Finally! A Christmas movie on Lifetime that doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out! Actually, this one was pretty darn cute. I did start out hoping this movie was some sort of sequel to A Different World (for those of you that don’t know, The Cosby Show had a spin-off and it was awesome and it was called A Different World) but it wasn’t. Sad times.

No, A Christmas Pact is the story of the lifelong friendship between Sadie (Kyla Pratt) and Ben (Jarod Joseph). When the movie starts, the pair are eight year old kids. The two of them plant a small Christmas tree in the backyard of their church. Then they make a pact that they will return to that spot every Christmas to keep the magic of Christmas alive. And they mostly follow through, until they grow up and Sadie becomes a professional photographer who travels the world. But Ben always shows up. Eventually, Sadie comes back home and the pact resumes. Everyone else can see that they are in love but will they ever realize it?

Now why did I think this may be A Different World sequel? Because Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison play Sadie’s parents and they were the on-again/off-again couple, Whitney and Dwayne, in the series. While my heart was a little broken that they were playing different characters, I did enjoy seeing them together again. They definitely play a great couple.

As for the movie itself, I found myself actually liking it a lot. I thought that the characters stayed true to their friendship the entire time. Granted, it did seem that they didn’t keep in touch very often when they weren’t on-screen. They could have easily called each other or written letters or whatever but I think most of the ‘out-of-touchness’ was for the benefit of the audience so we knew what was going on in their lives. It was strange but not completely out of the realm of possibility. And, really, it didn’t matter that much. We were here to watch them change as they grew to see if they would grow together or apart. (OK, well, we knew it wasn’t going to be apart…it would be a terrible movie, otherwise.)

I think that is why Pact was so different from other movies. Most Christmas rom-coms need some sort of fabricated conflict to throw two adults into a relationship. This time around, we got to see a relationship turn from friendship into romance. And it was adorable.