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.
Deck the Hall(mark Movie)s 