartwarming things allowing Maggie to give heartwarming speeches!

My favorite part was when Derick and Danny pull a fast one on Maggie and take her to her family’s house for pre-Christmas activities on an unscheduled road trip stop in Nebraska.  I liked this sequence, I thought it was sweet.  I also like that Maggie’s mom has a closet full of wrapped white elephant gifts for people who come without a gift.  This feels very Midwestern.

After leaving David’s, Derick gives up his train ticket for a pregnant lady and her husband because of the spirit of Christmas.  This allows a dramatic entrance to the Christmas special by one-horse open sleigh with he and David.  Ah, yes, David’s “friend” convinces David to go see his mom by saying that he and the other volunteers would be fine with the dogs.  Somehow David runs into Derick on the train platform, I guess.  They all make it to Vermont.  Julia is thrilled.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End???

Danny and Maggie kiss during the airing of the live show after the teleprompters go out and they lose all of their slick produced segments and have to go with rough cuts that somehow make them realize that they are in love.  I feel like Julia kind of gives them the side eye when they kiss. I can’t tell if the side eye is because it’s wildly unprofessional to be kissing right now or because she doesn’t approve of their pairing. I would like to watch a sequel about whether she accepts their relationship, and also whether she comes to accept her gay son.

You guys, do we dislike Chad Michael Murray? I feel like he had a short marriage to a One Tree Hill co-star and it came out in the aftermath of the divorce that he was not a great guy. Am I remembering that right? I feel like I’m not supposed to like him. He’s ok in this. He looks like a version of the guy who plays Logan on “Gilmore Girls” who has spent a bit more time partying.

The actress playing Maggie was pretty good. She was a good combination of Christmas earnestness and ladder climbing TV producer boss lady with a bit of sass and a heart of gold.  Their chemistry was pretty good, I think.

In case you are wondering, David and Bradley had excellent chemistry.

Should I Watch This Movie?

You know, I found this really enjoyable. I can’t really tell you why, because I feel like I was not fully engaged while watching it, but I definitely watched it in one sitting because I wanted to know how it ended (unlike the LeAnn Rimes movie, which has taken me four sittings to get halfway through…that recap is going to be a doozy, guys). Maybe I liked it because the road trip premise was something just different enough from the standard Hallmark formula.  Maybe I liked it because I was making up my own subplots about Julia and her sons and making the journey all about healing the family rift.  Either way, I would recommend it.