Christmas is almost here but there are still a ton of Christmas movies to watch. This is the time of year when I get beat down by watching so many of these movies but I am going to try my hardest to get as many of these reviewed as possible! So let’s get going with the second half of A Hometown Holiday titled Christmas In The City.

While her sister, Jennifer (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), is in their hometown of Hazelwood, Meg (Ashley Williams) stays in Salt Lake City to help Jennifer’s restaurant prepare for a local Christmas competition. Will Meg’s big ideas help or ruin Jennifer’s restaurant?

A Hometown Holiday was an adorable movie. Christmas In The City has a similar energy but doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor. I think the problem, as usual, stems from the conflicts in each movie. In Hometown, Jennifer had to deal with all of the issues that come up when trying to renovate an old building. In City, everything was pretty much done for Meg. She was only coming up with ideas to make the restaurant more festive. There was only one real issue she had to deal with and it was easily solved. The rest of the movie felt unnecessary.

I understand what Hallmark was going for when they made these two movies. Having two completely different perspectives shown at once. There are multiple times that we see the sisters cross over into the other’s movie. That was so cool and original. However, you can’t have one sister doing something interesting while the other wanders around thinking about what she’s going to do in the future. It would have been a little more interesting if Meg was doing her own thing in Salt Lake City instead of doing something that was already pretty finished.

I do recommend watching A Hometown Holiday. But I would say skip Christmas In The City unless you are very invested in seeing the other side of the story. You won’t lose anything by watching only one of the movies. I really wish the second one was better. It would have been so cool.