Dear Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

When I saw that Dear Christmas featured both Melissa Joan Hart and Jason Priestley, I was convinced that this was going to be a terrible movie. Perhaps I judged too quickly.

Natalie (Melissa Joan Hart) hosts a podcast about love. When she goes home to Lake Tahoe for the holidays, she meets up with a former middle school classmate, Chris Massey (Jason Priestley). Even though she is surrounded by stories of True Love, Natalie isn’t sure that it really exists. Will Mr. Christmas show her the way?

There are so many puns in the first quarter of this movie. Yes, even the romantic interest’s name is a pun. Normally, I roll my eyes at puns. Somehow, this movie actually made them funny. (Or maybe I have lost my mind from so many Christmas movies….) I guess that shows that the writing here isn’t terrible. (I don’t know if it’s relevant but the couple that wrote this movie has written the previous two Christmas movies starring Hart.)

On the acting side, there are quite a few heavy hitters here. Besides Sabrina the teenage witch (Hart) and Brandon Walsh (Priestley), we have Ed Begley Jr (who has so many credits, I wouldn’t know where to start), Faith Prince (a Tony award winning actress), and Robin Givens (recently seen in Riverdale). With so many big(ish) names, it would have been difficult for Dear Christmas to fail. Thankfully, everyone pulls their weight to make the movie a joy to watch.

I think that this may be the first Lifetime movie of the season that I am giving a thumbs up to. The channel has had a lot of boring bombs this year but Dear Christmas is not one of them. Grab your Christmas donut and a cup of cocoa and sit down for a good time.

Christmas by Starlight | 2020 Christmas Movies

This movie might actually break a few Christmas movie rules. It at least makes the ‘rules’ interesting.

Annie (Kimberley Sustad) is a family lawyer whose parents own a local cafe. William (Paul Campbell) works at his father’s development company that is planning on demolishing the cafe. She needs him to save her family’s business. He needs her to get his father off his back.

Surprisingly, Sustad and Campbell actually wrote this movie. Usually the actors don’t have such a close relationship with their characters. I think that having the writers (who are legitimate actors on their own) play the main characters was kinda brilliant. They bring a life to Annie and William that most Christmas movies lack.

Christmas by Starlight is quite adorable. Annie has this sort of childlike spark in her while William is the “my parents were distant” businessman. Normally, movies make this ‘childlike spark’ more childish than childlike. Here, Annie does things like wearing Christmas sweaters to a casual business Christmas party, dancing around her living room with her dog, and sneaking off to the coat room to eat a granola bar when William takes her to a fancy French restaurant for a client lunch. Things that a normal human being would do. (Well, maybe not ‘normal’…) Her actions offset William’s lack of Christmas spirit well. Instead of him thinking she acts like a kid, he just thinks she doesn’t know high society stuff.

I would recommend checking out Christmas by Starlight. It’s a cute change of pace from the usual fare.

Good Morning Christmas! | 2020 Christmas Movies

I almost kinda think this movie may have been based on reality. Or at least some sort of tabloid rumor. It just gives me that wink-wink-nudge-nudge type of vibe.

Brian Bright (Marc Blucas) and Melissa Merry (Alison Sweeney) co-host a morning (?) television show. Since they don’t get along off-camera, Bright decides to quit the show. The duo must spend Christmas week in the town of Mistletoe before airing the big announcement about Bright’s departure.

What corporate schlub named their television show “Today with Bright & Merry” instead of something like “Have a Merry & Bright Day”? Doesn’t everyone know that ‘merry and bright’ is the phrase and not ‘bright and merry’? It sounds dumb the wrong way. Also, this movie is named Good Morning Christmas! but at no point does this seem like a morning show. Morning show people do not go out at night because they have to be on-set at like 4AM. And it’s super bright outside when they are filming. And their entire show seems to be one small segment where they talk about what they are going to do. At no point are they on TV showing off the town’s festivities, even though we can clearly see cameramen around filming caroling and whatnot.

Beyond the obvious fakeness of their show, Blucas and Sweeney aren’t terrible actors. They have both been on popular TV shows, even if they weren’t favorite characters. Blucas was Riley on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sweeney plays Sami Brady on Days of Our Lives. They don’t have a ton of chemistry together but I suppose they aren’t completely unbelievable as a couple. I could see them as the ‘formerly hated but now love each other’ type of couple. The relationship just wouldn’t move quite as fast as it does in the movie. (But that is true for all of these movie relationships…)

With all of that in mind, go ahead and watch Good Morning Christmas! It doesn’t stand out among the other Christmas movies but it’s also not completely boring. A perfect example of a ‘just fine’ movie.

A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado | 2020 Christmas Movies

I’m not sure if I don’t know how towns get their official Christmas trees or if this movie doesn’t know how it happens. Why not both?

Erin (Rochelle Aytes) works at the office of the mayor of Brooklyn, Colorado. When the town’s official Christmas tree plans fall through, Erin finds the perfect tree on the property of a local firefighter, Kevin (Mark Taylor). He doesn’t want to give his tree to the town. So it’s up to Erin to convince him otherwise.

There are so many weird things in this movie. Erin’s father (Peter Bryant) is the mayor of the town, as was his father before him. He keeps saying that it’s Erin’s destiny to be the next mayor…but that’s not how it works. Mayors are elected officials. She doesn’t get to inherit it.

Then there’s this little tidbit they threw in about her professional life. She has a teaching degree. After she graduated, she got a teaching job in Denver. But then her dad offered her a job in the mayor’s office so she decided to give up the Denver job and stay in Brooklyn. WHY. If you didn’t like teaching, why did you finish out the degree? You should have switched majors. If you liked teaching, why did you give up a job? YOU GOT A TEACHING JOB.

I will give props to Hallmark for having people of color as the main characters. There is also a gay couple as side characters. Oh, and let’s not forget the single father adopting an “older” child. (I think they said she was 5 when he adopted her. We’re not talking teenager-older but not-baby-older.) Hallmark isn’t usually known for its diversity. This is a step in the right direction.

Is it a good movie? Not really. Erin kept talking about how Kevin’s house is in the former town square and she kept harassing him to cut down his tree. Why wouldn’t she ask if they could trim the tree where it stood and have the whole event there? Why talk about how historical the site was if only to use that bit of information as the “last minute savior” moment?

Should you watch it? Eh, if you want to. It’s fairly boring. But I would like Hallmark to have more diversity in their movies. I think that if this doesn’t get good ratings, Hallmark will decided that consumers don’t want to see people of color in lead roles. We do. We just want to see them in GOOD roles.

Heart of the Holidays | 2020 Christmas Movies

I think maybe I need to figure out some sort of BAD ranking. Like, boring is a 1 but an awful script is 8 or something. It might make it easier to decide just how bad a movie is.

Sam (Vanessa Lengies) finally got the job she wanted. On her first day, she finds out that her boyfriend, Will’s (René Escobar Jr), company bought her new company and fired a lot of the staff. Feeling weird that he saved her job, Sam immediately quits and goes back to her hometown, where she reconnects with her high school sweetheart, Noah (Corey Sevier).

Heart of the Holidays is a mess. At the beginning of the movie, Sam is a whiz at planning things. I didn’t even realize that she worked in the financial industry because she was so busy planning things. (I think she was supposed to be convincing the guy replacing her to work for the company? I’m not really sure what she was doing.) But when she moves home, she is terrible at everything…except planning a pop-up food bank on Christmas Eve. I think that the writers wanted her to be a “hometown girl finds that community is important” character or something. That doesn’t really come through. She talks about how she wanted to work with charities but then she became a stockbroker? Her character makes no sense.

The plot isn’t all that different. It wants to be “big city girl returns to small hometown to find she still loves her hunky ex-boyfriend.” While that does happen, it goes about it the wrong way. The writers tried to throw in another woman, Marina (Tina Jung), to tempt Noah away….but at no point does it feel like those two would ever be a couple. It feels like this was written by high schoolers.

Seriously, Hallmark. Step up your game. No one should watch this movie. As a matter of fact, can I unwatch it?

Homemade Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

Not one but TWO male love interests? Is that even allowed?

Megan (Michelle Argyris) helps people with their Christmas tasks, usually saving them from imminent social disasters. Chase (Connor McMahon) runs a design studio that should help Megan take her DIY blog to a new level. Kurt (Travis Nelson), who owns a local toy store, mistakes Megan-the-Christmas-girl for Megan-the-marketing-whiz. Now Christmas-Megan has to help Kurt find a marketing plan that will save his store. But which man will Megan fall in love with?

The “which man will she choose” conflict is an interesting change in the Christmas romance movies. Usually, we know who the couple is and, even if they aren’t together in the beginning of the movie, we know they will end up together. Though that is kinda true here. We can tell who Megan is going to pick, even if takes her awhile to make that decision. But it was a nice change from the norm.

To be honest, Homemade Christmas was kinda cute. Granted, Megan’s job is weird. Like, what does she do during the rest of the year? Her business is called Christmas for Hire….it’s not like people are doing Christmas stuff in March. Christmas in July is a thing but Christmas in August isn’t. She straight up says she doesn’t get a lot of traffic to her blog so that isn’t paying the bills. How, Megan? How are you not living on the street?

OK. OK. The movie is cute. Megan and Kurt do have a playful flirty chemistry that I like a lot. Everyone else is garbage but it doesn’t matter since they are the main characters. Should you watch it? Go right ahead. Though you might need a cup of hot chocolate to go with it.

A Godwink Christmas: Second Chance, First Love | 2020 Christmas Movies

While Hallmark tends to be on the Christian side of religion, we don’t usually see movies that directly reference God. Even during Christmas. This movie has figured out a way to do it without making it sound religious. Oh, and supposedly this is based on a true story.

Pat (Sam Page) is a single father moving home to Boise from Hawaii. While running errands his first day in town, he runs into his first love, Margie (Brooke D’Orsay). A series of coincidences (or Godwinks) keep bringing them back together.

Yes, in this movie, Pat’s mother, Lois (Michele Scarabelli), calls coincidences ‘Godwinks.’ Meaning that God is trying to nudge you in a certain direction. However, instead of just a “fancy meeting you here” type of coincidence, the writers made it so Margie is constantly losing jewelry and Pat always finds it. The first time, sure. After that, Margie needs to invest in some rubber stoppers for the backs of her earrings and she really should have the charm bracelet resized so it fits her. It’s not as cute as everyone else in the movie thinks it is.

Beyond that, SCFL is fine. I believe this is the second movie in a series of Godwink movies but I don’t think I saw the first. Since this is supposed to be based on a true story, there isn’t any real conflict. Pat has a problem finding a job but at no point does it seem dire. It sounds like he needs a job for the sole reason of making his sons, John (Rhys Slack) and PJ (Knox Hamilton), feel normal in Boise. (Which is a terrible reason for getting a job. Especially if it’s a job you aren’t going to like.) At one point Margie thinks that she might be losing her job but there’s no real reason for her to think she’s getting fired. She comes to the conclusion after people around her start making assumptions.

If you are into the “God has a plan for us” mindset, you’ll probably enjoy all of the A Godwink Christmas movies. It’s not my cup of tea so I would recommend skipping it if you’d rather stay out of the religious arena.

Feliz NaviDAD | 2020 Christmas Movie

Do you think Mario Lopez knows how to not be cheesy? I think cheesy-ness must be in his DNA or something.

David (Mario Lopez) is a high school principal who also delivers packages during the holiday season. Sophie (AnnaLynne McCord) is a musician visiting her father (Herb Mendelsohn), who happens to be one of David’s customers on his delivery route. David’s daughter, Noel (Paulina Chávez), sets David up on a dating app, where he matches with Sophie.

I guess I knew Feliz NaviDAD was going to be cheesy thanks to the stupid pun in the title. I don’t think I realized just how cheesy it was going to be. David acts like one of those parents who is trying way too hard to be the “cool parent.” And, supposedly, his teenage daughter thinks he’s cool. (Reality check: No one’s teenager thinks they are a cool parent. Every teenager ever is embarrassed of their parents.) So we end up with things like - David has a ‘secret handshake’ that he does with one of the students at his school; when he first meets Sophie, he basically tells her that she must think he’s hot in his delivery uniform; he makes comments on other customers’ holiday decorations. Just a bunch of very cringy things.

There, honestly, isn’t a whole lot to talk about in this movie. If you have seen a Mario Lopez movie, chances are you already know how this one is going to go. Unless you have a serious crush on Slater from Saved By The Bell, skip Feliz NaviDAD. You’ll thank me for it.

A Taste of Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

If all of the characters are jerks to each other, it’s OK for them to fall in love, right? Right?

Natalie (Anni Krueger) is a Jill of all Trades, doing a millions jobs at once. When she finds out that her cousin, Olivia (Nia Vardalos), has to cancel the opening of her new Italian restaurant because she is stuck in Italy, Natalie takes it upon herself to open the restaurant for Christmas. If she can only get chef Stefano (Gilles Marini) on board…

Well, that was definitely a movie. It’s established early on that Natalie can’t cook. Like to disastrous ends. She had to warm up some lasagna in the oven and burned it. (Setting off smoke alarms is a trend in the movie.) I’m not sure why she thought she could run a restaurant, much less do a first night opening. “I love my cousin” doesn’t really excuse taking over her business and spending her money (unless Natalie was spending her own money? Considering she was only doing small tasks for everyone, I’m not sure that she was making that much.) without her approval. That’s right - Olivia didn’t know that Natalie was doing all of this. She told Natalie that she was going to have to close the restaurant. Full stop. In my books, this makes Natalie kind of a jerk. Don’t screw with other people’s businesses. Especially if you don’t know what you are doing.

Then we move onto Stefano the chef. He told some poor lovesick teenager, Tyler (Andrew Brodeur), that love is logical and gave him a list of what he likes in a woman. Tyler was carrying this note around when the object of his affection, BeeBee (Emma Myers), finds it and calls HIM a jerk! No! Tyler was only looking to a grown-ass man for advice and that man sucks! On top of that, Stefano is just overly arrogant.

After that, it’s just back and forth jerky behavior between Natalie and Stefano. He shames her for burning the lasagna, she trashes his kitchen making Christmas cookies but doesn’t bother to clean up afterwards, he berates her in front of basically the whole town at the Christmas party for trashing his kitchen (she deserved the yelling but not in front of the people who are supposed to be their customers in a few days), she makes random decisions about the restaurant (will it open…won’t it open…) without talking to him first…the list really does keep going.

Don’t watch A Taste of Christmas. It’s apparent that no one actually likes each other, even though they have to kiss at the end. And it’s even a creepy kiss with the whole restaurant watching them and applauding. Only Olivia has the sense to ask “Why are we watching?!” Yes, Olivia. Why are we watching?

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Christmas on the Vine | 2020 Christmas Movies

This may have been the first movie to really make me think “You know you’d get fired for that if this was real life, right?” That probably isn’t a good thing…

Brooke (Julianna Guill) is a marketing executive tasked with helping a struggling family winery in her hometown. Tyler (Jon Cor) is the son of the winery owner, who will take over the business one day. Can they save the family business before the Christmas deadline?

Christmas on the Vine is one of those movies that annoys me. While Brooke does do some marketing for the winery, she spends most of her time waxing nostalgic for the Christmas traditions the town had when she was a child. Of course, those memories only exist in the movie to set up the big third act twist. She also spends a lot of time flirting with Tyler. Then when he actually acts on her advances, she turns him down. What the hell, girl. Figure out what you want.

Tyler isn’t much better. He spends a lot of the movie whining about how his family business is closing but when Brooke actually does her job and gives him ideas to bring in new customers or distributors, he shoots them down. His mother has to convince him to actually listen to Brooke.

Oh, and what would Brooke have gotten fired for? There’s a scene where the rival winery owner, Carla (Meredith Baxter), randomly shows up to try to get Tyler to sell her his winery. After Tyler and Brooke shoo her off, Brooke asks Tyler if he’s ready to fight for his business and throws a snowball at him. Who in the world would randomly throw a snowball at their client? Even if it’s supposed to be flirty (spoiler, it is), it’s very unprofessional.

Lifetime really is letting us down this year. I’ll have to try to make a list of terrible Lifetime movies versus terrible Hallmark movies for 2020. Christmas on the Vine definitely falls under terrible Lifetime movies. You might do better if you head over to the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel this year. They seem to be handing out all the good movies.