Lifetime’s Mom’s Christmas Boyfriend is very similar to this year’s Peppermints and Postcards from Great American Family. Let’s see if Lifetime could do better than “meh.”

Emma (Jeananne Goossen) is a single mom to her adopted daughter, Lily (Ai Barrett). While shopping for their annual charity, Lily enters the department store’s Christmas Wish contest. She wins with a wish that her mother could find a boyfriend. With the help of store employees Zach (Zach Smadu) and Brady (Chris Wilson), Emma goes on a variety of dates with Clark (Anthony Bewlz), a bachelor that responded to the store’s call for men to date Emma. But is Clark really right for her?

This movie focused a lot more on the kid than Peppermints did. Which is great. Frequently, a child is the centerpiece in a single mother’s life and when single mothers date, they look for someone who will accept her child not just put up with them. It was really nice to see Zach spending a lot of time with Lily while Clark solely focused on Emma. I think it was a nice change from all of the movies that treat children as some sort of extra piece in their families instead of an actual family member.

Rating: Can Emma teach me to bake bread?

It’s another movie about a singer! I find it interesting that there always seems to be some sort of theme every year. Is there some sort of writers meeting where they decide these things?

Jaylen (Noemi Gonzalez) is a newly famous pop star. When she starts to get stalkerish messages at her rented home in Los Angeles, her record company insists on sending a bodyguard with her when she goes home for the holiday. However, Jaylen doesn’t want to tell her family that he is her bodyguard. Instead, she tells them that Matt (Stephen Huszar) is her boyfriend.

The general premise of Undercover Holiday is good - needing a bodyguard when a public persona has been threatened. But not telling her family that he is a bodyguard is stupid. I understand not wanting to worry them and I understand that something like this would result in her family nagging her to move home more than they already do. You would think that saying “Hey, there was an incident and this is how we are solving it” would be a good response to that. Pretending that he is your boyfriend is the worst thing Jaylen could have done.

With that said, I did appreciate the amount of music in the movie. Granted, a lot of it was Jaylen singing a few lines while sitting in front of a piano. But it is more than some other movies with singers have given us. And this time we get bilingual songs as Jaylen also sings in Spanish.

Despite thinking the plot of Undercover Holiday is stupid, the movie itself wasn’t too bad. Jaylen’s family was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see Matt try to integrate with them. Go ahead and watch this one. It won’t be the best movie you’ve watched this season but it won’t be the worst.