All I Need For Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

The title for All I Need For Christmas reminds me of those Blake Shelton Time For Christmas movies. Thankfully, this is not in that series. So let’s see what it is.

Maggie (Mallory Jansen) is a singer/songwriter who is having trouble getting her career off the ground, blaming technology for making all music sound the same. After her touring gig has been cancelled, she returns to her family’s Christmas tree farm for the holiday. There she meets Archer (Dan Jeannotte), a man with family troubles whose tech company is about to launch two new apps for musicians. Maybe the two of them can help each other in more ways than they originally thought.

When I turned this movie on, I didn’t think I would like it. Boy, was I surprised. In these sort of movies, one of the main characters is usually kinda terrible and they get turned around by the others. On the contrary, both of these people are fairly nice. Sure, Maggie is a little mean to Archer at the beginning when she finds out he runs a tech company but she quickly learns that she was wrong and actually apologizes to him. TWICE! And Archer tries everything he can to stay a normal, even-keeled person, even when his sister, Piper (Emily Tennant), tries to push his buttons.

Despite All I Need For Christmas airing on the subpar Hallmark Mystery channel, I do recommend watching it. It has the perfect synergy between cheesy, saccharine, and conflict. I think this is one that almost anyone would enjoy.

Rating: Can I pet them pigs?

Our Christmas Mural | 2023 Christmas Movies

The commercials for Our Christmas Mural made this movie look really bad. I’m not sure why Hallmark has such a problem making good commercials for their shows. Do any of these actually make people want to watch it?

Olivia (Alex Paxton-Beesley) is a single mom working in a New York art gallery. After her husband passed away, she lost all inspiration to paint. And now she may be losing her job. So Olivia and her son, Parker (Viggo Hanvelt), go back to her hometown of Wellington for the holidays. When she wins an art contest her mother secretly entered her in, Olivia turns to art teacher Will (Dan Jeannotte) for help with the Christmas mural.

Hmmm. I didn’t hate this movie but I didn’t like it either. It wanted to be a movie about grief but it didn’t want to be too heavy so they just lightly touched on all their discussions about death. It also wanted to be arty but not really show anyone doing any art. We get a couple of scenes where it looks like they may be sketching or painting but it’s not particularly realistic. It’s not boring but it also doesn’t go anywhere. It just is. And that is weird.

Rating: Just as bland as the mural itself

The Royal Nanny | 2022 Christmas Movies

At this point in the Christmas movie season, I usually fast forward through all of the commercials and previews for upcoming movies. What that means is I know literally nothing about new movies before I watch them. I assumed that The Royal Nanny was about a nanny…for a royal family. I wasn’t wrong…

Claire (Rachel Skarsten) is an MI5 agent. When the royal family is threatened, she is tasked with going undercover as the children’s nanny in order to keep them safe.

Yep, that is the entire plot of the movie. And it is absolutely brilliant. There were a couple of cheesy lines, which is to be expected because it’s Hallmark, but otherwise I loved it. For the first time in a long time, I picked the wrong character as the secret bad guy. Granted, once I was proven wrong, I was pretty sure who it was but I was stunned that a Hallmark movie got me! These are supposed to be predictable, aren’t they?

Besides being surprised by the bad guy, The Royal Nanny had so many of the things I love in a movie. It had action, it had comedy, and it had a romance that wasn’t forced from the beginning. And speaking of the romance, the chemistry between Clair and Colin (Dan Jeannotte) was lovely. They were both guarded but became closer the more they realized they could trust each other. It took awhile to blossom and it was wonderful.

Do I think you should watch The Royal Nanny? Of course! Go watch it then come back here and tell me if you guessed the bad guy. I want to know if I was the only one that missed it. I bet I’m not!

Ghosts of Christmas Past | 2021 Christmas Movies

With the title Ghosts of Christmas Past, you would think it would be a take on The Christmas Carol. While this one is similar to Boyfriends of Christmas Past from earlier this movie season, it is not a new take on the Dickens classic.

Ellie (Annie Clark) has a bad habit of ghosting the men she meets on dating apps. When she talks to a fortune teller at the company holiday party, Ellie is told that she must make amends with the men she ghosted before Christmas Day or she will be doomed to never find true love. With the help of her co-worker, Charlie (Dan Jeannotte), Ellie tries to track down the long list of men before time runs out!

After watching so many Christmas movies, I have learned not to trust the titles. Someone somewhere thinks they are being punny but they aren’t. Instead of being about The Ghost of Christmas Past, which is what everyone will think, this is simply about a woman who stops answering messages from men for no reason. It’s not like the men were being creepy or overstepped their bounds. Those would be perfectly valid reasons to abruptly end a conversation. No, she stopped messaging because she didn’t like a guy’s side part or he thought he was obsessed with his mother when he brought her up in conversation once. Ellie definitely has some issues and no one will talk to her about them.

In addition to apologizing to these men, Ellie and Charlie must also make a Christmas-themed video game at the last minute. I understand that writers want to have this big Christmas deadline for characters so there will be some sort of pressure on them to get something finished. However, no one makes a video game in a few weeks. Maybe this would be a game for next season but definitely not this year. So I don’t know why they would have a big Christmas deadline on this. It’s just an excuse to throw Ellie and Charlie together. Especially since we barely see them working on the game.

Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t terrible but it’s not good either. Almost all of the men are completely fine with Ellie ghosting them. I think there’s only two men that bore any sort of ill will toward her. I get it, it’s a Christmas movie so they aren’t going to have the men cursing her out or calling her names. However, this is Lifetime. This is the channel that puts out the scandalous movies about women being stalked and murdered. Throw in a few men that call her a raging bitch. It’s OK.

Should you watch it? I’m not going to give it a raving recommendation but I don’t really see any reason not to watch it. There isn’t a lot that goes on, which could make it boring for you, and the ending is rather predictable. But if you have nothing else to watch, this would suffice.

Christmas at the Castle | 2020 Christmas Movies

I hate when I get bamboozled by a movie. Christmas in the Castle is actually titled Christmas in the Highlands. Also, this is a movie from 2019 that Lifetime is marketing as a new 2020 movie. Bad form, Lifetime.

Blair (Brooke Burfitt) is a perfume sales manager who gets sent to Scotland to acquire a very special perfume blend. Alistair (Dan Jeannotte) is the Scottish Earl who made the rare perfume. When Alistair says he won’t sell his perfume, Blair disguises herself as a documentarian to steal the formula.

First off, it annoys me to no end that this movie takes place in Scotland and no one has a Scottish accent. Alistair and his family have English accents, Kirsten (Ellen Patterson) and her mother (Geraldine Somerville) also have English accents, and a random car rental guy has an Irish accent. I know that Scottish accents can be difficult to understand but c’mon. You could have put this movie anywhere in the world. Why would you pick a country with a unique accent then not use it?

Next, the acting sucks. A lot. I might give Blair’s boss, AKA “The Dragon Lady,” (Caprice Bourret) a pass because she is supposed to suck but she is so over the top that I can’t excuse it. As much as I wanted to like the characters, the weird acting wouldn’t let me.

Skip Christmas in the Castle. Even better, just pretend it doesn’t exist.