This is the fourth movie I’ve watched on UPtv. I’m already getting very tired of their UPlifting Christmas Movies tagline. The other channels don’t tell me their tagline nearly as often. I’m also tired of the Gilmore Girls marathon commercial. I can’t wait until those stop.

Workaholic Kim (Rhiannon Fish) was expecting her boyfriend, Steven (Jonathan Hawley Purvis), to propose. He broke up with her instead. Her mother, Mary (Lynn Whyte), convinces her to go on a week-long Christmas retreat to relax and reconnect. At the retreat, Kim meets Mark (Clayton James), a newly unemployed executive who happens to be the brother of the retreat’s owner. Will they be able to find what they really want out of life?

The Christmas Retreat was going so well. The romance between Kim and Mark was progressing well until all of a sudden Steven shows up. That is probably my one biggest complaint about romance movies. A woman will be having the time of her life without her current or former partner but the minute that person shows up, they forget everything and go running back to them. Kim knew that she didn’t love Steven any more. She knew that she was so much happier without him. So why in the world would she run off with him when he randomly shows up at the door? She doesn’t even say “Well, I still have some stuff to do here so I can’t leave with you right now.” Women are not carpets to be walked all over.

Does this mean I don’t think you should watch this particular movie? No. It is pretty cute in a lot of ways. There’s a sort of advent calendar type of thing that counts down the days of the week-long retreat that also tells us how the retreat is broken up into different sections. It was cute and seasonal. Kim and Mark do have pretty good chemistry, which is maybe why I was so pissed off when she went off with Steven. If I was using a give star rating system, this one would probably be a three. Good enough to watch but kind of annoying at the same time.

I always thought that chefs and bakers were separate, at least professionally. Do a lot of chefs also do the baking for their restaurant? I thought they hired someone to do that for them.

Josie (Kim Shaw) is a chef in Los Angeles. She heads home for the holidays to help her mother, Shannon (Cynthia Gibb), open a bistro at the family bed & breakfast. Tanner (Clayton James) is a food critic who Josie blames for the failure of her bakery. He decides to spend the holidays at the Shannon’s B&B, which causes Josie a lot of stress.

While Christmas on the Menu isn’t completely confusing, I spent a lot of time wondering why characters did certain things. There is the chef vs baker issue. Josie talks about how one reviewer said her chicken skins were delicious…meaning she’s a chef…but then she talks about how she owned a bakery that failed and she’s in charge of the desserts at her mother’s bistro…means she’s a baker. Granted, I don’t know a whole lot about the world of bakeries and restaurants but I didn’t think that the restaurant’s chef was also doing the baking. That seems like a lot of work for one person.

In addition, there’s the choice of food reviewers. Shannon invites a couple of food reviewers to sample the new menu. One of the people she invites is kosher but then she proceeds to serve a bunch of non-kosher food. They did end up making a special kosher meal for that reviewer. It is just a little weird to invite someone for a particular meal and a particular reason then offer them food they don’t eat. Maybe it was supposed to highlight that the bistro is willing to offer specialized meals for people but literally no one else was there besides the reviewers.

Once again, Lifetime gave us a movie that is simply OK. This movie does have an actual villain, which makes it slightly more interesting. Josie and Tanner do have a bit of banter that makes their relationship a little more believable. You can go ahead and watch Christmas on the Menu. You’ll at least learn not to take whatever food you want out of a B&B’s refrigerator. You should ask permission first.