Round And Round | 2023 Christmas Movies

Every year, Hallmark releases one Hanukkah movie. This year it is Round And Round.

It is night seven of Hanukkah. Rachel (Vic Michaelis) is going to her parents’ Hanukkah/anniversary party. At the party, her grandmother gives her a dreidel to use in the cousins game. After spinning the toy, Rachel gets stuck in a time loop, reliving day seven over and over.

Frequently, Hallmark’s Hanukkah movies are my favorite of the season. And this year is no different. We’ve seen a lot of time loop movies that use the same tired old tropes. The big difference in Round And Round is that Rachel doesn’t rely on herself to figure out how to end the loop. Not only does she use love interest, Zach (Bryan Greenberg), she also uses his friend, Seth (Amitai Marmorstein). As the nerdy characters, they bring forth all of their pop culture knowledge to figure out which time loop story will solve her problem. It brings a different sort of camaraderie that we don’t see too often. I thought it made the movie quite enjoyable.

Rating: I would live in that time loop. More donuts please!

Meet Me Under The Mistletoe | 2023 Christmas Movies

We’re heading back over to Great American Family for Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, a movie about realtors. While there has been quite a few real estate-related Christmas movies, they are usually pretty terrible. Let’s hope for the best.

Eva (Sarah Fisher) is an up-and-coming realtor who has been succeeding at selling condos quickly. When Frank (Paul Essiembre) and Kelly Greer (Jan Skene) decide to sell their house by Christmas, they choose both Eva and her rival, Jeff (Simon Arblaster), to list the house together.

Usually, in these movies, the lead characters’ career paths define who they are. In this case, Eva wrote a novel and only went into real estate because it didn’t sell. And Jeff is an amazing artist who only uses his talent as gifts for his clients. These two side plots aren’t part of the main story but they are important character traits. I actually wish the real estate part of the story didn’t exist and this was about a writer and an artist connecting. It would have been more interesting.

With that said, the actual realtor part of the movie is bland. It takes up a good part of the beginning of the movie but once they get the house staged, it mostly disappears. Eva and Jeff spend time going to the Christmas festival and falling in love. Which is fine but, again, we could have just gotten rid of the real estate aspect and the movie would have been better.

Rating: Can I get a ticket to ScienceCon? (So I don’t have to be here)

Silent Night, Fatal Night | 2023 Christmas Movies

Lifetime Movie Network, different from the Lifetime channel itself, is running a series of thriller movies and series they are calling Slay Bells. The new movie in this series is Silent Night, Fatal Night. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

Mallory (Alex Camacho) is the writer of a popular mystery series featuring female detective Gideon. After her most recent release, Mallory has decided to retire Gideon to focus on a new project. However, her literary author, Michael (Matthew Pohlkamp), has already accepted an advance from her publisher for a new Gideon book. In order to get the new book, Michael fakes Mallory’s death and kidnaps her to his mountain house so she can write a new Gideon book.

I’m not going to lie. There are a lot of plot holes in this movie. Mallory’s reported death was extremely fast. Supposedly, Michael “found” the body but there weren’t any police reports or anything since there was no actual body. Also, Michael had told Mallory to go to his mountain house to relax. We see Michael on his phone in his office while Mallory is on the landline at the house. Then immediately Mallory is chloroformed and knocked out. Yet, when she wakes up, we see that Michael is the bad guy. He must travel at lightspeed.

And those are only some of the plot holes. If you can overlook those and you are into super cheesy thrillers, you might enjoy this. Otherwise, it’s just another dumb movie on the list.

Rating: More Carrie, less Michael

Christmas On Cherry Lane | 2023 Christmas Movies

I think that Hallmark Channel has a couple of movies featuring LGTBQ+ couples in lead roles. And I believe Christmas On Cherry Lane is the first of the season.

In 1973, 1999, and 2023, three very different couples are getting ready to celebrate Christmas in the same house on Cherry Lane.

I didn’t really want to give away the fact that they are all in the same house but the movie does tell you that pretty quickly. Not immediately but within the first 15 minutes or so.

Anyway, I really loved this movie a lot. Every little twist and turn had me smiling. This may actually be the first Hallmark Christmas movie that brought tears to my eyes. Christmas On Cherry Lane isn’t about finding love or wooing the girl. It’s about family and connections. How things that happen to us in our life can affect other people’s lives in the future that we may never even think about. Cherry Lane really is the sweetest Christmas movie I have ever seen. A must watch, especially if you can watch it with family.

Rating: Can I buy the house on Cherry Lane?

A Cowboy Christmas Romance | 2023 Christmas Movies

Lifetime’s A Cowboy Christmas Romance has blown up the internet. It is the first cable Christmas movie with a sex scene. Well, OK, it’s not really a sex SCENE but the main couple definitely has sex. It’s a spicy, spicy Christmas movie!

Lexie (Jana Kramer) is a real estate agent who is good at closing sales. She lands a job back in her Arizona hometown convincing the cowboy next door to sell his ranch to a developer. But coming home also opens up some deep family drama that has been stewing for over a decade.

First things first - If you are looking for a Christmassy Christmas movie, this isn’t it. There are a few mentions of the holiday but it doesn’t mean anything to the plot. Now, talking about the plot. This was actually a really good movie. It was written by Sarah Drew, who we have seen in some Christmas movies before. All of the characters felt like real people doing real things and saying things that real people say. That is a rarity for a Christmas movie. And most of these people already had relationships with each other before the movie started so we didn’t need to try to figure out why the woman suddenly fell in love with a man she just met. These are people that have been apart for a long time due to past traumas and are now reconnecting. It made for a really good story.

Rating: Ride this cowboy

Magic In Mistletoe | 2023 Christmas Movies

Magic In Mistletoe, eh? How much magic do we think will be in this movie? I’m betting none.

Harrington (Paul Campbell) writes a series of books titled “Magic In Mistletoe.” When he goes on social media to say Christmas is only about money, his fans start to revolt. It’s up to April (Lyndie Greenwood), a publicist for his publisher, to save his reputation and get his fans to buy his newest book.

Most of the time, this was a pretty cute movie. I liked the way they integrated events involving the book - a costume dance, a lot of Q&As, etc. I wish the movie focused on that more than Harrington being an idiot. The movie goes with the usual trope of dead parents but, if I understood the timeline correctly, his parents have been dead for 9 years (his father) and 5 years (his mother). Yet the movie acts like they died recently. He literally throws a fit because April gets him a (decorated!) Christmas tree. This movie really should have been just about the book.

Rating: I wish this movie was more magical

Candy Cane Lane | 2023 Christmas Movies

Next up is Candy Cane Lane from Amazon Prime Video. With a rather boring title, who knows what this is about.

Every year, Chris (Eddie Murphy) tries to make his homemade Christmas display beat his neighbor’s inflatable display in the neighborhood decoration contest. To upgrade his display this year, he buys a 12 Days of Christmas tree from an elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell). But when he signs his credit card slip, he unknowingly makes a pact that brings the 12 Days to life. Now he must gather all of the golden rings or he will be turned into a figurine for her store.

The “try to outdo Christmas decorations” is a tired plotline. We’ve seen it a lot. However, the twist of bringing the 12 Days of Christmas to life and having to gather all of the golden rings was a nice change. I also really liked the way they portrayed the days. The fight at the high school track was pretty awesome.

I didn’t find myself liking Chris or his wife, Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross), very much. They kept nagging their children to do things they want to do. “Go to the college we want you to attend” and “Don’t be interested in music, even though you are in the marching band and we have obviously spent a lot of money on instrument lessons.” Unfortunately, this means that I didn’t really care if he turned into a figure. I wanted the current figures to be turned back into humans more than I wanted Chris to save himself. The side characters really were the highlight of the movie.

Rating: Can I live with the figures?

To All A Good Night | 2023 Christmas Movies

I’m pretty sure that the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel is where they are sticking all of their schmaltzy movies nowadays. I think that Hallmark, as a brand, is trying to be more inclusive and movies like To All A Good Night don’t fit in any more. To be honest, I love that the main Hallmark Channel is getting the better movies. It makes it a little easier on my brain when I know when to expect the saccharine.

Ceci (Kimberley Sustad) is a photographer in a small town. She teaches photography classes for kids, takes pictures for the newspaper, and runs her own portrait studio. When she saves of the life of Sam (Mark Ghanimé) after a motorcycle accident, she has to find out if he has come to down to buy and develop the land she owns with her stepmother or if he has other reasons to come to town.

This movie was so slow. Literally half of the movie was spent with Sam in the hospital while Ceci and intrepid reporter Penny (Luisa d’Oliveira) trying to both hide the fact that Ceci is the one that saved him and figure out why he is there. I really hate when the plots of movies can be solved just by asking a question. If Ceci had just said, from the beginning, “Hey, I’m the one that saved you. What brings you into town?” A lot would have been resolved. Granted, when she did ask him, he dodged the question a little bit but she was never honest with him so why would he be honest with her. Really…the best part of this movie was the dog. I want the dog to have his own movie where he runs around stealing things from the neighbors. It would probably be more interesting.

Rating: I said Good Night!

The Jingle Bell Jubilee | 2023 Christmas Movies

I don’t think I have extremely high standards for Christmas movies. The titles should, at minimum, have something to do with the plot of the movie. The Jingle Bell Jubilee just barely fits. I’ll talk more about that in a bit.

Nate (Marshall Williams) is the new city manager of his childhood hometown. He gets thrown into planning the town’s Christmas festival at the last minute. When there isn’t a charity donation set up, he turns to teacher Hope (Erin Agostino), who runs an annual Regiftmas at her school, for help.

So, yes, the movie is a little bit about Nate planning this Jingle Bell Jubilee thing. However, it’s really not. It’s really about Hope and her grandmother and “the true meaning of Christmas” and regifting things you don’t want to those less fortunate. Hope literally tells the story of her grandmother and her cedar trunk three separate times. (Thankfully, Great American Family has commercials so we don’t have to sit through the story.) Once that is set up in the plot, everything else revolves around Regiftmas. Which, by the way, should really have a better name.

Also, this is the second Christmas movie this season with Agostino. I’m really not fond of her acting. She seems to rely on her giant eyes to do most of the emoting. I think she has another movie in 2023. I’m not looking forward to it.

Rating: The hockey player deserved better

Christmas With A Kiss | 2023 Christmas Movies

Christmas With A Kiss is from Hallmark’s Mahogany line of movies. While I am not the target audience for the Mahogany line, sometimes they are my favorite movies of the season.

Mona (Mishael Morgan) is a social media influencer living in New York City. She comes home for Christmas to help her family run their annual Christmas Carnival. During the 10-day festival, she reconnects with her high school boyfriend, Fletcher (Jaime M. Callica), and meets Dez (Ronnie Rowe), a journalist writing an article about the Carnival.

I had some mixed feelings about this movie. On one hand, the romance was a nice, slow burn. I like when the romantic feelings take awhile to settle in because when they fall in love immediately, it is a little creepy. On the other hand, those of us that watch Hallmark romance movies know that Dez was set up as The One - either despite the fact that they didn’t get along or as a result of it, I’m not sure. And, to be honest, Dez kinda sucks. Sure, he had some nice “family guy” things going on but he also insulted everything that he didn’t agree with. He needed a good kick in the butt before getting into a relationship with anyone. Granted, Fletcher didn’t deserve to be with her either. I wish there was a third, better option for Mona.

Rating: Not as fun as a carnival