Love At The Christmas Contest | 2022 Christmas Movies

Is it me or does there seem like there is a lot more death in this year’s Christmas movies? We don’t really need to be giving everyone dead parent trauma in order to make someone a single parent. Divorce is a thing, you know.

This is the first Christmas Angie (Samantha Cope) is celebrating without her mother. She enters a Christmas tree decorating contest to honor her mother’s memory. Also entering the contest is David (Ross Jirgl), Angie’s recently-widowed high school sweetheart, and his daughter, Gabby (Eliza Donaghy). Will all three of them be able to find the Christmas spirit again?

Love At The Christmas Contest was so boring. The whole plot centered around this tree decorating contest but we didn’t actually see any tree decorating. They talked about it. Awards were given. But we didn’t even get a montage of people decorating their trees. It would have been great to see Angie and her friend, Blair (Triana Browne), decorating their bee tree and giggling while David helped Gabby decorate their tree. There was so much potential lost there.

And I’m really over all of the death. We haven’t even reached the middle of November yet and it feels like everyone’s parents or wives have died. I guess that is this year’s theme. Death. Maybe it’s the networks’ way of sorta addressing the pandemic without actually addressing it. No one ever gives a reason why their loved one has died. They are just gone. If that this what is going on, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Christmas movie season. We still have a lot to go.

Sadly, I can’t recommend watching Love At The Christmas Contest. It is sad and boring. I never thought I would see a move that actually made me want more montages. What the heck, Great American Family?

A Christmas Masquerade | 2022 Christmas Movies

There is a sudden influx of “A” Christmas movies. I know there are usually a bunch of them but this seems excessive. A Christmas Masquerade also falls into the “dumb name that doesn’t really apply to the movie” category as well. It’s like the people that write the titles grab on the smallest detail and name the movie after it.

Julianne (Erin Agostino) is a personal assistant to a Laura (Cory Lee), an HR professional. Peter (David Lafontaine), a potential client, mistakes Julianne for Laura at a masquerade ball. When Julianne lands the deal, she is forced to continue to pretend to be Laura in order to keep his business.

So there is only one masquerade ball in A Christmas Masquerade. The rest of the time it’s just Julianne not correcting anyone when they call her Laura. Easy fix. There is zero reason that Julianne couldn’t have said at the party “I’m sorry, I’m Laura’s assistant. She couldn’t make it tonight so I came in her place to meet you.” Instead, they decide to drag out the lie for as long as possible. Even when Peter catches her using her real name, it gets written off. Mistaken identity is an interesting premise for a movie but it used badly here.

Also, Peter is trying to become the next ambassador for his country. (I already forget his country’s name. That is how forgettable this movie is.) His father, the current ambassador, is retiring. For some reason, the council just keeps hiring the same family as if it was royalty? But since Peter is the black sheep, he has to fix his public image or the council won’t elect him. And they work on this for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. I’m sorry but any council that looks at someone with a terrible track record that suddenly has a good track record for less than a week and still hires them is stupid. This movie is stupid.

Seriously, don’t watch A Christmas Masquerade. Either of the two movies I previously reviewed from UPtv were better than this one. This one is just dumb and a waste of time.

A Maple Valley Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

You know, usually, Christmas movie titles give you a little insight into what the movie is about. A Maple Valley Christmas doesn’t really tell us anything. It’s about a family on a farm that harvests maple from trees so they make a lot of maple things. I guess they had to name it something, right?

Erica (Peyton List) has spent her whole life on her family’s farm. When the neighboring farm comes up for sale, Erica thinks they should buy the land to expand the business. Two things lie in her way - her sister, Heidi (Ella Cannon), who doesn’t want to spend the money and Aaron Davenport (Andrew Walker) whose father wants to buy the plot of land for their real estate business.

This is one of the most frustrating movies I have watched in awhile. It has all the marks of a good Christmas romance movie. Erica and Aaron make a good enough couple. Their romance seems to blossom fairly naturally. The land conflict is big enough that it could cause issues between people but not big enough that it’s catastrophic to everyone. However, what holds it back is the sheer self-centeredness of the women. Mainly Erica and Heidi.

Ina (Frances Flanagan), the family matriarch, wants to retire and go to Italy with her new boyfriend, who happens to tutor her in Italian. Erica basically throws a hissy fit at this news. How dare her mother want to spend her golden years doing something she wants to instead of wasting away on a farm simply to make her daughters happy? Since Ina is leaving the family business to Erica and Heidi, it’s Heidi’s turn to throw an unnecessary fit. Heidi absolutely refuses to even consider Erica’s plan to expand the family farm. When Erica talks to other people about it to get their ideas, Heidi complains that Erica is leaving her out. What should have been a simple conversation with everyone bringing up the pros and cons of the plan is turned into a stupid sibling rivalry. Why can’t these two think of other people for a minute?

I don’t know if I can recommend A Maple Valley Christmas. I really wanted to like it but it felt so misogynistic that it made my skin crawl. Maybe we can just forget this one exists this year.

A Royal Christmas On Ice | 2022 Christmas Movies

Sometimes I’m not sure where ideas for these movies come from. There aren’t a ton of Christmas movies that revolve around ice skating but there are a ton about royalty. I guess they thought that the two would be good together? Let’s look at A Royal Christmas On Ice from Great American Family channel.

Abigail (Anna Marie Dobbins) was a figure skating Olympic hopeful. When an injury dashed her dreams of Olympic gold, she began teaching ice skating in her hometown in upstate New York. Prince John (Jonathan Stoddard) is the last in line for the throne. He wants something that would be his so he decides to buy an ice hockey team. He travels to the United States to look for the perfect venue to house his new team. It turns out to be the same venue where Abigail runs her classes. Can Abigail save her school or will she lose it along with her heart?

I don’t understand this movie. My biggest problem - why can’t they both use the venue? Are we supposed to think that Abigail’s skating classes take up an entire day or the hockey team uses the rink all day? There’s a ECHL professional hockey team that plays near my house and their venue holds giant music concerts during the hockey season. It’s not like the venue is completely shut down for them. This is a conflict that doesn’t exist in real life.

Second, Abigail refuses to use her name or face to advertise her classes. She’s embarrassed about getting injured during the Olympics. (Or maybe it’s the Olympic trials? I’m not sure.) I can see this both ways. On one hand, I can see feeling like a failure and who would want to take classes from a failure. A Royal Christmas On Ice should have had a few random people come up to her while she was around town and be like “Oh my god! Aren’t you Abigail the ice skater?” or something. Something that would have shown us that people still remember her. Because, on the other hand, once she puts her face on that flyer, her event sells out within days. We don’t get any sort of sense of how popular she really is with the public.

The royalty part doesn’t confuse me as much. I can understand why someone who doesn’t have a lot of royal responsibilities would want a little something for themselves. Maybe if they had shown John slacking in his royal duties that the hockey thing would have been more scandalous. As it stands, the poor guy just wants something to do.

A Royal Christmas On Ice was actually a decent movie. As with other GAC movies, this isn’t going to make a Best Of list but I enjoyed watching it. it did feel a little bit like a fanfic written by a teenage girl, which doesn’t make it terrible. It makes it feel a little like a throwback to those times.

Merry Swissmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

Usually, Christmas movie actors stick to one channel. For example, you rarely see Hallmark actors in Lifetime Christmas movies. Somehow, Jodie Sweetin has managed to be on both channels in one year. Maybe she is the true Queen of Christmas.

Alex (Jodie Sweetin) is an architect who travels the world designing luxury hotels. She decides to spend Christmas in Switzerland, where her mother (Jane Wheeler) is opening an inn. Little did Alex know that her mother invited her ex-best friend, Beth (Mikaela Lily Davies), who happens to be dating Alex’s ex-boyfriend, Jesse (David Pinard), to come for the holidays as well. She decides to spend her time helping Liam (Tim Rozon), who manages the inn, plan for the holiday festivities so she can avoid her troublesome personal problems.

Merry Swissmas is one of the few Christmas movies that treats children like children. Love interest Liam has a son, Kelby (Hudson Robert Wurster) and there is a scene where Alex talks to him about how he remembers his late mother. It is a touching scene that is so well done. There aren’t a ton of movies, especially movies where a parent has passed, where anyone asks the child how they are dealing with it. It was probably my favorite scene out of the entire movie.

Outside of that one scene, the rest of the movie is fine. There is some weirdness in how Alex handles the ancient grudge she holds against Beth for the stupidest of reasons. Yes, Alex is mad at Beth because Beth is dating her ex-boyfriend. It’s such a high school thing to be mad about. But it’s not even the fact that Alex is mad. It’s how she handles being around Beth. She barely even looks at Beth. And every time Beth tries to make a grand gesture to fix their relationship, Alex just walks away. She is not a nice person.

While I do wish they had left out the Beth/Jesse part of the story since it is completely unnecessary, I did think that Merry Swissmas was a pretty watchable movie. I would have liked it to focus a little more on Alex and Liam or Alex and her family but that’s OK. At least we all get to walk away with a little more knowledge about Swiss holiday traditions. That is something no other Christmas movie has given us.

Christmas In The Pines | 2022 Christmas Movies

In my first review of an UPtv movie, I didn’t note that UPtv seems to be on the more religious side of the “wholesome” spectrum. Religion didn’t pay a large role in the last movie but it is a little more noticeable here. As a matter of fact, while the opening credits are running over visuals of a mall, we hear a voice on a loudspeaker say “Don’t forget - Jesus is the reason for the season.” I may have rolled my eyes.

Ariel (Jillian Murray) and Mark (Dean Geyer) have somehow both purchased the same cottage. Their realtors tell them that whoever leaves the property first forfeits their right to ownership. With no way to leave, they both call their families to join them at the cottage for Christmas.

Christmas In The Pines may have the stupidest premise I have ever seen. They both paid money for this house. We see Ariel giving her realtor a cashier’s check. I can only assume Mark did the same. There is no way that the “Possession is 9/10 of the law!” would ever be legal or actually work. There are so many other ways the writers could have had them stuck in a house together. Especially since there was already snow outside. Besides, how big is this cottage that it can fit both Ariel’s family - her mom (Leigh-Allyn Baker), her dad (Jeff Rose), and her sister (Victoria Staley) - and Mark’s family - his father (Grant Goodeve) and his brother (Aaron Mees). It’s a magical house, right?

As for the actual movie, there is some Santa Claus magic but there is also a sprinkle of Christianity in there. It seems like the writers didn’t want to go quite so far as to be super religious about everything. There is a definite overtone of religion though. I’m not sure how to explain it exactly. It’s like there are a few of the “right” phrases to make it seem like it wants to go full-on preach mode.

With that said, Christmas In The Pines is not high on my list of movies to watch. It’s boring, none of the plotlines make any sense, the characters aren’t particularly likeable, and it walks too many fine lines for it to be one thing or the other. If the movie had committed to what it was about, maybe it would have been better. As it stands, I would say to stay away from this one. You’ll probably regret watching it.

Lights, Camera, Christmas! | 2022 Christmas Movies

Most of the time, I don’t watch these Christmas movies with my husband. He’s not particularly fond of them. (Gee, I wonder why.) He happened to catch a bit of Lights, Camera, Christmas! and he raised an eyebrow at a Christmas movie about making a Christmas movie. Yep, that’s Hallmark for you!

Kerry (Kimberley Sustad) is a fashion designer with her own shop. A Christmas movie starring Brad (John Brotherton) and Mariah (Veronica Long) comes to film in her hometown. When they lose their costume designer, Kerry gets hired to step in. During the shoot, Kerry rediscovers her love of fashion and Brad learns how to get out of his comfort zone.

There isn’t a lot to say about Lights, Camera, Christmas! There is this corny joke about Brad winking at the camera at the end of every one of his romcom movies. Then, at the end of this corny romcom movie, Kerry winks at the camera. That is the overall vibe of the movie. Kerry not only seems uncomfortable in her own skin most of the time, she doesn’t seem to know how to say no to people. I guess this is somehow attractive to Brad. Or maybe it’s that she has no idea who he is, even though he’s supposed to be a giant movie star. I honestly don’t understand a lot of the motivations in this movie.

Of course, I should note that this entire movie is played as a flashback. Everyone is on a panel of a Q&A at the movie premiere and all of the scenes are answers to questions the audience asked. I think it takes away from the plot a bit. There are a few scenes where things go wrong but we know they finish the movie because they are at the premiere. It would have played a little bit better if we didn’t have the Q&A and just had the making of the movie.

Should you watch it? Lights, Camera, Christmas! is a fine movie to watch. I wish they took the Christmas movie parody to the next level but I guess you can’t have everything. At least we get decent acting and an OK plot. Maybe you’ll enjoy a bit more after a glass or two of wine.

A Magical Christmas Village | 2022 Christmas Movies

Hallmark usually puts their magical item movies over on their Movies & Mysteries channel. A Magical Christmas Village managed to make it to the main channel! That must mean it’s not very magical, right?

Summer (Alison Sweeney) is working on rebuilding an old building in town while raising her daughter Chloe (Maesa Nicholson). When her mother, Vivian (Marlo Thomas), has to move in, Summer’s perfect world is rocked. Vivian sets up a miniature Christmas replica of the town and tells Chloe that any wish she makes will come true. As Chloe creates scenarios with the mini villagers, wonderous things begin to happen.

It’s funny that the movie is named after the Christmas village set but the set isn’t highly featured. Yes, we get scenes of Chloe setting it up and playing with the characters. Those scenes are fairly far apart though. Granted, we still understand that Summer and Ryan’s (Luke Macfarlane) budding romance is only happening thanks to Chloe. But maybe we could have had a little more of the village appear.

Both Sweeney and Macfarlane are decent actors and Marlo Thomas is classic television royalty. So the movie is not lacking in the talent department. However, it is a basic by-the-book Christmas romance movie. The Christmas village twist does make it slightly more interesting. But I think the most interesting part of the movie is Vivian’s character. Her hippy ways seem way more magical than the village. It might have been cooler if all of the magic was Vivian’s. Like she was the one making her granddaughter’s wishes come true.

A Magical Christmas Village is actually a pretty good movie. It’s not the most interesting that we’ve seen so far but it’s not terrible. I think this is the first movie where we’ve had the two romantic leads actually have something real in common instead of only living on the same street or in the same town. This was one of the few couples I was rooting for. Thankfully, it’s a Hallmark movie so I knew they were going to get together in the end.

UnPerfect Christmas Wish | 2022 Christmas Movies

Another channel brand new to this year’s Christmas movie review list is UPtv. UPtv was formerly the Gospel Music Channel, which rebranded in 2013 to focus on family friendly entertainment. You’ll find shows like Gilmore Girls, Highway To Heaven, and Reba there. We’re focusing on the Christmas movies. First up, UnPerfect Christmas Wish.

Madison (Alys Crocker) and Cooper (David Pinard) have been best friends for over 20 years. Cooper has always been in love with Madison but she is very unaware of it. Currently, she is dating Luke (Ish Morris), who is rich and handsome and perfect…and travels a lot. Madison wants someone who will prioritize her in their life. If only she would realize that Cooper does that plus so much more.

This movie was so utterly frustrating. Every time we see Cooper, he is doing everything he can for Madison. Even we when see them as kids, he jumps on stage to help alleviate her stage fright during a Christmas concert. When they are adults, he literally takes on a second job with her company to be a Christmas elf with her. Madison, on the other hand, is so self-centered that she does nothing for Cooper. As a matter of fact, she actually screws him over a number of times. For example, he told her that he really wanted to go to his brother’s party. He ended up missing it because Madison was sad that Luke didn’t take her out for a super special exclusive date with just the two of them. Luke was in town so he took all of his friends out to dinner. He never said anything to Madison about just the two of them going out. So Madison ruined Cooper’s night because she made stupid assumptions. (As a side note, Madison has been dating Luke for like six months and most of those were long distance. This isn’t a close, long term relationship we’re talking about.) Cooper deserves so much better than Madison.

There are also some weird things I don’t understand. Jackie (Bukola Ayoka) is another of Madison’s best friends. She is never referred to as a roommate. However, Jackie acts like she lives with Madison…except for one scene where she makes Cooper use a hidden spare key to let her in the house. But Jackie makes a lot of coffee and bakes cookies and brings all sorts of pets there. Very confusing. Then there is this other scene where Luke rents out the studio where Madison takes yoga classes to give her the date she wanted the night before. It seems like he rented it at the last minute but no one else shows up to take the now-cancelled yoga class? Madison shows up with her yoga mat and in workout clothes so I don’t think an email blast was sent out to the whole class. Did the teacher call everyone individually? Even then, there is always one or two people that don’t get the message in time and show up anyway. This scene was dumb.

UnPerfect Christmas Wish is in this weird in-between place. It wasn’t a terrible movie. It wasn’t even all that boring. There’s some cute songs to offset any boredom that starts to set in. However, all of the characters are kinda terrible people. Cooper is probably the best and he lets Madison walk all over him. I would probably recommend skipping this one but you won’t hate yourself if you end up watching it anyway.

Another Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

This is the first year that I noticed a Christmas movie on the Roku channel. As usual, I didn’t do a lot of research before watching it so I knew nothing about Another Christmas before tuning in. I wish I knew less about it now.

Kelly (Sheena Faust) is an elementary school teacher alongside her friend, Tyler (Jimmy Willis III). Just before Christmas, Kelly gets a text from her ex-boyfriend (and Tyler’s best friend), Andrew (Malik Brazile). The two had parted on bad terms and Kelly is not willing to risk her heart again. But when Andrew comes home for the holidays, things just might change.

Another Christmas is a bad movie. Not a boring one, a bad one. And there are a lot of reasons why. First off, there are way, way too many characters. The movie begins by introducing each character or character pairing separately. It makes it very difficult to understand how the characters relate to each other. Instead of getting like five scenes that have nothing to do with each other, introduce the characters by having each of them come home for Christmas and we first meet them as they greet their family and friends. Or have a bunch of them meet up at a bar or restaurant or something. We, the audience, need something to bind these characters together and the movie doesn’t give us that.

Second, this is writer/director Stacie Davis’s first film as a director and it shows. There are a lot of strange shots where someone’s arm is in front of the camera and the audio echoes like they are in a tin can and the actors aren’t given direction so they just stand in one spot to talk to each other. It feels more like a movie a bunch of friends got together to make than a professional production. Davis only has one other script under her belt, Christmas in Carolina, which released in 2020. I’m not sure if Carolina suffers the same issue but the writing in Another Christmas comes off as if Davis has never held a conversation or even overheard someone talking. The sad thing is that I think this could have been a good script if it had gone through a couple more drafts and had some outside proofreaders.

Finally, give us an actual ending. This movie ended so abruptly that I actually had to rewind it and watch it again to make sure I didn’t miss something. I’m going to tell you the ending because there isn’t anything that it spoils. Camilla and Maison are a married couple having problems. The movie ends with Maison giving Camilla the keys to a Bermuda vacation house. She squeals excitedly, hugs him, and CREDITS. I have never seen a more jarring ending in my life. At no point do the two of them talk about wanting to own a vacation house in Bermuda. And Maison buying a whole house without talking to Camilla first doesn’t solve any of their problems. if anything, it’ll cause more problems. But we don’t get to know about any of that because the movie is DONE.

I really badly want some excellent Christmas movies that star people of color. The Liddle family series is a perfect example of a terrible movie that had great sequels and almost the entire cast is black. (I think there was a white neighbor in one of the movies.) All Another Christmas has to do is cut out part of the cast in order to focus on one or two of the couples and bump up the writing. I can’t recommend watching this movie but I am hopeful that something better is on the horizon.