Santa's Got Style | 2022 Christmas Movies

Franco Lo Presti must really like modeling. In the beginning of the Christmas movie season, he was modeling suits in Well Suited For Christmas. Now he’s not only modeling suits but also being a store’s social media personality in Santa’s Got Style.

Madison (Kathryn Davis) is a department store executive tasked with finding the store’s next holiday promo. She decides to go with a hip, young, stylish Santa. Her best friend, Ethan (Franco Lo Presti), is unable to find her a model that fits her standards so he transforms into Rafe Hollyfield, his hot cousin. Things go awry when Madison wants Ethan and Rafe in two places at once. Will Ethan lose his best friend over this?

I thought this was actually a pretty clever movie. While we have seen the “one person pretending to be two” plot in other romcoms, I don’t think we’ve ever seen it in a Christmas movie. Though, if he was really able to get the Santa beard and wig on and off that fast, maybe he should be hired as a makeup artist instead!

For most of this season, UPtv has had fairly boring movies. Things that are perfectly fine to watch though you could easily find something better. Santa’s Got Style is one of those better movies. I think Lo Presti is quickly going to become one of Christmas’s leading men. He definitely has the charisma for it. Keep an eye out for him in the future!

Reindeer Games Homecoming | 2022 Christmas Movies

As I was poking around the web a bit, I found out that Sarah Drew voiced some of the characters in Daria, one of my favorite shows! I knew her from the early 2000s show, Everwood, and she has done a few other Christmas movies but I never knew about Daria. I think I might like her a bit more now.

MacKenzie (Sarah Drew) is a high school biology teacher and an EMT. After her firefighter father dies, she joins his former team to compete in the town’s big fundraiser - The Reindeer Games. This year, her high school crush, Chase (Justin Bruening), comes home from Hollywood to visit his pregnant sister. When he gets talked into joining a competing team, sparks begin to fly between the two.

I admit that I don’t always pay close attention to the opening credits of these Christmas movies. Most of the time the opening panning shots are awful and the credit font is either unreadable or ugly. But that means I completely missed the fact that Sarah Drew also wrote this movie. I don’t think that changes my opinion of it but it’s an interesting fact.

A lot of Christmas movies suffer from having nothing going on. Reindeer Games Homecoming has the opposite problem. There is a ton of stuff going on and some of the stuff gets kicked to side a bit. For example, Chase supposedly wants to nab this role in an action movie. But it only comes up as an excuse for something. He originally doesn’t want to join the team for the polar plunge because he’s afraid he’ll get sick and he really wants this movie role. The movie is filming in Prague so who knows what would happen if he gets into a relationship with MacKenzie. (Though, honestly, he thinks about that part the least.) Meanwhile, MacKenzie is still mourning her father while doing the morning crossword puzzle, teaching biology, moonlighting as an EMT, and also participating in the Reindeer Games. The movie wants us to believe that she loves crossword puzzles but we only see her doing two - one of which is a scavenger hunt at the end of the movie. I think Drew wanted to make the characters feel more three-dimensional but shoved too much in there for a 90-minute movie.

Despite the movie being chock full of nothing, it is still pretty fun to watch. The acting is decent and I really enjoyed watching Chase and MacKenzie complete in the Games. Go ahead and give it a watch. If nothing else, you’ll get to see Bruening jump into freezing cold water in his underwear. That is worth something, right?

We Wish You A Married Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

The Hallmark Channel dominates the beginning of the Christmas movie season. I’m not sure if that is good or bad. Anyway, the second movie they give us this year is We Wish You A Married Christmas. It’s a little weird to get a married couple story this early in the season but, hey, what do I know.

Becca (Marisol Nichols) and Robby (Kristoffer Polaha) are a married couple having difficulty connecting with each other. Their marriage coach suggests a vacation to Gracious, Vermont. Thanks to a few setbacks, they end up having to stay longer than they planned. Will that help or hurt their marriage?

WWYAMC started out extremely boring and confusing. It was difficult for me to tell if these two were married and having problems or if they were just business partners. Honestly, it was worse when I figured out they were married. They have the most boring marriage problems. Instead of actually fighting over anything, they just ignore each other. Yes, that is their problem. They don’t “see” each other. And while that is a real life problem actual married couples have, it makes for very boring television.

Annoyingly, the movie doesn’t actually pick up until it’s almost over. Even when Becca and Robby were spending time together, it was still boring. Picking up items for the bed and breakfast they are staying at, shopping at the Christmas market, watching the shortest parade in the world…the most interesting thing they did was bartend at the employee Christmas party at the bed and breakfast. Even that was done as a montage. It would have been much more interesting if they had reconnected a little earlier. We could have seen a much happier couple giving romantic advice to the new couple - either the two townspeople that get together or the new couple sent by the marriage coach. Like a wink to the camera sort of thing.

If you really want to watch a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, WWYAMC isn’t terrible. It’s just boring. So maybe pop it on while you clean the house or cook dinner or some other household task. It’s not worth your complete attention but maybe your half attention.

The Holiday Fix Up | 2021 Christmas Movies

What? Women can do home renovations too? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

Sam (Jana Kramer) is a designer on a home renovation show. When she doesn’t nab the coveted Christmas special spot on the network, she goes back home to renovate an inn that was damaged in a recent storm. Jack (Steve Vinovich), the owner of the inn, pairs her up with her ex-boyfriend, Coop (Ryan McPartlin), to get the work done before the Christmas Eve Harborfest.

The Holiday Fix Up is yet another movie that is perfectly fine. Neither of the lead actors are amazing. They aren’t terrible though Kramer is dull and McPartlin is a bit wooden. I wish that there was some sort of magic that happened between them…but there isn’t. They aren’t quite the most unlikely couple in this year’s Christmas haul. But they are close.

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything in the movie that saves. it. There is a weird slow-motion snowball fight that maybe somebody somewhere likes. Personally, I don’t understand it. They could have just let the actors go and filmed that. It might have made it more interesting.

Should you watch it? Probably not. But you aren’t going to be mad if you do. You might wonder what exactly happened in the 90 minutes it took to watch (assuming you don’t count commercials) but I doubt you’ll get mad about the lost time. It’s a good procrastination movie. You know - “Oh, I should do the dishes but this movie is on….”