Cassandra Morgan

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You Light Up My Christmas | 2019 Advent Day 7

It’s only the seventh day of this Christmas movie advent challenge and we have actually found a network movie that is not only decent but is actually charming! What?!

Real estate agent Emma (Kim Fields) comes back to her hometown to sell her childhood home. The town, which happens to be built around her family’s Christmas light factory, seems to have lost its Christmas spirit. Emma decides to bring the old holiday traditions back, resulting in her falling in love with the town all over again.

I think the main reason I found You Light Up My Christmas charming is that it didn’t center around a romantic relationship. It almost completely focused on Emma revisiting places she used to hang out as a child/teenager and realizing how much the town needed her family. Since the town was built around her family’s factory and she is the last living member of that family, it’s up to her to bring celebrations back. Sure, she reconnects with her ex-boyfriend, Ben (Adrian Holmes), but that relationship is really an afterthought in the plot.

On a nostalgic note, this movie also gathered together a bunch of the actresses from the 80s television show, The Facts of Life. Besides Kim Fields, we got to see Lisa Welchel and Mindy Cohn in minor roles. Oh, and a very small cameo from Nancy McKeon. It was a cute nod to the generation that currently watches these cheesy movies.

Should you watch it? Absolutely. I hope that Lifetime adds this to their annual Christmas movie lineup. I would definitely watch this every year.