Time For Her To Come Home For Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

With Time For Her To Come Home For Christmas, I think they have finally run out of pronouns to come home. I have watched Time For Us, Time For Them, and Time For Him. Will this be the end of Blake Shelton’s Christmas movies?

Carly (Shenae Grimes-Beech) is a musician who has been hired to help a church choir prepare for their Christmas concert.

Yeah, that is pretty much the plot. All summed up in one line. And that is how deep this movie is as well. We get a schmaltzy story about Carly’s mother passing and love-interest Matthew (Chris Carmack) returning from some soldiery duty. But that is it. Everything that should be deep and emotional feels flat and cardboardy. Handled correctly, this could have been an amazing story about someone finding lost family and finding where they belong. Instead, it was about a rather terrible song about Christmas.

Rating: Can the next one be “Time For Me To Leave?”

The Naughty Nine | 2023 Christmas Movies

The second Disney+ movie of this season is The Naughty Nine. I didn’t even see the cover art for this when I added it to the list. It’s always interesting going into a movie completely blind. I have no idea what to expect.

Andy (Winslow Fegley) and his best friend, Dulce (Camila Rodriguez), are troublemakers. When Christmas Day rolls around, there are no presents from Santa under the tree. That is when they find out that they are on the naughty list. They They gather a group of other naughty list kids to break into Santa’s workshop and get their presents.

Disney is not immune to bad movies. But they also have really good movies. Thankfully, this is an awesome movie. It’s basically Ocean’s Eleven with kids. There’s a getaway driver, a gymnast, a technician, a costumer…every job you could need to break into a place. And those kids are good at their jobs. The Naughty Nine had me laughing throughout the entire movie. They have set it up for the sequel and I really hope that it is as good as this one.

Rating: Can I go to the elf after-party?

A Christmas For The Ages | 2023 Christmas Movies

Candace Cameron Bure’s daughter, Natasha, has been making small appearances in her movies and shows for awhile. Now Natasha has her own Christmas movie, A Christmas For The Ages. And, what do you know, it just happens to be a movie produced by mom. Nepotism at its finest.

A family with four generations of women - great-grandmother Marie (Anna Ferguson), grandmother Joan (Cheryl Ladd), mother Kristi (Kate Craven), and daughter Savannah (Natasha Bure) - gather to celebrate Christmas. They visit each woman’s house to showcase what Christmas was like in their decade: the 1940s, the 1960s, the 1990s, and present day.

Let me get this out of the way first. Since this is a Bure family fiesta, it is absolutely dripping with religion. They took what could have been a fun plot with the family celebrating in each decade and ruined it with its heavy-handed approach to God. I don’t have a problem when a Christmas movie talks about God or Jesus or whatever (though a pagan Christmas movie would be awesome….). It’s when they feel the need to shove it down our throats that I get annoyed.

On top of that, A Christmas For The Ages just kinda sucks. They talk at each other instead of talking to each other. Joan is randomly pissed off that her mother, Marie, is dating someone even though Marie’s husband is dead. People eventually have to go on with their lives, Joan! And the acting is just…not good. I’m sad because this had all the potential in the world and they did nothing with it. I would love to see a remake by Netflix.

Rating: No need to invite me to your party. I’m just going to stay home. Thanks.

A Biltmore Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

For those of you that don’t know, even though Hallmark has been screaming it all over the place, A Biltmore Christmas was actually filmed at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. The estate itself is a lovely addition to the movie.

Lucy (Bethany Joy Lenz) is writing a remake of a classic holiday movie, His Merry Wife! When she has trouble giving the movie the feel good ending the studio wants, her boss sends her to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, where the original movie was filmed. After an accident with an hourglass, Lucy finds herself transported back to 1946. Stuck in 1946, she watches the filming of His Merry Wife! and finds herself falling in love with the movie’s star, Jack Huston (Kristoffer Polaha). But she has to go back to her time, right?

This is another movie I wasn’t expecting to enjoy. Especially since these type of time travel movies often suck. Maybe it was the majesticness of the Biltmore or maybe the movie actually was good. I just know that I found myself liking it way more than I thought I would. It’s not a movie I’m adding to my Annual list but it’s not one I would turn off if it happened to be on the screen.

Rating: Stay at the Biltmore! It’s beautiful!

Laughing All The Way | 2023 Christmas Movies

Hey! It’s Jake Epstein! He’s the most overused and underrated Christmas actor. I think he also has multiple movies this year. Laughing All The Way is the first.

Aubri (Paniz Zade) is the comedy writer and personal assistant for comedy legend Bella Deldomino (Mary Walsh). Bella owns a comedy club that used to host a Christmas variety show but that ended years ago. In order to drum up business for the club, Aubri decides to bring it back. She runs into Mike Baxter (Jake Epstein), a comedian-turned-actor whose career is in a bit of a slump. Mike agrees to be the headliner for the show, in the hopes that it will revive his career as well as the club’s.

In my experience, Epstein’s films are either really good or really bad. Thankfully, this is one of the good ones. He has some amazing comedy timing and he was paired perfectly with Zade. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a Jewish angle as those are usually my favorite movies starring him. But I am easily appeased by good comedy songs and he brings them here.

Epstein doesn’t deserve all of the praise though. Zade does a great job at being both anxious and amazing at the same time. Ish Morris plays Aubri’s cousin Ian and he is the perfect “best friend” character for Aubri. And, of course, there’s Walsh. She pulls off the awful boss that you can’t help but love. The perfect foil for our couple. This may be the most perfect casting of a Christmas movie that I have seen in a long time. I’m almost sad it ended.

Rating: I want to see more people drink the awful green soda!

Our Christmas Mural | 2023 Christmas Movies

The commercials for Our Christmas Mural made this movie look really bad. I’m not sure why Hallmark has such a problem making good commercials for their shows. Do any of these actually make people want to watch it?

Olivia (Alex Paxton-Beesley) is a single mom working in a New York art gallery. After her husband passed away, she lost all inspiration to paint. And now she may be losing her job. So Olivia and her son, Parker (Viggo Hanvelt), go back to her hometown of Wellington for the holidays. When she wins an art contest her mother secretly entered her in, Olivia turns to art teacher Will (Dan Jeannotte) for help with the Christmas mural.

Hmmm. I didn’t hate this movie but I didn’t like it either. It wanted to be a movie about grief but it didn’t want to be too heavy so they just lightly touched on all their discussions about death. It also wanted to be arty but not really show anyone doing any art. We get a couple of scenes where it looks like they may be sketching or painting but it’s not particularly realistic. It’s not boring but it also doesn’t go anywhere. It just is. And that is weird.

Rating: Just as bland as the mural itself

A Royal Date For Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

I think Danica McKellar is the last of the “Christmas divas” to have her movie air. I’m still not happy that she moved to Great American Family, by the way. Well, let’s see if A Royal Date For Christmas is any good.

Bella (Danica McKellar) owns a fashion boutique. When the Stefan, Duke of Tangford (Damon Runyan), loses his luggage, he turns to Bella to dress him for his holiday events. Also needing a “plus one” for these events, he asks her to accompany him as well.

There were a lot of things I disliked about this movie. Movies with a royal main character frequently make the paparazzi the bad guys. Understandably. Paparazzi are awful. However, it’s the reactions the royals have to them. Stefan throws a fit every time Bella suggests they try to change how he is viewed by the paparazzi. Then he wonders why Bella randomly leaves him. It’s frustrating. There are ways to have the “bad paparazzi” response without throwing a tantrum about it.

I also hate Bella’s idea of a “mobile fashion boutique.” Not because it’s a dumb idea. It would be great for retirement homes or hospitals. Places where people can’t get out to go shopping. However, you could accomplish the same thing with a van. You aren’t going to take your entire shop on the road. THAT is a dumb idea.

Thankfully, the relationship between Bella and Stefan is sweet. It’s probably the one saving grace of the movie. Too bad they don’t know how to talk to each other.

Rating: Is it really styling someone if you only put them in blue and they’ve already only been wearing blue?

Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up | 2023 Christmas Movies

Teri Hatcher isn’t the only one with two movies this season. Lacey Chabert also has two Christmas movies! We already watched A Merry Scottish Christmas. Now it’s time for the sequel to last year’s Haul Out The Holly, Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up.

A year has passed since Emily (Lacey Chabert) took over both her parents’ house and the annual Christmas festivities. This time there are some new neighbors: Jane (Jennifer Aspen), Joe (Seth Morris), and Jimmy (Kenneth Cummings) Johnson. They are better known as the Jolly Johnsons, winners of a Christmas reality show. Can Emily and Jared (Wes Brown) keep the neighborhood traditions or will the Johnsons take over?

I really enjoyed the first movie from last year. Lit Up is a perfect sequel to it. Adding the Johnsons gave it the conflict that it really needed. Last year, Emily wasn’t super keen on taking part in all of the Christmas cheer. This year, her festiveness is threatened by the absolute insanity of the new neighbors. And of course, the secondary characters, the same comedy geniuses from last year, are still over the top and hysterical. I don’t know if they will be able to kick out a third movie but I would love to see more of this gang.

Rating: The perfect Christmas storm

Christmas At The Chalet | 2023 Christmas Movies

It’s time for the second Teri Hatcher movie of the season. This time it is Christmas At The Chalet from Lifetime.

Lex Riley (Teri Hatcher) is a former journalist who has recently gotten divorced. She decides to spend Christmas at a chalet in Aspen with her son, her ex-husband, and his new girlfriend. However, when she arrives, her room reservation did not go through. So Lex agrees to be a “Chalet Girl” in exchange for a room. She spends her days doing the chores required to keep the chalet in order while vlogging the entire experience.

I wish more things happened in these movies. It’s difficult to have a good opinion when nothing occurs. Lex seems to have fun doing all of the chalet chores - making beds, settings tables, helping cook, etc. And it seems like her followers are loving the things she’s vlogging about. So why is anyone upset that she’s doing it? (I mean, it’s because they think it’s beneath them but, c’mon, that is a tired reason. Think of something interesting.) That is the big problem with the movie. There is supposed to be conflict. The only conflicts are her husband and son being grossed out by her working and the usual miscommunication between Lex and love-interest Eric (William deVry). Neither of these conflicts are interesting. It would have been more interesting if Eric was against her vlogging her entire job or if Lex got hurt skiing or something. Like most of this year’s Christmas movies, it’s just dull.

Rating: Are you sure there’s not another hotel nearby?

Christmas In Notting Hill | 2023 Christmas Movies

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Christmas movie about a British football (soccer) player. Thanks to being a fan of John Green and watching Welcome to Wrexham, I was fully prepared for Christmas In Notting Hill.

Graham Savoy (William Moseley) is a British football star who recently suffered a knee injury. Georgia (Sarah Ramos) is a special education teacher from the United States. She travels to London to visit her sister, Lizzie (Joelle Rae), for Christmas. Graham and Georgia’s worlds collide when they realize that Graham’s brother, Henry (Peter Rothwell), is planning on proposing to Georgia’s sister.

I was surprised when I found myself enjoying this movie. It was pretty cute, even though the conflicts were extremely stupid. People got mad at each other for literally no reason. The movie tried to make Graham’s injury seem serious but we didn’t see that. He limped around sometimes but most of the time he seemed to walk around normally. It would have been better if he had to use a cane or would stumble occasionally. I overlooked it, even though I’m not really sure the movie deserved it. Still, it was cute.

Rating: Not quite a goal but close!