A lot of Christmas movies have the word ‘Christmas’ somewhere in the title. I appreciate that this one goes with Santa instead. Though, apparently, it’s also known as Santa’s Squad. But it’s only one person. There’s no squad; there’s just one person.

Allie (Rebecca Dalton) is an unemployed teacher. Her friend, Tony (Chris Sandiford), shows her a job listing for The Santa Squad, hired Christmas helpers. Allie’s first Santa Squad assignment is the Church household, where a wealthy widower lives with his two daughters.

The Santa Squad was an adorable movie. It gave me a little bit of The Parent Trap or The Sound of Music (without the songs) type of vibe. There’s two daughters of a wealthy single man, an awful girlfriend who kinda hates the kids, and a new woman who befriends the children. OK, that last part isn’t very Parent Trap but it does have similar vibes.

I quite enjoyed the movie, for the most part. My only gripe is that Rose (Hattie Kragten), the older daughter, is given the ‘quirky trait’ of rattling off little known facts about animals or bugs. While that could be really cute, it fell a little flat for me. Some of the interjections fit into the scene well but some of them felt forced. It would have been nice if her facts fit the conversations better.

With that said, the rest of the movie was enjoyable. Gordon (Aaron Ashmore), the father of the family, and Allie had great chemistry together. Even Paniz Zade was pretty perfect as the stuck-up girlfriend Kimmee. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a good bad guy.

So, should you watch The Santa Squad? Yes! Lifetime has only had a handful of good movies this year. And this is one of them.