Navigating Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

I know I complain about these movie titles a lot. Navigating Christmas sounds like something that should be about travel. But it’s not. I think this was supposed to about emotional navigation but that is really pushing it. Hold on, let me go into more detail.

This is the first Christmas that Melanie (Chelsea Hobbs) and her teenage son Jason (Everett Andres) are spending together since Melanie’s divorce. After Jason gets ditched by his father, Melanie takes them on a vacation to spend Christmas at a lighthouse. When they get there, they find out that they have also signed up to do chores, like preparing the lighthouse for the Christmas festival. Has Melanie ruined Christmas for her son?

OK. So. Navigating Christmas is supposed to be a reference to Melanie helping her son emotionally navigate the holidays without his father. However, she doesn’t really do that. She keeps his father’s “big secret” from him instead of straight up telling him. She doesn’t have a deep conversation about why the divorce happened. Instead, she lets him believe that her “working too much” was the cause. And she does nothing but avoid every emotional hurdle that comes her way. A World Record Christmas did a much better job showing a loving mother helping her child navigate his emotions. This one would have been better titled Avoiding The Rocks or something.

Rating: At least the lighthouse is pretty?

Christmas At The Golden Dragon | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I saw the title Christmas At The Golden Dragon on Hallmark’s Christmas movie list, I wasn’t sure what to think. Hallmark isn’t known for its diversity. I was a little worried about a movie about Asian people with a title like that. Thankfully, my worries were unfounded.

Jim (Vincent Cheng) and Sue (Sharon Crandall) Chen have run The Golden Dragon for as long as anyone can remember. Now that their children have grown, they have decided to close the restaurant to allow them to live their own lives instead of spending every Christmas working at the restaurant. Prompted by the news of the closure, their regular customers start to reexamine their own relationships and what they want from life.

Christmas At The Golden Dragon isn’t just one story. It’s five different stories that are all related. Not all of the stories are great but a couple of them are actually good. Romy (Kara Wang), the Chen’s daughter, has a great story about going home for Christmas with her boyfriend, Blake (Markian Tarasiuk). She imagines the Christmas that she sees in the movies with perfect caroling, a childhood bedroom that hasn’t changed in decades, and the family gathering around to open presents on Christmas morning. When she doesn’t get that, she starts to understand how her version of Christmas (working at the restaurant every year) effects the other people in her community. She really comes to appreciate the restaurant that she resented growing up.

While I don’t think every story in here is a home run, I do think The Golden Dragon is worth watching. At the very least, you will get to see how “helping your community” can have a different meaning from volunteer or charity work. Keep an eye on Miguel (Jason Fernandes). He is someone we should all strive to be.

Chateau Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

We all know that Hallmark movies tend to have characters with the same jobs. Baker, event planner, video game designer has popped up more frequently…but this year, musician seems to have taken hold. Chateau Christmas is the second movie this season to focus on a professional musician. I wonder how many more will show up.

Margot Hammond (Merritt Patterson) is a world famous pianist. When the venue for her Christmas performance is closed for safety issues, Margot decides to spend the holidays with her family at Chateau Neuhaus. It just so happens that a former college friend, Adam (Jesse Hutch), has convinced Margot’s ex-boyfriend, Jackson (Luke Macfarlane), to step in on the planning of the Chateau’s annual Christmas concert. With nine days to go before the performance, can Jackson and Margot put together the perfect Christmas concert for the Chateau?

If we’re going to be adding musician to the Christmas movie jobs, it’s going to have to be specifically musicians who have lost the passion for their instrument. In Chateau, Margot is upset because she’s gotten some bad reviews from one writer. While I understand that bad reviews can be harsh and difficult to take, it’s the opinion of one person. Margot is literally selling out concert venues around the world. But I get it. It’s sucks to hear that other people think you aren’t good at something.

My main problem with Chateau is that it’s kinda boring. Margot and Jackson are tasked to put together this concert but we never really feel like it’s difficult. They spend a lot of their time either trying to get three of the four members of a famous quartet back together to perform (unfortunately, the fourth member had passed away) or they are just hanging out with Margot’s family. There’s shopping, decorating trees, snowball fights….I thought they said it was impossible to plan this concert in nine days. It kinda seems like nine days was too much time for them.

I can’t say that I recommend watching this one. Christmas in Vienna was a better movie about a musician and On The 12th Date of Christmas was a better event planning movie. Save your time and watch one of those instead.