Scentsational Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

Lifetime’s Scentsational Christmas sounded stupid when I wrote it on the calendar months ago. Little did I know what I was in for.

Ellie (Nazneen Contractor) develops scents for perfumes. This year she decides to go home for Christmas to help her father with the family’s candle-making business. When she arrives home, she finds that her father has rented the cottage to Logan (Mykee Selkin), a writer who is looking for inspiration. Together, they try to find the secret to the famous Christmas scent of the holiday candle.

Not only was this a staggeringly boring movie, this was also just dumb. The big conflict comes when Ellie submits a “Christmas scent” to her boss for a famous client. Then the famous client finds out that Ellie’s family uses this “Christmas scent” in their holiday candles because Logan wrote about it on social media. While I can understand not wanting to steal a scent from another company, it’s still Ellie’s scent! They could have easily marketed this as some sort of collab between the client and the candle company. Or just use the scent for the perfume anyway. There was no reason to throw a fit over it. Guess what…there are only so many scents out there and it’s not like the client was making candles. They are completely different products.

No, don’t watch this one. The plot is dumb, the main couple has zero chemistry, and there really isn’t anything redeeming here. Throw this one out with grandma’s perfume.

Merry Textmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

Merry Textmas may be the weirdest Christmas movie I have watched this season. I’ll try to explain…

Gaby (Ariana Ron Pedrique) lives in Austin, TX and develops apps for a living. As she helps her family plan for their Christmas trip to Mexico to visit her grandmother, she accidentally adds the phone number for Alex (Rodrigo Massa) to their text chain. Since Alex was planning on spending the holiday alone, Gaby’s family invites him to go to Mexico with them.

The biggest thing I hated about this movie is the ADR. For those that don’t know, ADR (or Automated Dialogue Replacement) is when actors re-record their lines in a studio while watching their film footage. That is why you’ll get normal sounding lines then all of a sudden all of the background noise has dropped out and you can hear the actor crystal clear. They did a lot of ADR in Merry Textmas but it wasn’t done well. I don’t know if there was a lot of background noise in the scenes or someone thought the actors’ accents were too thick or what but it was very distracting.

I honestly think this movie would have been better if it was entirely in Spanish. The big conflict happens because Alex doesn’t speak Spanish but they could have easily fixed that by having him speak a different dialect of Spanish or something. Or that he speaks Spanish badly. I appreciate that, since this aired on Lifetime, they felt that it had to be mostly English but I think the movie suffered for it.

While I really want to recommend Merry Textmas, I don’t think I can. I love that it highlighted Mexican Christmas traditions but it didn’t spend nearly enough time on the traditions and the ADR was so bad. I’m sure there are better movies that show off Mexican traditions.

Fit For Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I was making my list of Christmas movies this year, I pretty much listed every movie on every channel that I could find. Do I have all of these channels? No. That means there are a lot of Christmas movies I will not be watching this year. But I was able to watch CBS’s Fit For Christmas.

Audrey (Amanda Kloots) is a dance fitness instruction living in New York City. When her business fails, she comes home to Mistletoe, Montana for the holidays. But when she gets there, she finds that the town council is about to vote on closing the community center and selling it to business man Griffin (Paul Greene), who wants to turn it into a ski resort.

There are definitely some cute moments in Fit For Christmas. Any time Griffin is in Audrey’s dance fitness class? Total win. Especially when Audrey’s boyfriend, Bradley (Stephan Miers), shows up. I was laughing when they were trying to outdance each other.

Adding to the fun, a lot of the side characters were actually fleshed out people and not just cardboard cutouts of random townspeople. It made the movie a lot easier to watch. Especially since a lot of the movie revolved around Griffin trying to convince the people on the town council to vote for the ski resort instead of keeping the community center.

I know a lot of people have cut the cord on cable. If you have access to CBS, you should definitely give this one a watch. (As a note, I don’t have CBS but somehow I was able to watch it for free on my laptop. I don’t know if that is a bug or a feature.) When you are finished watching, go sign up for a dance fitness class. They are a lot of fun!

Undercover Holiday | 2022 Christmas Movies

It’s another movie about a singer! I find it interesting that there always seems to be some sort of theme every year. Is there some sort of writers meeting where they decide these things?

Jaylen (Noemi Gonzalez) is a newly famous pop star. When she starts to get stalkerish messages at her rented home in Los Angeles, her record company insists on sending a bodyguard with her when she goes home for the holiday. However, Jaylen doesn’t want to tell her family that he is her bodyguard. Instead, she tells them that Matt (Stephen Huszar) is her boyfriend.

The general premise of Undercover Holiday is good - needing a bodyguard when a public persona has been threatened. But not telling her family that he is a bodyguard is stupid. I understand not wanting to worry them and I understand that something like this would result in her family nagging her to move home more than they already do. You would think that saying “Hey, there was an incident and this is how we are solving it” would be a good response to that. Pretending that he is your boyfriend is the worst thing Jaylen could have done.

With that said, I did appreciate the amount of music in the movie. Granted, a lot of it was Jaylen singing a few lines while sitting in front of a piano. But it is more than some other movies with singers have given us. And this time we get bilingual songs as Jaylen also sings in Spanish.

Despite thinking the plot of Undercover Holiday is stupid, the movie itself wasn’t too bad. Jaylen’s family was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see Matt try to integrate with them. Go ahead and watch this one. It won’t be the best movie you’ve watched this season but it won’t be the worst.

B&B Merry | 2022 Christmas Movies

In B&B Merry, they could not only solve the conflict by having a conversation, they could also solve the conflict by maybe knowing what the job of a travel blogger is. I don’t think I can eyeroll any harder.

Tracey Wise (Jen Lilley) is a luxury travel blogger. Graham (Jesse Hutch) has invited her to review his family’s bed & breakfast in Silver Peak. At the same time, she is asked to review a luxury hotel, also in Silver Peak, as a sample for a possible job. Can she review both without conflicts?

Uuugghhh. First off, Tracey is supposed to be an established travel blogger. Why she is doing any sort of sample writing for anyone? I have been approached for jobs and asked for free writing samples and I point them to this blog (among my other writing gigs). If my writing history isn’t good enough proof of my work, you can go touch grass. I’m not doing free work just because you don’t want to pay me for it. Tracey should know this by now. Especially since she’s also supposedly a lawyer.

Next, Graham invites her to town to review his B&B. But then he gets really mad when she says she has to review the competition as well. THAT IS HER JOB, GRAHAM. She goes places and reviews them. When she brings up the other job, your answer should be “Yeah, that makes sense.” ARGH.

I understand that family owned businesses frequently need word-of-mouth to help them advertise. But you really can’t be like “Only look at my place and forget the other place exists.” You need to show off your place and show her why it’s better than the other place. I mean, maybe that is why your business is failing. It has nothing to do with the other hotel and everything to do with the fact that you literally bad mouth them every chance you get.

While I can’t say that I recommend watching B&B Merry, it’s fine to watch if you can overlook the things I mentioned. The acting is fine, the script is fine. It’s the plot that is kinda annoying. Maybe just half watch it? Is that possible?

Christmas On The Rocks | 2022 Christmas Movies

Here we are with another Christmas movie with a stupid title. Christmas On The Rocks sounds like it should be about bartending or a breakup or something. Nope. It has nothing to do with any of those. I’m really not sure how the title relates to the movie. And that isn’t the only stupid thing about it.

Jennifer and Sarah (Lyla Porter-Follows) are twin sisters. Sarah is supposed to be the event planner for an important corporate Christmas party at a ski lodge. However, she broke her leg the day before she was supposed to be there. Jennifer pretends to be Sarah and takes her place at the ski lodge.

This is such a dumb movie. At no point in time does Sarah do anything to help her poor sister. We only see Sarah via video calls and all she does is apologize for getting injured. There’s never any suggestions on how to fix problems. As a matter of fact, there’s no reason that Sarah couldn’t have gone with Jennifer to work the event. (Besides the fact that the same actress plays both roles and I don’t think UPtv has the budget for that kind of special effects.) She only broke her leg! Crutches are a thing!

No. Don’t watch Christmas On The Rocks. Throw it into the avalanche and forget it ever existed. And that is being nice.

Pentatonix: Around The World For The Holidays

Disney+ doesn’t have a lot of Christmas movies coming out this year. So I let them get away with calling Pentatonix: Around The World For The Holidays a movie when it’s really a special.

A capalla group Pentatonix is heading into the studio to record a new Christmas album. Sadly, they seem to have recorded every Christmas song ever written. When they go to take a break, their manager accidentally locks them in the mailroom. Thanks to Disney magic, they are able to hear holiday stories from their fans around the world. And we even get a few musical collaborations with them as well!

Did any of us expect the Pentatonix special to not be cheesy? Of course it’s cheesy! It’s basically the group in front of a green screen opening letters. Then we switch to the fan reading their letter as they write it and telling us all about the holiday traditions from their country. As cheesy as the special was, it was nice to see a variety of countries represented and how each country related to one of the Pentatonix members.

Should you watch it? If you are a fan of Pentatonix, sure. But if you don’t like the group, you probably aren’t going to like the special. The whole point of it is they are recording an album. And we do a cameo from Disney’s a capella group, Dcapella. I bet you didn’t even know they existed!

The Holiday Stocking | 2022 Christmas Movies

This year, Hallmark announced a new content initiative called Mahogany. Mahogany will be the Hallmark movies we have all come to know (and love?) “through the unique lens of Black culture.” Their first Christmas movie, The Holiday Stocking, aired on December 3.

Robert Holiday died recently but he is unwilling to move on until he can convince his sisters, Dani (Nadine Ellis) and Marlow (Tamala Jones), to reconcile. He comes back to Earth as RJ (B.J. Britt), a colleague of Robert’s, to send the women on a Christmas stocking scavenger hunt. It’s a tradition they did as kids and he’s hoping that it will bring them back together.

I loved this movie so much. Robert felt so much guilt for not bringing his family back together while he was still alive. It’s a real issue that a lot of families have. While it would have been awesome to see the three siblings solving the riddles together, it was even better to see an older brother doing something like this for his younger siblings. It warmed my heart.

The Holiday Stocking is a movie that everyone should go watch. There is a little romantic love but, much like Frozen, it’s more about familial love. Oh, and charity! There are so many ideas in this movie for charitable things people can do around the holidays. Watch this movie then go volunteer!

A New Orleans Noel | 2022 Christmas Movies

You would think that the Christmas movies would get better the closer we get to Christmas. But they keep getting more and more lame. Well, onto A New Orleans Noel.

Grace (Keshia Knight Pulliam) is a traveling architect. Her new job brings her to New Orleans to redecorate the home of Loretta Brown (Patti LaBelle), the praline queen. However, she was not told that she would be sharing the job with Anthony (Brad James), Loretta’s grandson. Sparks flew for Anthony when they were in college together. Will sparks fly for Grace now?

There are so many annoying things about this movie. One: Who hires an architect to redecorate a house? Even if they were redesigning it with knocking down walls and everything, that isn’t really an architect’s job. Two: We are set in New Orleans and we only get a few flavors of the city. If we’re going to be set in New Orleans, it has to be as much of a character as the actors are. Three: When are these people working? At the end of the movie, Grace gives Loretta photographs of her new kitchen. Not drawings, not blueprints (even though she tells Anthony in the next scene that the blueprints are done), but photographs. I think we get two scenes of them working. And one of those is Grace sketching a building in a park.

I really wanted the Patti LaBelle Christmas movie to be good. And, honestly, she is the best part of it. If you want to watch it for her, go for it. Otherwise, it’s just another boring movie to pop into the bin.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol | 2022 Christmas Movies

In order to cleanse my palate, I flipped over to Netflix to see if Scrooge: A Christmas Carol was worth watching. I did not know it was a musical. That is two musicals based on A Christmas Carol this year. Interesting.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Luke Evans) is a miserable old man who will gladly step on poor people if it would be beneficial to himself. On Christmas Eve, his old business partner Jacob Marley (Jonathan Pryce) tells him that he will be visited by three spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Olivia Colman), The Ghost of Christmas Present (Trevor Dion Nicholas), and The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Will the spirits be able to convince Scrooge to change his miserly ways?

While I love a good musical, I will admit that I didn’t like this at first. The animation is beautiful but the songs didn’t seem to fit. It wasn’t until The Ghost of Christmas Present appeared that I started to enjoy the songs. Thinking back, it’s possible that I was so caught off guard by the fact that this was a musical that I didn’t give myself a chance to actually enjoy the beginning parts. I will definitely go back and watch it again to see if that is the case.

Taking the songs out of it for a moment, I did love the way this version told the story. We are all very familiar with the story of Scrooge so it can be difficult to tell it in a new way that will keep people’s attention. I think that the Christmas Past portion was done very well and I loved the joy that Christmas Present had with being on Earth at Christmastime. All of this made a classic story interesting.

I think that fans of A Christmas Carol or animation in general would like this version of the story. But if you aren’t a fan of musicals….sorry, this one isn’t for you. As I said, I’m going to watch it again to see if I like it better now that I know it’s a musical. Sometimes even I get thrown off by a random song out of nowhere.