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?

The Holiday Sitter | 2022 Christmas Movies

As we’re heading into the home stretch of Christmas movies, there are a few that I am looking forward to watching. The Holiday Sitter is one of those movies. Let’s see if it is as good as I hope.

Sam (Jonathan Bennett) gets called to babysit his niece and nephew when his sister, Kathleen (Chelsea Walker), and her husband, Nate (Matthew James Dowden), travel to Buffalo to pick up the newborn baby they are adopting. Unfortunately, Sam is terrible with kids. He hires their neighbor, Jason (George Krissa), to help him with…well, everything. Jason and the kids help change Sam’s viewpoint on family and life.

I loved The Holiday Sitter so much. Bennett, famously known as Aaron from Mean Girls, is such an amazing actor. While he does so well with the romantic drama parts, my favorite parts were when he was overemoting. The way his face contorts is hysterical. This is his third Christmas movie with Hallmark, The Christmas House and The Christmas House 2 being the first two. I love that Bennett has become the face of Hallmark’s gay Christmas movies. All three of those movies are wonderful and I can’t wait to see what comes next for him.

Not only should you watch The Holiday Sitter, you should watch it more than once. It may not be an annual movie to watch with the family but it definitely should be an annual romance movie you watch after you’ve put the kids to bed. It is just that good.

The Picture of Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

We are a little over halfway through November and The Picture Of Christmas is the 34th Christmas movie I have watched this season. At this point last year, I had only watched 17 movies. No wonder this year feels insane!

Ember (Chelsea Hobbs) is a graphic designer in New York. She returns to Willow Hill in order to sell her late grandmother’s Christmas tree farm. While there, she finds her old storybook illustrations, rekindling her love for illustrating instead of just graphic design.

There seem to be a lot of inherited farms in this year’s Christmas movies. I would love to know why the ladies are always so surprised to find out their grandparents hired people to help them on the farm. Since these grandparents all die, I assume they are older people. Do they really think one or two elderly people can run an entire farm by themselves? Even if a grandparent didn’t tell me about their hired help, I would assume there was some sort of hired help. Especially if the farm is an actual working farm with an actual working business like a Christmas tree farm!

The Picture Of Christmas is a fine movie. There is nothing particularly stand-out about it. Ember’s drawing are nice. Emily (Mila Jones), the daughter of love-interest Brandon (Giles Panton), is adorable. She’s probably the best part of the entire movie. Otherwise, everything is bland. Ember tells Brandon that she’s selling the farm and potential buys come to see the place. Brandon wants to buy the farm but doesn’t want to tell Ember. It’s the same stupid conflict that could be solved if everyone was just honest with each other.

If you have nothing else to watch on television, The Picture Of Christmas would be all right to turn on and tune out to. If you are looking for something engaging, you won’t find it here. I would say to watch it for Emily and ignore all of the adults. They are boring anyway.

Forever Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

Forever Christmas is another one of those weird problematic movies. While Lifetime calls it Forever Christmas and has it listed as one of it’s 2020 Christmas movies, it was originally titled Mr 365 and it was filmed in 2018. Judging by the quality of the movie, this was definitely filmed in 2018. Considering there are problematic elements in it, I can see why they sat on it for so long.

Sophia (Chelsea Hobbs) is a reality TV producer looking for a subject for an extreme Christmas episode. Will (Christopher Russell) has the inside of his house decorated for Christmas every day of the year. (Due to an injunction from his crabby neighbor, Fred (Ken Camroux-Taylor), he can’t decorate the outside until after November 1.) When Sophia and Will begin dating, it throws a wrench into the production of the show.

This isn’t one of those ‘will-they-won’t-they’ movies. Sophia and Will start getting it on early in the movie. I know that this movies are rarely realistic but this is the least realistic thing I have ever seen in a Christmas movie. A professional TV producer wouldn’t start heavily making out with the subject of their show after the second meeting. This might be something that happens on long-term shows where the cast and crew spend a lot of time together. Instead, they start groping each other after the first day of shooting.

The only conflict in this movie is how the reality show is portraying Will. Will then blames Sophia for not being able to take total creative control over the project. You would think there would be some sort of “Damn The Man” type thought here but no. I guess the writers needed a reason for the couple to break up so they could have the big reconciliation at the end.

Please don’t watch Forever Christmas. It is overall bad. The only redeeming quality is Romeo the dog. And they don’t even show him all that much!