As a pagan, I have been fairly comfortable with the amount of Christianity in these Christmas romance movies. While they’ve all revolved around the holiday season, none of them have actually gone into the religion around it. I guess there is a first time for everything.

Hometown Christmas is about Noelle (Beverley Mitchell) moving home to Louisiana from Chicago. She decides to bring back her late mother’s tradition of a live nativity on Christmas. Add in a former boyfriend from high school and that is the entire plot of the movie.

I don’t want to rag on the religious aspect of the movie, even though it is very heavy handed. Unfortunately, that is all there is here. The ‘conflict’ between Noelle and her ex-boyfriend, Nick (Stephen Colletti), feels forced. He’s not mad at her but she is mad at him for no real reason. And her anger doesn’t feel real. It all feels fake, which is terrible for a movie that is desperately trying to push the Christian story. The conflict is fake, the whole purpose of the nativity feels empty, even Noelle’s brother’s relationship doesn’t feel real. It literally feels like this is a group of people reading a script that was just handed to them. It would probably be more believable if they were standing around reading scripts!

Sadly, there isn’t anything good here. The nativity scene ends with Noelle singing “O Holy Night,” but Mitchell is a TERRIBLE singer. Please, stay far away from Hometown. You’ll thank me for saving you two hours.