A World Record Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

I think we had a Christmas movie about Guinness world records last year. This year we have A World Record Christmas. Is this a new trope?

Charlie (Aias Dalman) is an autistic boy trying to win the approval of his deadbeat dad. His town is trying to win the “Most Wrapped Gifts In One Hour” Guinness World Record so, while the adjudicator is in town, he decides to try to beat the “Most Jenga Blocks Balanced On One Upright Block” record. With help from his mother Marissa (Nikki Deloach), her husband Eric (Lucas Bryant) and his best friend Amy (Daphne Hoskins), he tries to stack 1401 Jenga blocks.

First, I’d like to say that I applaud Hallmark for casting an openly autistic actor as an autistic character. It gave the movie a little more depth than if they hadn’t.

With that said, this movie was nice but it felt like it was lacking a little something. I think it was the fact that there was no real “villain” in the story. Sure, we had Charlie’s biological dad, Peter (Matt Hamilton), basically ignoring him but that isn’t much of a villain story. Especially since the blame is mostly placed on a wrong email address. Maybe if Peter was a little meaner about not being around for Charlie or something like that. We’re also told that kids make fun of Charlie for being different but we never see that either. Actually, all of the other kids we see are really nice to Charlie. As a result, the big obstacle is just…autism. Thankfully, Nikki Deloach and Lucas Bryant are strong enough actors to carry the movie with their relationship alone.

Rating: The tallest tower built on the smallest block

Reporting For Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

Before diving back into Hallmark and Great American Family and Lifetime, I watched one more movie from Hulu. Reporting For Christmas. Let’s see if it’s a hot story or a dud.

Reporter Mary Romero (Tamara Feldman) wants to make a difference in her community. When she is given a puff piece on a family-owned Christmas toy factory, she tries to tell the story of the family and the Iowa town. Unfortunately, her bosses have a different agenda.

While I understand what they were going for here, I wish there was a little more. The factory is the largest company in this little town but we hear very little from actual townspeople about it. There is a montage of Mary interviewing people but that mostly focuses on the fact that the factory’s head of marketing, Lexi (Maura Kidwell), keeps trying to put the toys in every shot. The only information we really get about the history of the factory and how it has changed the town is from Blake (Matt Trudeau), who is the grandson of the man that created the company. And Blake isn’t exactly telling the right story. It would have been nice to actually hear from the townspeople how the factory changed their lives.

Also, there are a lot of the same “reporter” tropes in the movie. I was easily able to tell what was going to happen and how the movie would end. That isn’t always a bad thing but I shouldn’t be able to tell you “Oh, this is how it’ll end” by the middle of the movie. Change it up a little. People don’t really want cookie cutter movies, even though studios think they do.

Rating: Mistle-groan

How To Fall In Love By Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

It would be great if Christmas movies would actually decide on a title. Roku’s How To Fall In Love By Christmas is also listed as How To Fall In Love By The Holidays, depending on where you look. It makes it difficult to actually find the title when you want to watch it. Especially when there are other movies with a similar title.

Nora Winters (Teri Hatcher) is the CEO of a lifestyle magazine. When the reader numbers start dropping, the board of directors partners with a dating app to try to win over younger readers. They insist that Nora, herself, use the app and write a column documenting her journey to love. To help get the younger demographic, they hire photographer Jack (Dan Payne) to take pictures along the way.

We have seen this storyline before. A newspaper or magazine writer has to write an article or column about falling in love around the holidays. But they can’t just write about it, that would be dishonest. No, they have to actually fall in love. That isn’t usually how the writing world works but whatever. It’s supposed to be interesting. (I don’t think it is.)

What is interesting here, though, isn’t the tired romance storyline. It’s the B plot with Nora’s sister, Adley (Rachel Wilson), running their late mother’s bakery and charity almost entirely by herself. I would love to have a movie that showed her story. Sure, she’s already married with a kid so she doesn’t need that romance plot. Or does she? How wonderful would it be to show how a woman running a business and a charity included her husband in her life? It wouldn’t be about just appeasing him. It would be about how they work together to keep everything running while the “successful” sister runs off to take care of whatever she thinks is important. That would have been so much more interesting.

Rating: A tired and overused 10-step program

A Heidelberg Holiday | 2023 Christmas Movies

Hallmark might have outdone themselves with A Heidelberg Holiday. A movie that takes place in Germany featuring actual German actors and mostly filmed in Germany? It may be too much.

Heidi (Ginna Claire Mason) handmakes glass ornaments. Her dream is to sell them at the Christmas market in Heidelberg, Germany, where her family is from. She manages to get a spot at the last minute thanks to her grandmother, Oma (Nela Bartsch), who also arranges her to stay with some friends. In Heidelberg, Heidi meets Lukas (Frédéric Brossier), a local artisan who happens to be the son of Oma’s friends. Lukas helps Heidi navigate the town as well as selling at the market.

This was actually a really cute movie. Instead of focusing on the romance, it spent more time showing the sights of Heidelberg, various Christmas traditions, and highlighting Heidi’s family. The romance builds slowly, giving us a nice pay-off in the end. I think that this should be the template for Christmas romance movies. A little bit of Christmas, a lot of character development, and a slow burning romance that builds throughout the movie. Writers should take notes.

Rating: How do you say ‘watch this’ in German?

A Christmas Blessing | 2023 Christmas Movies

According to IMDb, A Christmas Blessing used to be titled Blessings of Christmas. Blessings of Christmas would have been better, honestly. There are a lot of movies named A Christmas Blessing.

Mandy Gilmore (Lori Loughlin) is leaving her cooking show to travel the world, dining at every Michelin star restaurant. Before she can leave, she has to stop in Milwaukee to sign the deed to her late aunt’s food pantry over to Adam (James Tupper), who owns the business next door. As she is getting ready to sign, she is visited by Otto (Jesse Hutch), who reminds her of her aunt’s seasonal goodwill toward those in need. At the last minute, Mandy tries to get together one last holiday food pantry and feast.

This is on Great American Family, of course. It is a little heavy-handed with the religious overtones but I don’t think they ever blatantly say this is “God’s doing” or whatever. I was waiting for some sort of pun on Otto’s name but, if there is one, I didn’t catch it.

Anyway, it’s a decent enough movie. A little too saccharine for my tastes but I’m sure this is right up the alley for some other people.

Rating: Watch out for the ice!

Christmas Island | 2023 Christmas Movies

When I first saw the commercials for Christmas Island, I thought it sounded very similar to the Broadway musical Come From Away. Except that the plane in Christmas Island was grounded by weather and not a terrorist attack.

Kate (Rachel Skarsten) is a pilot that has been hired by the wealthy Sharpe family to fly them to Switzerland for the holidays. Unfortunately, they run into a major blizzard and are forced to land on a small island in Canada called Christmas Island. Can Kate save her job (and Christmas)?

I have to admit that I enjoyed Christmas Island. But not for the romance. It was for the Sharpe family, especially the kids. I knew the movie was going to Save Christmas for them (it is Hallmark, after all) but I found myself really hoping their parents would come through for them. I would have liked a few more scenes or montages of the family spending more time together but it wasn’t needed to make the movie watchable.

At the end, this movie wanted us to pull for Kate and Oliver (Andrew Walker) to get together. But it didn’t make me actually care if they did. I think they would have been perfectly fine as friends. Alas, Hallmark does not make friends, only romantic partners.

Rating: Me and The Sky

A Christmas Frequency | 2023 Christmas Movies

We’re going to take a break from Hallmark and Great American Family for a moment and tune into Hulu for A Christmas Frequency. It stars Denise Richards so it can’t be completely awful, right?

Kenzie (Ansley Gordon) is the producer of the Breakfast With Brooke radio show. When the ratings start to fall because Brooke (Denise Richards) is depressed over her failed marriage, Kenzie decides to set Brooke up with blind dates on air. The audience will vote on which date they like best, making him Brooke’s date for the show’s live Christmas show. Things change when Ben (Jonathan Stoddard), a man that Kenzie is interested in dating herself, shows up on the list of potential blind dates. Is there any way to save the show and make everyone happy?

Overall, I thought this was a good movie. There were a few scenes that felt like they dragged but there weren’t many. Ansley Gordon was a delight as Kenzie and Jonathan Stoddard was charming. Sadly, Brooke spent a lot of the movie moping so we didn’t get to see a ton of range from Denise Richards. While this won’t be an annual movie by any means, it was a refreshing break from the usual stuff I watch during the Christmas season.

Rating: Turn the radio up

Christmas Keepsake | 2023 Christmas Movies

When I see movie descriptions saying an item was found or the characters are searching for something, I expect a little bit of mystery in the movie. Christmas Keepsake does not agree.

After the death of his wife, Tom (Daniel Lissing) and his daughter, Grace (Ellie Stewart), move to the United States. As Grace is playing in the backyard of their new house, she finds a buried time capsule. Together, they try to find the original owner of the time capsule to return it to them. Along the way, they meet Elizabeth (Jillian Murray), owner of the local bakery. Perhaps together, the three can find a way to have a happy Christmas again.

Great American Family is great at having boring films that don’t have anything to say. Tom and Grace are darling but they don’t seem to really care that their wife/mother has died. Usually, in movies like these, the kid tries to cling to all of the Christmas traditions that the missing parent participated in. Not here. Grace is all “Let’s so new stuff!” Which is admirable but strange nonetheless. Tom is at least trying to do things that Grace liked to do in Australia to try to make the move easier on her.

Then there is Elizabeth. She’s sad about something but we aren’t really sure what. Her dad died….but it was like a decade ago? (She literally said she was a small child when it happened.) I understand grieving a dead parent but there should be a point where you stop taking it out on everyone else.

Christmas Keepsake was really trying to make this a movie about two grieving people coming together. They did it in the stupidest way. They should have just focused on the time capsule and left everything else out. It would have been so much cooler to dig deeper into the items in the box.

Rating: Put me in a time capsule for the next 20 years

Everything Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

It is interesting that something called Everything Christmas is about a road trip rather than someone trying to stuff Christmas into every aspect of their life. But, as we all know, I don’t name these things. I just wish I did.

LJ (Cindy Busby) goes on a three-day road trip with her friend, Tori (Katherine Barrell). Their destination is a town where it is always Christmas but they have a special tree-decorating ceremony on Christmas Eve. On their way, they meet Zack (Corey Sevier) and Jason (Matt Wells). Will LJ forgo her Christmas promise to her late grandmother in favor for following her heart?

Hallmark is pretty good at movies that are just OK. Everything Christmas is one of those. I’m not quite sure how Corey Sevier became one of Hallmark’s leading men. Maybe because he has this goofy sort of good guy look? He’s kinda terrible at acting and he makes me cringe when he’s on the screen. Thankfully, he frequently gets paired up with women that can carry the movie for him. Cindy Busby isn’t amazing here but she more than makes up for everyone else. The best part of the movie is probably George Masswohl as Kris Kringle. I just wish there was a little more of him to go around.

Rating: Just some things Christmas

Mystery on Mistletoe Lane | 2023 Christmas Movies

Ooh. Mystery on Mistletoe Lane has mystery in the title. That means there has to be at least one mystery, right? Don’t let me down!

Heidi (Erica Cerra) and her children have moved to New Hollow for her new job as the director of the historical society. As they move into their new home, the children begin to find clues to a bigger mystery. What lies at the end of the little wooden reindeer?

This is another one of those love-hate movies. I really did enjoy the children’s plotline with the riddles and reindeer. However, Heidi’s plotline of trying to make the community be interested in the historical society? Big yawn. There really wasn’t anything interesting in it. I would have loved it if the movie revolved around the mystery, whether the children involved the adults or not. Or maybe they could have made Heidi’s job more important in the mystery. She was researching more about the house but it didn’t really mean much in the end. More mystery, less boring stuff.

Rating: If only there were more than eight reindeer….