Before I even start this review, I want to note that A Christmas…Present is not a Christmas romance movie. This is a religious propaganda movie. I wasn’t planning on addressing the recent comments made by Candace Cameron Bure but, after watching this, her comments are extremely relevant.

Maggie (Candace Cameron Bure) is a busy real estate agent who feels the need to control her entire family’s schedule during the holiday. She takes her family - husband, Eric (Marc Blucas); daughter, Becca (Claire Capek); and son, Will (Caleb Reese Paul) - to Ohio to spend Christmas with her brother, Paul (Paul Fitzgerald); and niece, Ashley (Keilah Davies).

Recently, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bure said that Great American Family will focus on “traditional marriage.” We all know this means that they will not feature any member of the LGBTQIA+ community. When I first heard about her statement, I thought “Well, that is a terrible thing to do and a terrible opinion but it was to be expected since that is the reason Bill Abbott left Hallmark for Great American Family.” Then I watched A Christmas…Present where they frequently quoted the bible and even had the “yellow light from above shine through a church window” trope. I wish I was kidding.

In this movie, Paul’s wife died. Maggie and the fam come to Ohio to help him and comfort both him and Ashley. But when Maggie said “It’s tough to do things when you are sad,” Paul pointed out that he is not sad. Let me repeat: HE IS NOT SAD THAT HIS WIFE DIED. Why? Bible verse. This entire movie is painted around “If you have faith, you will be a perfect person and nothing will ever bother you.” Maggie and Eric are having marriage troubles because they keep prioritizing other things over each other. The fix? You got it. Church. What the actual fuck.

Now. I don’t have a problem with religion, per se. Believe what you want to believe. It’s when you feel the need to force your religion onto other people and pretend that you are some righteous being for simply believing in your chosen religion. So instead of Paul being like “Hey, have you guys thought about maybe a marriage counselor to help you through this?” when both Maggie and Eric separately talk to him about their troubles, his reply is….BIBLE VERSES. That is not how you solve marital problems.

I could rant about this movie for a long time. But I will stop here. I’m not going to recommend that anyone watch A Christmas…Present. It had a good core plot - a family that is too busy to spend time with each other tries to find a way back to being a family during the holidays - but then it got super preachy and I don’t think anyone should watch that. This movie not only made me annoyed, it made me angry. Maybe I should go see a therapist about that…