A Christmas Castle Proposal | 2024 Christmas Movies

Sometimes I think Great American Family gets joy from messing around with their Christmas movies. After they released their movie schedule for the season, they changed it at the last minute. On top of that, we have a Christmas movie that is a sequel to a non-Christmas movie that was released in January 2023. Well, let’s see what we can get out of A Christmas Castle Proposal.

Writer Olivia (Rhiannon Fish) is dating Prince Alexander of Torovia (Mitchell Bourke). Unfortunately, their busy schedules haven’t given them very much time together. Planning to propose to Olivia, Prince Alexander invites her family to Torovia for their holiday banquet. When they arrive, Olivia finds out that she has also been assigned some royal duties, giving the couple even less time alone. Maybe they aren’t meant to be together after all.

As I was watching Proposal, I thought it was refreshing that this was a Christmas movie about an already established couple and not a commoner woman chasing after an ideal royal. Then I found out this is a sequel and the “chase” movie came out last year after the 2022 Christmas movie season. On the plus side, that means I didn’t have to sit through the annoyances of first dates with princes.

To be honest, I found the movie quite charming. Sure, there were still a lot of things that could have been solved with a simple conversation but that is almost always at the core of these types of movies. I’m more thankful that they didn’t ramp up the princeness of Alexander. For the most part, he was a pretty normal guy with a rather demanding job and a giant house. It was a nice change of pace.

Rating: Maybe next time leave the families at home and have Christmas by yourselves.

My Norwegian Holiday | 2023 Christmas Movies

Hallmark really is traveling the world this year. We had A Heidelberg Holiday in Germany, A Merry Scottish Christmas in Scotland, and Christmas In Notting Hill in England. Now Hallmark takes us to Norway with My Norwegian Holiday.

While grading papers in a coffeehouse, JJ (Rhiannon Fish) happens to overhear a breakup between a woman who shares her name - Jessica Johnson - and a Norwegian man named Henrik (David Elsendoorn), leaving the man with an extra plane ticket back home to Norway. He offers JJ the ticket, who eventually agrees, so she can find out more about her recently deceased grandmother. What JJ finds in Bergen is more than she expected.

Yay! We finally have another sweet movie from Hallmark. I love that they didn’t press the romance too much. Instead, the story is driven by JJ trying to find where her grandmother got this handmade troll figure and Henrik’s family teaching her what life is like in Norway. Sure, there are a few scenes that are stupidly played up for the conflict but those are easily overlooked. Instead, we can enjoy time with a fun and loving family in a new country.

Rating: I’ll stay in grandmother’s extra room!

The Christmas Retreat | 2022 Christmas Movies

This is the fourth movie I’ve watched on UPtv. I’m already getting very tired of their UPlifting Christmas Movies tagline. The other channels don’t tell me their tagline nearly as often. I’m also tired of the Gilmore Girls marathon commercial. I can’t wait until those stop.

Workaholic Kim (Rhiannon Fish) was expecting her boyfriend, Steven (Jonathan Hawley Purvis), to propose. He broke up with her instead. Her mother, Mary (Lynn Whyte), convinces her to go on a week-long Christmas retreat to relax and reconnect. At the retreat, Kim meets Mark (Clayton James), a newly unemployed executive who happens to be the brother of the retreat’s owner. Will they be able to find what they really want out of life?

The Christmas Retreat was going so well. The romance between Kim and Mark was progressing well until all of a sudden Steven shows up. That is probably my one biggest complaint about romance movies. A woman will be having the time of her life without her current or former partner but the minute that person shows up, they forget everything and go running back to them. Kim knew that she didn’t love Steven any more. She knew that she was so much happier without him. So why in the world would she run off with him when he randomly shows up at the door? She doesn’t even say “Well, I still have some stuff to do here so I can’t leave with you right now.” Women are not carpets to be walked all over.

Does this mean I don’t think you should watch this particular movie? No. It is pretty cute in a lot of ways. There’s a sort of advent calendar type of thing that counts down the days of the week-long retreat that also tells us how the retreat is broken up into different sections. It was cute and seasonal. Kim and Mark do have pretty good chemistry, which is maybe why I was so pissed off when she went off with Steven. If I was using a give star rating system, this one would probably be a three. Good enough to watch but kind of annoying at the same time.