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.