Violent Night | 2022 Christmas Movies

I’m not going to lie. After being tortured by A Christmas…Present, I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch any more Christmas movies this season. I’ve watched 71 movies. That is a pretty respectable place to end, right? But I knew Violent Night was coming out in theaters and it looked like a good time. If this was bad, it would prove to me that it was time to give up.

Santa Claus (David Harbour) has become jaded over the years. Kids nowadays take one look at their Christmas presents and rush off to the next thing. As he is delivering presents to the Lightstone house, a group of mercenaries attacks the extremely wealthy family. Santa goes on the attack to protect little Trudy (Leah Brady), who is firmly on his Good List.

Violent Night is a difficult movie to describe. It’s an action comedy with a lot of blood and gore. Almost like Die Hard mixed with a little Home Alone turned up to 12. But that still feels like it doesn’t do it justice. Harbour does an amazing job as an emotionally exhausted Santa, who has a very dark history but does his best to try to make the good kids smile on Christmas. And the writers did an amazing job giving this version of Santa a mostly-developed backstory, even we don’t get the exact reasoning he became THE Santa Claus.

My favorite parts, however, were the interactions between Santa and Trudy. Despite her family being absolute trash people, Trudy still manages to be a sweet little girl. Don’t get me wrong, she knows the curse words and can build a mean booby trap but she is still sugar underneath. On the other hand, Santa obviously doesn’t want to do his job anymore when we first meet him. Instead of drinking the milk at the houses he visits, he steals the alcohol. But when he starts talking with Trudy, his whole view changes. She is exactly what he needed when he needed her.

But please keep in mind that this isn’t some idyllic girl-meets-Santa movie. The bad guys, led by John Leguizamo, have a very very high kill rate. Come to think of it, so does Santa. And those kills are not off-camera kills. Violent Night has a higher body count than the three most recent Halloween movies combined. It is rated R for a reason.

My husband and I both loved this movie. It may sound weird but it actually reinvigorated my interest in watching more of the (mostly boring) Christmas movies. I guess it was something like a palate cleanser for me and I’ll happily add it to my annual Must See movie list. So, if you are a weirdo like us and enjoy dark comedies, this should be right up your alley. Too bad the Seasons Beatings line didn’t make it into the movie. It’s a great line.

A Christmas...Present | 2022 Christmas Movies

Before I even start this review, I want to note that A Christmas…Present is not a Christmas romance movie. This is a religious propaganda movie. I wasn’t planning on addressing the recent comments made by Candace Cameron Bure but, after watching this, her comments are extremely relevant.

Maggie (Candace Cameron Bure) is a busy real estate agent who feels the need to control her entire family’s schedule during the holiday. She takes her family - husband, Eric (Marc Blucas); daughter, Becca (Claire Capek); and son, Will (Caleb Reese Paul) - to Ohio to spend Christmas with her brother, Paul (Paul Fitzgerald); and niece, Ashley (Keilah Davies).

Recently, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bure said that Great American Family will focus on “traditional marriage.” We all know this means that they will not feature any member of the LGBTQIA+ community. When I first heard about her statement, I thought “Well, that is a terrible thing to do and a terrible opinion but it was to be expected since that is the reason Bill Abbott left Hallmark for Great American Family.” Then I watched A Christmas…Present where they frequently quoted the bible and even had the “yellow light from above shine through a church window” trope. I wish I was kidding.

In this movie, Paul’s wife died. Maggie and the fam come to Ohio to help him and comfort both him and Ashley. But when Maggie said “It’s tough to do things when you are sad,” Paul pointed out that he is not sad. Let me repeat: HE IS NOT SAD THAT HIS WIFE DIED. Why? Bible verse. This entire movie is painted around “If you have faith, you will be a perfect person and nothing will ever bother you.” Maggie and Eric are having marriage troubles because they keep prioritizing other things over each other. The fix? You got it. Church. What the actual fuck.

Now. I don’t have a problem with religion, per se. Believe what you want to believe. It’s when you feel the need to force your religion onto other people and pretend that you are some righteous being for simply believing in your chosen religion. So instead of Paul being like “Hey, have you guys thought about maybe a marriage counselor to help you through this?” when both Maggie and Eric separately talk to him about their troubles, his reply is….BIBLE VERSES. That is not how you solve marital problems.

I could rant about this movie for a long time. But I will stop here. I’m not going to recommend that anyone watch A Christmas…Present. It had a good core plot - a family that is too busy to spend time with each other tries to find a way back to being a family during the holidays - but then it got super preachy and I don’t think anyone should watch that. This movie not only made me annoyed, it made me angry. Maybe I should go see a therapist about that…

Holiday Harmony | 2022 Christmas Movies

With Holiday Harmony, we are now up to six Christmas movies about singers. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, we have had less movies featuring random businesspeople or marketing executives (which are usually the big careers in Christmas movies) than we have had singers. Fa la la la la, I guess.

Gail (Annelise Cepero) is an up-and-coming singer who gets an opportunity to open for the I Heart Radio Christmas Eve concert. As she is driving her trusty VW van across the country, she crashes the van after almost running over an alpaca in rural Oklahoma. Stuck in Harmony Springs for two weeks, she stays with repair shop owner, Van (Brooke Shields), and her son, Jeremy (Jeremy Sumpter). Despite living in the middle of nowhere, the two help Gail figure out where she truly belongs.

I have to admit that Holiday Harmony was a sweet little movie. Sure, some of the accents are a little cringy. And there are a few moments that are a little too schmaltzy. But, as a whole, I thought it was sweet. I think my favorite character out of all them was Rosemary played by Jordyn Curet. Curet was able to give Rosemary the appropriate amount of shyness and uncertainty before belting out that final song. We’ll have to keep an eye out for that kid.

If you are looking for those sugary sweet romance movies that we all expect from channels like Hallmark, this would be a good upgrade for the genre. We don’t get the “Big city woman comes home for Christmas” trope that is way too tired and the romance isn’t shoved down our throats like they have to convince us that these people actually like each other. What we do get is a couple of young people who have emotional baggage and aren’t sure where they fit in the world. And it’s only when everyone comes together that a family is truly created.

A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I’m making my list of Christmas movies I’m going to watch in a season, I do as little research about the titles as possible. I might do a quick search to make sure that it fits “Christmas movie” but that is about it. So titles like A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe can be really confusing. I mean, how catastrophic can a cookie be?

Annie Cooper (Rachel Boston) has taken over her late grandmother’s cookie company. As Christmas creeps closer, Annie starts cutting all of the fiscally irresponsible activities in the company. During the company Christmas party, someone sneaks into the corporate headquarters and steals the recipe for the cookies. At first, Annie blames cookie competitor Sam (Victor Webster). When he is cleared of the wrongdoing, Annie teams up with Sam to try to figure out the recipe on their own before Christmas.

Hallmark movies frequently require a certain suspension of belief. Usually they fall into the “Miracles happen” category. This time around, we’re supposed to believe that Annie would be able to figure out who stole the recipe without going to the police (yes, she states numerous times they aren’t telling the police about the robbery) and that no one else in the company would notice the missing recipe and say something about it to anyone. I don’t think a “Removed For Cleaning” sign works for a recipe. Honestly, this really is the weakest part of the movie. It would have been easier and more believable to have the paper recipe get ripped or messed up or something. Then they wouldn’t have to inform the police of an actual crime. Or at least have them call the police but the police are inept. That is an actual thing!

Looking beyond the weak plot of the movie, the rest of it was pretty cute. Boston and Webster have decent chemistry together and Averie Peters as Sam’s daughter, Bella, was a good addition to the mix. Despite being “the kid” in the movie, she actually contributed to the vibe of the movie. I might have liked her better than the adults, to be honest.

A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe is a fine movie to watch, assuming you can get past the ridiculousness of the plot. As long as you tune in to appreciate the relationships, and Bella’s dancing, you should be fine. There are a lot of cookies involved so you might need to keep a snack nearby.

The 12 Days Of Christmas Eve | 2022 Christmas Movies

Last year, Kelsey Grammer starred my number one worst Christmas movie. I may have visibly cringed when I saw he was doing another one, The 12 Days Of Christmas Eve, this year. Alas, it is my duty to watch all of the movies in order to tell you which ones are the most horriblest. I really hope this isn’t one of them.

Brian Conway (Kelsey Grammer) is a successful businessman, running the company his father started. However, he is not the best father himself. When he dies in a car accident on Christmas Eve, Santa gives him 12 Christmas Eves to rehabilitate his ways. But can someone really redeem themselves in one day?

This movie is pretty much Groundhog Day meets A Christmas Carol. Brian keeps reliving Christmas Eve, trying to repair all of his various relationships in order to figure out the “correct” way to be a good person. Of course, that means it hits all of the tropes - buying people’s love with money, trying to spend as much time with a loved one by going behind their back to make arrangements, doing what you think people want instead of asking what they want, making grand gestures thinking they will solve everything. Thankfully, The 12 Days doesn’t completely rely on this to make it a good movie. A decent amount of humor, mostly in the ways Brian keeps dying, has been sprinkled throughout the movie to keep it lighthearted. After all, no one wants their Christmas movie to be depressing.

Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying The 12 Days more than I thought I would. I’ve never been a fan of Grammer and last year’s bomb was so bad that I didn’t have a lot of hope for this one. But, somehow, the absurd comedy kept me chuckling long enough to actually like the darn thing.

Do I think you should watch it? Sure. Just keep in mind that there is no new material here. You have seen this all before. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t any fun.

Haul Out The Holly | 2022 Christmas Movies

With Candace Cameron Bure’s defection to Great American Family, Lacey Chabert has been left as the face of Hallmark. She gets to do all of the fun commercial bumps telling us to stay tuned for movies and whatnot. Her movie this season, Haul Out The Holly, was released during the coveted Thanksgiving weekend timeslot. But is it any good?

Emily (Lacey Chabert) has just broken up with her boyfriend. Needing someplace to stay, she comes back to her parents’ house for the holiday. Her parents, however, are planning on going to Florida to find a new house for themselves. Emily now has to fulfill all of her parents’ holiday duties for the neighborhood Christmas celebration.

We’re going to ignore the fact that Emily’s parents did a very crappy thing. They knew that Emily just went through an emotional breakup then they straight up lied to her about spending the holidays at home with her. They tricked her into doing things like decorating the entire house and baking cookies for the neighborhood contest and organizing snowman making events. She didn’t sign up for any of these. They are terrible parents.

On the other hand, Haul Out The Holly was a ton of fun. Normally, Chabert-led movies are overdramatic and boring. Not this one! Even the romance with childhood-friend-turned-HOA-president Jared (Wes Brown) was fun. I am going to give Chabert credit for doing an amazing job but I’d also like to note that she was supported by some major comedy players - Stephen Tobolowsky, Melissa Peterman, Ellen Travolta, Peter Jacobson…I would have been surprised if the movie failed with this amount of talent involved.

Haul Out The Holly should definitely be on your Must See list. This movie was so much fun that I actually might watch it again next year. I never thought I would say that about a Hallmark movie!

Time For Him To Come Home For Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

As I predicted last year, we got Time For Him To Come Home For Christmas from the Blake Shelton series of movies. This is the fifth movie in the series, based on one of his songs, and the third that I have watched. I wonder where they will go after they do Time For Her.

Three days before Christmas, Elizabeth (Holland Roden) gets a mysterious voice message intended for someone named Madeline. As a former investigative journalist, she tries to track down Madeline in order to reunite her with the caller. Her estranged best friend, Josh (Tyler Hynes), helps her figure out the mystery.

Of the three Time To Come Home movies I have watched so far, this was the best. The mystery was definitely better than the previous ones and I think Hynes and Roden were a perfect duo. They easily pulled off the difficult relationship that Lizzie and Josh have. And we got just enough flash backs to understand their history and all of the misunderstandings that came between them. For once, this was an understandable conflict. Yes, it could have been solved with a conversation but, given the situation, it would have been an extremely difficult conversation to have at the time.

I also liked that Lizzie and Josh weren’t the only romance in the movie. The relationship between Madeline (Meghan Gardiner) and her mysterious caller (Steve Bacic) was not only fraught itself but it also intertwined with Lizzie and Josh in a way that I wasn’t expecting. These layers upon layers of characterization is what I want in a movie. I know not every Christmas movie can have that but I would love to see more that do.

So, yes, go watch Time For Him To Come Home For Christmas. Hey, it even ends with a singer. You know, the trendy job to have this Christmas season.

Christmas On Mistletoe Farm | 2022 Christmas Movies

To anyone in the United States, British comedies can be a tough act to swallow. Brits sometimes have a “go big or go home” rule when it comes to humor. Christmas On Mistletoe Farm is not an exception to that rule.

Matt Cunningham (Scott Garnham) has been recently widowed. Left alone to raise his five children, his life has been rough. When he gets a notice stating that he was recently willed a farm, Matt decides to take the kids to the small village to get away from London so he can focus on work. However, when the family meets the farmhand, Beano (Scott Paige), life as they know it will change forever.

A lot of times British comedies will take their characters to extremes. Think of Mr. Bean or Benny Hill or The Goes Wrong Show. If you aren’t used to loud or brash characters, they can definitely be upsetting. Reading some other reviews of Christmas On Mistletoe Farm, I don’t think anyone was expecting a British comedy.

Personally, I found the movie quite enjoyable. Beano made me laugh every time he was on screen. The townspeople…I mean, the village people…were a lovable group of weirdos that come together to help each other. Even the kids, who came to the village with the trauma of losing their mother and then getting teased at their London school for being different, were a delight. I firmly believe that children should be allowed to be whoever they want. That is how you figure out your personality. You try different things until you find YOU. Seeing these kids be adored by the villagers for being themselves was lovely. Too often do we see kids shoved into boxes of who adults want them to be.

While I loved this movie, I understand that it’s not for everyone. Christmas On Mistletoe Farm is for the people who like odd characters that maybe talk to farm animals as if they are also people. People who maybe crochet ugly Christmas sweaters for baby goats. And definitely for people who don’t quite fit into the box society wants you to live in. Just remember to bring your sparkly sweater with you to the farm.

I'm Glad It's Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

Hey, it’s another Christmas movie about singers! Maybe I should start a counter for how many movies about singers there are this season. It feels like A LOT.

Holly (Jessica Lowndes) aspires to be on Broadway. One morning, as she was heading into her retail job, she literally bumps into Jason (Paul Greene), who writes jingles for commercials. Through Cora (Gladys Knight), who owns the building that houses the shop where Holly works, the two work together on a new Christmas song for a local talent show…run by Cora.

Thankfully, I’m Glad It’s Christmas has a lot of singing in it because the singing is gorgeous. The script, however, could use some work. For example, Jason shares custody of his daughter, Angela (Teagan Sellers), with his wife. However, Angela is constantly running out of every single scene because her mother is picking her up. There is one whole scene where Holly and Angela are baking cookies but they don’t even get to the baking part. They just roll out the dough then use some glasses to cut shapes. End of scene. If the movie is going to have Angela as a character, she needs to be used. She doesn’t need to be in every scene but she could be leaving to go do homework to hang out with friends or something. The scenario we get makes it look like she never spends time with Jason.

Another example involves Holly’s scarf. In the beginning of the movie, there’s a joke bit about her wearing her scarf over her nose and mouth in order to “protect her voice.” We don’t see her do that at any other point in the movie. She doesn’t even wrap the scarf around her neck. It just hangs loosely as if it is only there for fashion. The least they could have done is kept up with the bit. Maybe have her friends make fun of her for always wrapping her neck up or how unattractive it makes her look. Don’t do it once then leave it go.

Once again, there is nothing special about I’m Glad It’s Christmas. Well, Gladys Knight is a joy. (Wait, I just got that the title of the movie is a pun on her name. That explains why it’s called Someday At Christmas on IMDb.) Watch it for the singing. Watch it for Gladys. Just don’t watch it for the plot. That part is boring.

A Tale Of Two Christmases | 2022 Christmas Movies

Hallmark has decided to give us two Christmas romance movies in one! Though in A Tale Of Two Christmases, it’s one woman and two men. This could get messy.

Emma (Katherine Barrell) is an architect living in Chicago. She has to decide whether to go home to Vermont to celebrate Christmas with her family and childhood friend, Drew (Chandler Massey), or stay in Chicago to spend it with her crush, Max (Evan Roderick). Thanks to some Christmas magic from Santa, Emma gets split into two separate Emmas to explore both possibilities.

I have to admit that this sounds like a very interesting plot. We get to see Emma experience both choices but Emma herself doesn’t know it’s happening. So instead of like a split personality type thing, it’s simply two completely separate stories featuring the same female lead with two different male leads. What could have been interesting just turned dull.

Since this is Hallmark, they are obviously going to pick one of the men over the other. There’s no way they would let both of them be The One. The result is that Max is kind of a self-centered rich douchebag while Drew fawns over everything Emma does. It would have been cooler if both men were on the same level and Emma’s big decision was to stay with her corporate job or move home to work with her father. That is a much more interesting story.

Sadly, twice the romance doesn’t mean a better movie. While I wouldn’t recommend watching A Tale Of Two Christmases, I do have to say that Massey is pretty fun as Drew. I guess if you want to sit through it, he would be as good a reason as any to do it.