Santa Bootcamp | 2022 Christmas Movies

Rita Moreno is an absolute legend. Even if Santa Bootcamp sucked, I would tell you to watch it for her. But this is the only Lifetime Christmas movie that has made me cry. Let me tell you why.

Emily (Emily Kinney) is an event planner tasked with planning a very special, very elite Christmas gala for mall magnate Ed Mancini (Patrick Cassidy). In an attempt to find the perfect Santa for the party, Emily attends a Santa Bootcamp run by Belle (Rita Moreno). There she meets Aidan (Justin Gaston), a chef who helps her find her Christmas spirit.

As I said, this movie made me cry. Not because it’s sentimental or anything like that. But because Emily speaks American Sign Language. Mostly to her mother, Olive (Deanne Bray), but the scene that got me was Emily talking with a deaf child, Charlotte (Zyra Singleton), in a toy store. I have never seen a Christmas movie that featured ASL as heavily as Santa Bootcamp. Can you imagine how seen a deaf person feels watching a movie where not one but three characters (four, if you count the little ASL Moreno speaks at the end) are fluent in ASL? That is what made me cry.

The rest of the movie is just as beautiful. The costumes and decorations are breath-taking. Thankfully, they cast extremely talented actors in the lead roles. There isn’t any part of this movie that is bad. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that Santa Bootcamp was so good.

Put another hashmark in the Win column. Santa Bootcamp is definitely a movie you should watch. Then tell all your friends to watch it. The more people we get to enjoy movies with diverse characters and storylines, the more of those movies we’ll get to see. Let Hallmark and Lifetime know this is what we want.

Three Wise Men and a Baby | 2022 Christmas Movies

Hallmark took three of their Christmas leading men and cast them all in one movie as brothers. Three Wise Men and a Baby is the updated Christmas version of 1987’s Three Men and a Baby. Does it live up to the awesomeness of the original? Maaaybe…

Luke (Andrew Walker) is a firefighter. A few days before Christmas, a baby is left at the firehouse with a note asking Luke to look after him. So Luke brings the baby home to his mother, Barbara (Margaret Colin), and brothers, Stephan (Paul Campbell) and Taylor (Tyler Hynes). When their mother has to leave town to care for her sister for a few days, the brothers are left home alone to take care of the baby and prepare the house for Christmas. Chaos!

I was pleasantly surprised about how much I liked this movie. It was written by Paul Campbell and Kimberley Sustad (who makes a cameo appearance as an ER doctor), who also wrote 2020’s Christmas By Starlight. They were able to make each of the brothers completely different people while still allowing them the room to be brothers and have an emotional connection. I loved how the brothers interacted, especially with the baby. Oh, and their Nutcracker dance is to die for.

Yes, I think you should watch Three Wise Men and a Baby. The romance is kinda tacked on at the end but I think that makes this movie even more special. It isn’t about romantic relationships. It’s about repairing past family traumas and reconnecting with brothers. These are things that the holidays really should be about. Not finding your True Love.

Christmas In Pine Valley | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I first starting writing these Christmas reviews so long ago, I decided that the MarVisa Entertainment production company was my nemesis. They make a lot of awful Christmas movies. I hadn’t noticed their company logo lately so I thought maybe they gave up. I was wrong. Their movies are still bad but either they aren’t as bad as they used to be or I have grown more tolerant of them. I hope it’s not the latter.

Natalie (Kristina Cole) runs a family Christmas tree farm/home goods store. When she lands a large order from Mr. Prentice (John McKerrow), she is forced to pretend that the company is owned by blood relations or she risks losing the order. In addition, magazine journalist Josh (Andrew Biernat) wants to write an extremely truthful article on the company. Can Natalie and the gang pull off pretending to be a real family instead of a chosen family?

Christmas In Pine Valley is, and I am not kidding about this, the stupidest Christmas movie I have seen this season. Mr. Prentice insists on only buying from family-run companies. He admits that he cancels orders if he finds out the companies are not run by actual family members. Then he places an order for 500(!) pieces of their soap, candles, handmade wooden ornaments, and essential oils. Does he really think a small family-run company has the capacity to make 500 pieces of product in just a few days? Or that their company wouldn’t be completely ruined if he cancelled the order after they already started production? Yet at no point is he made out to be the villain in the story.

In addition, we have stupid Josh. He randomly shows up on their doorstep without calling ahead to schedule a time to talk to the family about his article. Then he follows them around, even after they tell him how busy they are. And he has the gall to tell Natalie that he’ll write a bad article if he finds out that they aren’t a family?

Apparently none of these people know about branding. They straight up say the farm was started in 1937. The people that originally owned that farm would either be very elderly or dead in 2022. Even if they left the farm to their children and those children left the farm to their children, they would need more than only their relatives to run the farm. It’s unreasonable to think that everyone in a company with “Family” in the name are actual blood family members.

Absolutely do not watch Christmas In Pine Valley. As a matter of fact, don’t watch anything from MarVista Entertainment. I think I might boycott them again.

The Holiday Swap | 2022 Christmas Movies

It isn’t too often that I see Christmas movies aired that need to be censored. UPtv censored the word ‘pissed’ twice in The Holiday Swap. I guess this shows that UPtv buys movies that sound like they fit the channel’s demographic instead of creating their own, like Hallmark.

On her way to visit her friend, Lara (Vanessa Jackson), Ally (Alex Paxton-Beesley) accidentally picks up the wrong piece of luggage on the airplane. Without her cell phone charger or laptop, Ally tries to figure out the identity of the mysterious writer who owns the luggage in her possession.

Before we even get a title card, we are met with Chapter One: Her. I found it an intriguing way to begin a movie. Unfortunately, her side of the story is so boring. Mostly because every Ally is stonewalled every time she tries to find the luggage’s owner. She goes to the one store in town to get a new charger for her phone - apparently they only have 10+ year old chargers. She tries to call the publisher to get in contact with the writer, MA Turner - the receptionist hangs up on her instead of taking down her information. There was literally no headway made in the search. It was so freaking annoying.

The Chapter Two: Him side was a little more interesting. I won’t spoil the review by telling you who the writer is, even though it is fairly obvious. And we don’t get a good reason for why he won’t tell anyone else who he is. It’s just like “My family was mean to me when I was younger and did artistic things.” Dude, you’re an adult. Get over it. Also, he had $100,000 advance on his next book. Why doesn’t anyone wonder where he suddenly got all this money from? IT MAKES NO SENSE.

My suggestion is to stay away from this one. Unless you really want to see ‘pissed’ be censored. I thought that was the best part of the movie. It apparently doesn’t take much to make me laugh.

A Country Christmas Harmony | 2022 Christmas Movies

Another Christmas movie about a singer. This really must be the popular career for this year’s movies. This time we’re going country with A Country Christmas Harmony.

Chrissy Kessler (Brooke Elliott) is a country music star. However, her latest single, a Christmas song called Reindeer Slay, didn’t do very well. So her manager, Carole (Nikki Crawford), sends Chrissy and her assistant, Eugene (Danny Pintauro), to Chrissy’s hometown for a big Christmas concert where she will debut a new Christmas song. When they arrive, they run into Chrissy’s ex-boyfriend and ex-songwriter, Luke (Brandon Quinn). Old feelings reemerge as they try to write a new song together.

Sadly, A Country Christmas Harmony was pretty boring. There were no real conflicts in the movie. The only “conflict” was an extremely stupid scene where another country singer, Brad Love (Bradley Dadds), shows up with roses for Chrissy to talk about doing a duet. Luke storms off even though there is zero appearance of any sort of attraction between Chrissy and Brad. And that is the only scene Brad is in. If they had dragged this out, like maybe Brad arrived a few days earlier and was following Chrissy around, I could see how Luke might think they were an item. But I don’t think this scene lasted fifteen minutes. It was dumb.

The only good thing I could say about the movie is that it had a lot of music. It wasn’t great music but it was music. A lot of movies about singers usually have one or two songs and that is it. We heard at least parts of four different songs here.

Honestly, I would skip A Country Christmas Harmony. Unless you need something to help you fall asleep. It might be good for that.

Inventing The Christmas Prince | 2022 Christmas Movies

Did Hallmark actually combine all of the things I love to see in a Christmas movie with Inventing The Christmas Prince? We have a main cast that is mostly people of color and a plot where the main couple’s romance isn’t the star attraction. We should be careful, right?

Shelby (Tamera Mowry-Housley) is a single parent working as a rocket engineer. Her boss, Evan (Ronnie Rowe Jr), isn’t exactly a “people person” and now his job is in jeopardy due to his employees quitting. When Shelby’s daughter, Grace (Isabel Birch), sees Evan, she thinks that he is the Christmas Prince, the main character in a story passed down through Shelby’s family. Can Shelby convince Evan to play the part and grant Grace her twelve wishes?

For the past couple of years, Mowry-Housley has been starring in some terrible Christmas movies. So, at best. I was fairly sure this was another movie heading into the “Meh” pile. Was I surprised when I found myself actually enjoying this one! Sure, they could have left the whole rocket engineer job out of the movie and only focused on Grace’s wishes but I think it gave Evan a little more reason to start acting like a real human being instead of a robot.

If I was to give Inventing The Christmas Prince any criticism, it would be with the conflicts. I know, I know. Most of the conflicts in these movies are dumb. However, the conflicts in this movie barely exist. We have Sherman (Brady Droulis), who is basically a kindergarten bully. And the issue of Grace’s wishes, though that is honestly resolved in like a dozen lines of dialog. Not really a conflict. It would have been nicer to see Shelby and Evan working together a bit more to get the wishes granted and maybe running into a few more snags. I think it would have given the movie a little more realism. But, as it stands, those are minor quibbles.

Yes, Inventing The Christmas Prince is worth watching. It probably won’t be your favorite movie of the season but it is a sweet family movie.

A Christmas Story Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

I’ve never been a big fan of A Christmas Story. Maybe it’s because the movie takes place in 1940 and I couldn’t relate it with. Maybe it’s because the movie was released in 1983 when I was seven years old and it seemed boring. Or maybe because it’s definitely overplayed. No matter the reason, I’m familiar with the movie but I haven’t watched it in years. I wasn’t sure if that would make the sequel, A Christmas Story Christmas, more or less enjoyable.

It is December 1973 and Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) is an adult living in Chicago with his wife and two kids. Despite being almost Christmas, their house hasn’t been decorated. They are waiting for his parents to arrive in order to start the festivities. That is when Ralphie gets the call that his father has passed away. The family heads back to Ralphie’s childhood home in Hammond, Indiana to celebrate Christmas and help his mother with the final plans for his dad.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed this movie quite a bit. I was very prepared to hate it. Even though both of my parents are still alive, I related to Ralphie in a way that I wasn’t able to as a child. The attempt to make a holiday special for your children is something that most parents can probably understand. But, of course, every attempt has to be thwarted in some way. That is what makes A Christmas Story the most relatable. It’s not picture perfect. It’s messy, just like real life.

I do think that most people would enjoy this movie. Obviously, I don’t think you need to enjoy the original to get satisfaction out of this one. However, you probably need to at least be familiar with it since there are a lot of references and we do see the original friend group. I’m not sure you would get the same enjoyment out of the movie if you aren’t familiar with those things. If you haven’t watched the original and liked the sequel, leave a comment down below. I’d love to know your thoughts on the movie.

Sweet Navidad | 2022 Christmas Movies

I don’t know a whole lot about the restaurant business or catering but I’m pretty sure I know more than the writers of Sweet Navidad. It’s not that I expect a reality show when I watch these movies. I do expect at least a little bit of realism though.

Carmen (Camila Banus) is a pastry chef at a Puerto Rican café. Despite not having any formal training, she nabs the pastry chef job at a holiday gala at a high class hotel. She gets paired with head chef Jax (Mark Hapka). In just six days, they have to create the perfect menu for the big event.

This bugs me a lot. Probably more than it should. The hotel owners, Victor (David Fumero) and Shirley (Autumn Federici), claim they have been holding this gala every year for a decade. Yet they didn’t start auditioning chefs for the positions until six days before the event. That isn’t how it works. Things like this take months to plan. Any chef worth his weight would have already been booked for holiday events by then. And then, Shirley tells Carmen and Jax that they have to have their grocery order into the vendor by the 22nd in order to have it for Christmas Day. Excuse me, what? That order would have to be in at minimum a week beforehand. Most likely more than that since there were supposed to be a lot of people there. (I don’t think we ever heard an actual headcount, though the room didn’t look that full during the event. They insinuated it was more than 50.)

In addition to the actual planning aspects being so far off base, Carmen and Jax then waste most of their six days visiting Carmen’s family or randomly going to a farmer’s market. We see them outside of the kitchen way more than we see them actually doing any work. Even though Carmen wasn’t formally trained, she would have to know how long it takes to bake the foods she’s making. Right? She has to be able to at least plan out timing. Right?

As much as it saddens me to say, I have to say skip this one. I love the focus on Puerto Rican culture and food but this was the wrong way to do it. Sweet Navidad would have been a better movie if they centered it around the café. Carmen works there as a pastry chef and she happens to meet Jax at an event and he’s all “Cakes are for baby bakers!” and she’s all “Well, try this!” I think the cooking part would have been a bit more realistic and then they could have had the couple interacting outside their respective kitchens without wasting time with an important deadline looming. If they are going to have a six day deadline, they can’t waste time dancing. Sorry.

Spirited | 2022 Christmas Movies

I have been really looking forward to the Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell movie Spirited ever since it was announced. When I heard it was a musical, it made me want to watch it even more. It was finally released on AppleTV and select theaters on November 18. Let’s go!

Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) runs a company that specializes in running marketing campaigns based on hate and misinformation. When the Christmas spirits try to pick this year’s person for redemption, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) wants to save Clint. However, Clint is considered unredeemable. Present manages to convince the others to try to save him in order to make the world a better place. Or did Present have a different, selfish reason to save Clint?

It is going to be so difficult to talk about Spirited because I don’t want to spoil anything. Yes, it is the plot of A Christmas Carol but there is a twist that makes it so much better. So instead of talking about the plot or the characters or the acting because they are all good, I’m going to talk about my favorite part - the music and dancing.

I’m not sure if I’ve said it before on the blog but I was a dancer when I was younger (and a bit as an adult but now I’m having difficulty finding good adult classes in my area) and my daughter was a competitive dancer in high school (and she still dances in college). So I can get a bit judgy when movies heavily feature dance. The dancing in Spirited is stunning. Emmy nominated Chloe Arnold, an absolutely amazing professional tap dancer, choreographed the dances and her sister, Maud, was one of the dancers. All of the dance scenes are just breath-taking. And they don’t even end when the movie does! There is an entirely extra performance that runs during the credits. While I understand why that song was cut (there was a better way to get the point across), the performance from both Will Ferrell and all of the dancers is spectacular. I want both a behind the scenes of the making of all of the routines and a downloadable video of every song’s performance in the movie. They are all…chef’s kiss.

Yes, definitely, go watch this movie. I hope that it is going to be released outside of AppleTV because I’m sure there are a lot of people that don’t subscribe to it. But, seriously, go sign up for the free trial just to watch Spirited. It is absolutely worth it.

Christmas With You | 2022 Christmas Movies

We’re heading back to Netflix to check out Christmas With You starring Freddie Prinze Jr and Aimee Garcia. Who can resist Freddie Prinze Jr? And I have loved Aimee Garcia since I first saw her on Lucifer. I will be disappointed if this is bad.

Angelina (Aimee Garcia) is a pop star who is being pushed out of the spotlight by a new up and coming singer, Cheri (Nicolette Stephanie Templier). Told by her record label that she has to come out with a new Christmas song in order to stay relevant, Angelina flees New York to the home of a fan, Cristina (Deja Monique Cruz), she saw on social media. She finds out that Cristina’s father, Miguel (Freddie Prinze Jr), is a music teacher who used to be in a band. Together, Angelina and Miguel write a new Christmas song, which is sure to top the charts.

Every year, we get a slew of Christmas movies dedicated to one profession. One year (I think maybe 2019?), everyone seemed to be bakers. Another year, we had a bunch of realtors leading our Christmas movies. This year, it seems to be singers. Particularly, aging women singers. Women who are being told that they are too old to be popular any more. While I love having movies about music, I hate having movies where women are being told they have to be “young and beautiful” to be worth something. It’s gross.

If we can look past the “you’re too old” trope, there are some good things in Christmas With You. As I’ve said, Prinze Jr and Garcia are a delight. Newcomer Cruz is adorable as 15 year old Cristina. I love how excited she gets for everything and watching her dance at her quinceañera is everything. I think I would watch a whole movie about Cristina and her aunts getting ready for the party. Oh, and Zenzi Williams as Angelina’s personal assistant, Monique? Chef’s kiss. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone been more tired of all the BS going on around her. Between Angelina’s whining and the record label’s antics, we’re lucky Monique didn’t slap someone silly.

In truth, I would say to watch it but carefully. Besides the aging stuff, there are some “I need to lose weight” things that happen here. Granted, we do end up seeing Angelina eat some real food but the first half-ish of the movie does contain weight comments. I would love to see a movie about a star that doesn’t have to do with her age or weight but, c’mon, that will never happen. This may be the best that we get.