Worst Christmas Movies of 2024

While I don’t normally like to start the year out on a negative note, I want to get the worst movie list out of the way so we can talk about the good movies this year! A lot of the movies this year weren’t bad, just boring. I’d hate to put them on the worst list for being boring. With that said, let’s get into the worst Christmas movies of 2024.

A ‘90s Christmas - When you link your movie to a specific decade, the viewers are looking for nostalgia. This movie only gives confusion.
Five Gold Rings - A mystery movie that completely fell apart by the second ring.
Christmas On The Alpaca Farm - This was a movie written by people who heard of alpacas but never actually saw one.
Tails Of Christmas - Never, ever make dogs the focus of your movie. It always ends up making your movie bad.
Mistletoe & Matrimony - I wasn’t sure about putting this on the list because it wasn’t completely terrible. Then I remembered the bride wanted to book a horse-drawn carriage at the last minute for a Christmas Eve wedding in Chicago.
Christmas By Candlelight - Bad script, bad plot, bad acting. There isn’t much more to say.
Christmas With The Singhs - This one wouldn’t have been on the list if the writers didn’t make the Singhs so unbearable. It’s possible to make a “sucky in-laws” movie without making them whiny babies.
Leah’s Perfect Gift - I almost rage-quit this movie. We need a sequel where Leah leaves the awful family before she marries their son and finds someone awesome who actually loves her.

Dishonorable Mentions:
Deck The Walls - While this movie wasn’t awful, the product placement was so bad and so in-your-face that it gets a dishonorable mention.
Sincerely, Truly Christmas - When the main female character acts like a child, it’s an immediate ‘no, thank you’ from me.

There you have it. These are the movies I thought were the worst this year. Let me know if you want a separate list for the movies I thought were the most boring. There were a lot of them! Coming up next: The BEST movies!

Welcome 2025!

Happy New Year!

Alas, I did not finish the five Christmas movies left on my list. I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down and watch them. Instead, I have been relaxing and spending time with my family. Over the next few days, I’ll post my best and worst list. I’m not sure if there will be ten titles on each list. A lot of the movies this year were boring but not bad or particularly good. We’ll see if I can figure out which ten were the worst…or the best.

After the best and worst list, there will be a Christmas movie wrap-up post with some talk about plans for next Christmas season. Maybe I’ll also talk about my plans for the rest of 2025. Until then, relax and enjoy the brand new year. I hope that good things are on the way.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I’m going to take a little break from Christmas movies today (and maybe tomorrow) because there are only five movies left to watch! We’ll take a well deserved break from the craziness and enjoy some down time. Reviews will be back soon!

Carry-On | 2024 Christmas Movies

Taking a short break from the romance and family friendly fare, we’re turning to Netflix’s newest thriller, Carry-On. It’s only rated PG-13 so it shouldn’t be too scary.

Ethan (Taron Egerton) is a TSA agent at LAX. When he asks his supervisor about a possible promotion, he gets moved to the carry on luggage scanner as a test. Unfortunately, this puts him directly in the path of an unknown traveler (Jason Bateman) who wants him to pass through a carry on no matter what the scanner says or else Ethan’s pregnant girlfriend, Nora (Sofia Carson), will die. Ethan, unwilling to put his girlfriend or everyone on the target airplane in danger, does everything he can to avoid disaster.

Carry-On is a pretty typical terrorist type of action movie. Something along the lines of Die Hard, which also takes place during the Christmas season. Much like Die Hard, this was quite enjoyable. As with most movies like this, there were a few parts where I wondered how many bullets a certain gun could hold or why an officer didn’t respond to someone acting weird in an airport. But none of that took anything away from the movie itself. If you are looking for something beyond Christmas romance, this should fit the bill.

Rating: I will never look at carry on luggage the same

That Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

There hasn’t been a ton of new Christmas movies for kids this year. Thankfully, Netflix has released That Christmas, an animated story that kids will probably love. The plot is a little difficult to describe so hold on tight!

A huge blizzard is about to hit the town of Wellington-On-Sea. As Christmas Eve approaches, Sam (Zazie Hayhurst) worries that her naughty twin, Charlie (Sienna Sayer), won’t receive any presents from Santa. Meanwhile, Sam’s friend, Danny (Jack Wisniewski), who happens to have a crush on Sam, is having trouble with loneliness since his single mother has been very busy with work and his father is unable to reach him due to the snow. Then there is another group of children who have been left home under the care of Bernadette (India Brown), the eldest of the children, as their parents attend a family wedding. Will they all be able to have a happy Christmas?

While this is a strange movie, it was really cute. From an American perspective, it does seem that most of the parents are awfully neglectful but I think things are very different in the United Kingdom. Also, maybe they should learn to check the weather report before they leave their children home alone. But it’s this loneliness that brings them all together and shows them that community is very important. Especially around the holidays.

Rating: I would also like to celebrate Kids Christmas

Trading Up Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

There are only a few more days left until Christmas. That means there are only a few more Christmas movies left to watch! The last movie from Hallmark Mystery is Trading Up Christmas. Did they end on a high note?

Keri (Meredith Forlenza) is a single mother desperately in need of a house. Her sister, Michelle (Italia Ricci), read the story of a boy who traded a red rubber band for a house. Michelle decides to try the same thing except she will trade a family heirloom stocking for a house for her sister. When the local newspaper catches wind of Michelle’s story, reporter Dan (Michael Xavier) gets assigned the story. Can they manage to get Keri a house before Christmas?

While this is a very sweet story, the execution is so boring. I didn’t hate the movie but I wasn’t very captivated by it. I was hoping that they would make the trading stuff more interesting. Also, the little conflicts between Michelle and Keri were kind of annoying. Despite the fact that they keep saying Michelle is the “dreamer” of the family and that she always makes her dreams come true, Keri was very negative about the whole trading idea. I get that she’s supposed to be a realist but she didn’t have to be so against it that she tells Michelle to stop trying. Like, let Michelle do her thing. If she gets you a house, great. If she doesn’t, you are in the same position you were before.

Rating: Will someone trade me something for this movie?

Nutcrackers | 2024 Christmas Movies

I am not sure how I completely missed a Ben Stiller Christmas movie. Nutcrackers premiered on Hulu on November 29. And somehow I just found out about it. Either the marketing is bad or I really do live under a rock.

Mike Maxwell’s (Stiller) sister and her husband recently passed away. Now he has to travel to her farm to sign the paperwork for her four boys to go to foster care. Unfortunately, the social worker, Gretchen (Linda Cardellini), is having trouble finding a home for the boys because it is so close to Christmas. As Mike tries to find someone to adopt the unruly kids, he finds that one of the boys has rewritten a version of the Nutcracker ballet. In addition, the boys are lovely ballet dancers since their mother was a prima ballerina at one point in her life and owned a dance studio before her death. The family decides to put on the show in order to find a new family. Little does Mike know that they have found their family.

Nutcrackers is one of those movies where you are supposed to dislike characters. Mike is very selfish. To the point that he doesn’t actually seem to mourn his sister’s death. He just wants to get rid of the kids and move on with his life. The kids themselves are, in the beginning, awful. They break into a closed carnival and destroy some of the attractions. They run around unsupervised causing all sorts of havoc. But they are also grieving children that no one pays attention to. All they need is a good adult figure to care about them and listen to them and not simply bark rules at them.

Interestingly, this movie felt a lot like movies from the 80s or 90s. Something like Overboard or Problem Child. I’m not sure if the throwback feeling of Nutcrackers will be a turn off for people but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, myself. There were even a few tears shed at the end.

Rating: Yes, The Nutcracker does need some updating.

Operation Mistletoe | 2024 Christmas Movies

Heading over to Hulu, I thought Operation Mistletoe looked a lot like a Hallmark Christmas movie. It even features Jen Lilley, who has done her fair share of Hallmark (and Great American Family) movies. How does it compare to the OG Christmas movie channel?

Grace (Lilley) is an interior designer who works with her best friend, Olivia (Melanie Leishman), and her brother/Olivia’s husband, Jack (Steve Belford). When her former classmate, Ryan (Nick Bateman), comes home to sell his grandmother’s house, Mayor Sami (Lisa Michelle Cornelius) convinces him to hold the Ribbon and Bows charity ball one more time before he lets the house go. Grace agrees to decorate the house for the ball with a little help from Ryan. Olivia, meanwhile, tries to get Grace and Ryan together by hiding mistletoe all over town for them to kiss under.

Well, this is another bland Christmas movie. There is nothing special about any of the characters or the story or any of the locations they are in. Then there are entire scenes that are completely overpowered by the background music. They might as well not even be talking. Though many of those scenes are just Grace offering to buy people hot chocolate. Girl has an addiction problem.

I would recommend staying away from this one. There are way better movies out there to spend your time on.

Rating: The hot chocolate must be laced with something

Mistletoe & Matrimony | 2024 Christmas Movies

For those of you that don’t know, Oprah Winfrey has her own television network called OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). I’ve been wanting to watch their movies for awhile but I didn’t have a way to access it. This year they have released at least one of their Christmas movies - Mistletoe & Matrimony - on HBO Max. Let’s check it out.

Olivia (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) is an amazing wedding planner. When her sister, Rosemary (Asha James), announces not only her engagement to her girlfriend, Gwen (Krista Nazaire), but also that they want to get married on Christmas Eve in two weeks, Olivia tries her best to step up to the plate and plan her sister’s dream wedding. To add to the stress, Gwen has asked her best friend, Isaiah (Etienne Maurice), Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, to be the wedding photographer. Can Olivia give her sister everything she wants?

This is one of those movies where the family dynamic is crazy. The older sister gave up her dreams of traveling to take care of their mother after she had a bad fall. Then she’s trying to fulfill all of her sister’s insane requests, while everyone is else responds with “You know how your sister is.” (Who wants a horse-drawn carriage in Chicago in DECEMBER? You will die of frostbite.) To be honest, having to hang around her ex-boyfriend is the least of Olivia’s problems. Of course, everything resolves itself at the end but it is very stressful and annoying during the rest of the movie.

While I found Rosemary entitled and ungrateful, that doesn’t make the movie unwatchable. Just maybe stay away if you have a bit of a toxic family life. It may keep you from enjoying Mistletoe as much as you should.

Rating: I’m not sure the writer has ever seen winter.

Following Yonder Star | 2024 Christmas Movies

Surprisingly, with Following Yonder Star, I have caught up on all of the currently aired Hallmark/Lifetime/Great American Family Christmas movies. I don’t think I’ve ever caught up to the airing schedule before. I’m blaming the fact that Hallmark has released a bunch of movies on their Hallmark+ app that I decided not to get this year. But don’t worry, I still have Netflix and Hulu and all of the other streaming apps to keep me going!

Abby Marshall (Brooke D’Orsay) used to play the perfect wife and mother on TV. Now her life is falling apart thanks to a scandal. So she attempts to spend the holidays at a luxury resort in Vermont…but she accidentally booked the suite for next year. Thankfully, there is a room at a local bed and breakfast owned by Tom (John Brotherton). Abby spends her vacation helping Tom direct the church Christmas pageant, allowing her to find what is truly important to her.

For the first time in a long time, Hallmark has released a movie that references God a lot. Usually they stick to movies that make vague references to religion or they stay away from religion altogether. While it made a little bit of sense with the nativity Christmas pageant, it still felt odd in the context of the movie. Abby didn’t seem particularly religious through most of the movie then suddenly God has a plan. It was weird.

Beyond that, Following Yonder Star is fine. There’s nothing spectacular about it but it’s not awful either. It fits perfectly in that in-between space Hallmark loves.

Rating: People really are that delusional about celebrities