A Carol For Two | 2024 Christmas Movies

Hallmark is sending us back to New York with A Carol For Two starring Jordan Litz and Ginna Claire Mason. Both of them have been involved in Wicked The Musical on Broadway. Litz is currently playing Fiyero and Mason previously played Glinda. They don’t have a lot of film credits - this is Litz’s first movie while Mason has starred in two earlier Hallmark Christmas movies (2022’s A Holiday Spectacular and 2023 A Heidelberg Holiday). I do know there is singing in this one so, with two Broadway stars, it should be good!

Violette (Mason) has moved to New York City to be in a Broadway play. Unfortunately, when she shows up for the audition, she finds that the play has been cancelled due to lack of funding. She turns to her aunt’s best friend, Hazel (Charlotte d’Amboise), who gives her a job as a singing waitress. Hazel gives the task of training Violette to Alex (Litz). She also tells them that they need to sing a duet at the restaurant’s Christmas show.

On top of this singing waitress who can’t get a job on Broadway plot, there’s a sub-plot about Violette dating Alex’s cousin, Brad (Gino Anania). But Brad is a terrible person so he gets Alex to tell him what to do and say. It’s basically Cyrano de Bergerac but less interesting. Brad sucks as a person and Alex should just tell him to get lost. He does nothing for the plot and it would have been a better movie without him.

Thankfully, Litz and Mason are pretty good here. There is a lot of singing, which they are both wonderful singers. To be honest, any of my problems with A Carol For Two lies with the writing. Violette doesn’t tell her father that the Broadway job fell through. She straight up lies to him through most of the movie. But there was no reason for her to lie to him. He supported her in everything she did. There was no pressure for her to be a big Broadway star. He let her follow her dreams. She said she didn’t tell him the truth because she didn’t want to let him down. I could understand that for a little while but once she started singing successfully at the restaurant, she could have come clean. Having a job in New York City where you are doing the thing you love, even if it’s part time or a side hustle, is success.

If you can pretend Brad doesn’t exist, which is very difficult to do since his storyline takes over for awhile, this movie is pretty watchable. Maybe just mute him every time he comes on screen.

Rating: More musical Christmas movies please!

The Santa Summit | 2023 Christmas Movies

The Santa Summit is a bit like Cinderella thrown into Christmas season. Maybe masquerade parties are bad ideas…

Three teachers: Jordin (Hunter King), Ava (Amy Groening), and Stella (Stephanie Sy) decide to have some fun and maybe brighten their dreary love lives by attending this year’s Santa Summit. Since all of the participants wear Santa suits as they travel around town, Jordin has a difficult time reconnecting with the mysterious man she met at the first stop of the day. At the same time, Ava is trying to find her crush so she can confess her feelings and Stella needs to find her passion for life again. Will their Christmas dreams come true?

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this movie at first. Stella seemed like such…well…a bitch, for a lack of a better term. She didn’t want to do anything besides go home and sleep. But the adorableness of Ava and Jordin kept me pushing through. In the end, this was a really fun jaunt that made me want to try to find a Santa Summit-esque event in my town. If only we could all have a Hallmark movie event like this in real life. It would be pretty darn awesome.

Rating: Getting down at the silent disco

A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I’m making my list of Christmas movies I’m going to watch in a season, I do as little research about the titles as possible. I might do a quick search to make sure that it fits “Christmas movie” but that is about it. So titles like A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe can be really confusing. I mean, how catastrophic can a cookie be?

Annie Cooper (Rachel Boston) has taken over her late grandmother’s cookie company. As Christmas creeps closer, Annie starts cutting all of the fiscally irresponsible activities in the company. During the company Christmas party, someone sneaks into the corporate headquarters and steals the recipe for the cookies. At first, Annie blames cookie competitor Sam (Victor Webster). When he is cleared of the wrongdoing, Annie teams up with Sam to try to figure out the recipe on their own before Christmas.

Hallmark movies frequently require a certain suspension of belief. Usually they fall into the “Miracles happen” category. This time around, we’re supposed to believe that Annie would be able to figure out who stole the recipe without going to the police (yes, she states numerous times they aren’t telling the police about the robbery) and that no one else in the company would notice the missing recipe and say something about it to anyone. I don’t think a “Removed For Cleaning” sign works for a recipe. Honestly, this really is the weakest part of the movie. It would have been easier and more believable to have the paper recipe get ripped or messed up or something. Then they wouldn’t have to inform the police of an actual crime. Or at least have them call the police but the police are inept. That is an actual thing!

Looking beyond the weak plot of the movie, the rest of it was pretty cute. Boston and Webster have decent chemistry together and Averie Peters as Sam’s daughter, Bella, was a good addition to the mix. Despite being “the kid” in the movie, she actually contributed to the vibe of the movie. I might have liked her better than the adults, to be honest.

A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe is a fine movie to watch, assuming you can get past the ridiculousness of the plot. As long as you tune in to appreciate the relationships, and Bella’s dancing, you should be fine. There are a lot of cookies involved so you might need to keep a snack nearby.

You Make It Feel Like Christmas | 2021 Christmas Movies

I wonder if this year’s theme in Christmas movies is non-romantic love. Or at least movies where the romantic love is secondary to another plot line. It is an interesting change.

You Make It Feel Like Christmas was originally titled A Christmas Mission. Aaron (Michael Xavier) returns home from active duty to find that his ex-girlfriend and childhood friend, Emma (Mary Antonini), isn’t coming home for Christmas. He takes it upon himself to travel into the city to convince her to spend the holiday with her father, Tom (Alex Poch-Goldin). However, Emma’s shop has caught the eye of the famous design guru Kate Marguiles (Stephanie Sy). Kate insists that they host a holiday charity art sale on Christmas Eve, not leaving Emma time to spend with her family.

As I said in the intro, the romantic relationship between Emma and Aaron isn’t really the main relationship here. It’s the broken father-daughter relationship between Emma and Tom. Unfortunately, most of the conversations with get with these two are Facetime-like video calls where they call to ask specific questions and avoid any real conversation. While their conflict could have been fixed with a conversation or, even better, therapy, they are the reason that Aaron comes back into the picture.

So let’s talk about Aaron. He is the most hands-off suitor I have seen in any of the Hallmark/Lifetime movies. Sure, they have known each other for years but he’s trying to convince her to come home. Why is his angle “I will help. Let me know what you need done - taking out the trash, cleaning the bathroom, whatever.”? And why does he try to rekindle the relationship by starting out with a blatant lie? Instead of pretending he didn’t know she was in the city, he should have just said “I came to see you.” It would have been simple and honest and she probably would have appreciated that more.

The best relationship in You Make It Feel Like Christmas, which we barely get to see, is between Emma’s best friend and shop co-owner Liz (Nadine Pinette) and Aaron’s cousin Sarah (Solange Sookram). They have the sly over-the-shoulder glances at each other and the “I’m interested” subtext in the few conversations they have. I think they would have been much more interesting than either of the main relationships. Too bad they get pushed way to the back of all of the plot lines.

While I appreciate the father-daughter relationship being the main story here, the movie itself is pretty boring. A lot of time is spent watching Emma do nothing as she tries to figure out what kind of wreath to make for the art sale. All of the relationship-building scenes are just as boring. Feel free to turn this on while you’re doing chores or something but don’t dedicate too much time to it. It is not worth it.