Home Sweet Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

Home Sweet Christmas is the second Candace Cameron Bure movie on Great American Family this year. I honestly didn’t realize this movie was on the schedule. When I referenced a second Cameron Bure movie this year, I was talking about Let It Snow, a Hallmark movie from 2013 that GAF somehow got their hands on. I’m not going to watch that one. But I will watch Home Sweet Christmas.

Sophie (Cameron Bure) is an acquisitions and mergers lawyer living in the big city. When her great uncle passes away, he leaves her a majority stake in Marlow Maple Meadows, a sugar maple farm. With only a few days before Christmas and a big merger, she must go back to the small town to decide what to do with the farm. Reliving her childhood memories with her old friend, Sam (Cameron Mathison), Sophie realizes that maybe she’s not ready to sell the farm after all.

Ugh. This is yet another boring movie. Her job is boring, his job is more boring, even the big montage of them fixing up the house is boring. I thought that maybe we would get a little intrigue when they realize that great uncle Henry had a mystery love when he was younger but, no, they left it for too late it the movie so that mystery is solved almost immediately. Home Sweet Christmas is another movie that doesn’t really have a point. They put two people together, tell us they are in love (or will fall in love), and that is it. There has to be more to a movie than just falling in love. But at least this movie had a dog?

Rating: Sell the whole thing and go away

A Christmas Less Traveled | 2024 Christmas Movies

A Christmas Less Traveled is the first of the Candace Cameron Bure movies that are airing this year. I’m pretty positive that the second movie is a Hallmark movie that Great American Family somehow got the rights to….but that is for later discussion. Let’s see if this one is any good.

Desi (Bure) owns The Dine And Dash diner, which has fallen on hard times. In order to get out of debt, Desi puts her late father’s truck up for sale. Before she can sell it, she finds a cassette tape from her father leading her on a road trip through his past. Accompanying her is Grayson (Eric Johnson), a stranger who has been following Desi for a mysterious reason.

I really think I’m going to cut the Great American Family movies out of the schedule next year. Like almost all of the others, Less Traveled is boring. Desi meets up with her father’s old friends and tries to connect with them on a personal level but it felt so…impersonal. There were no connections with anyone. Even the whole love story with Grayson felt forced and unnatural.

Most years, I can count on Bure to give me a bland movie preaching the will of God that at least has decent acting. This time around, all that is left is “God’s plan.” I feel bad for the conservatives that left Hallmark for this drivel. They could have had much better movies.

Rating: Skip the road trip

My Christmas Hero | 2023 Christmas Movies

It’s time for this year’s Candace Cameron Bure movie, My Christmas Hero. And it is entirely about the military. Which branch? Eh, that doesn’t really matter, does it?

Nicole (Candace Cameron Bure) is an orthopedic surgeon at the local Veteran’s Health Administration hospital. Captain Mark Jennings (Robin Dunne) meets her when he comes in to check on a knee injury. The two spend the holiday falling in love while researching what happened to Nicole’s grandfather in World War II.

I don’t hate the United States military. However, I don’t particularly understand worshipping the military. Yes, we can thank soldiers for their service and honor the memories of those lost but movies like this go a bit farther than that. For example, Nicole’s grandfather died in 1944. As far as I can tell, this movie takes place in 2023. While I’m not saying “just get over it” or something, it feels a little obsessive to make every Christmas revolve around a man who died almost 80 years ago. They can honor him without worshipping him. Also, I would really like it if movies stopped acting like World War II happened recently and that the soldiers wouldn’t be closer to 100 years old.

As for the rest of the movie, it’s fine. Since it is a Bure movie, there is a healthy sprinkling of God to be expected. It’s schmalzty and borders on eye-rolling but it’s not awful. If you have the stomach for stuff like this, you probably won’t hate it.

Rating: Ignore that transfer order!

A Christmas...Present | 2022 Christmas Movies

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…

The Christmas Contest | 2021 Christmas Movies

It’s finally that time of year! Time for Candace Cameron Bure’s Hallmark Christmas movie! You know you were waiting for this one…The Christmas Contest!

Lara (Candace Cameron Bure) has been unhappy with her life since she broke up with Ben (John Brotherton). When they both sign up for a Christmas-themed contest in order to win money for their respective charities, emotions run wild. Maybe this contest will remind them how much they truly love each other.

For the most part, this is a pretty typical Cameron Bure Hallmark movie. A bit of schmaltz, a bit of family reconciliations, and a bit of former lovers getting back together. But the best part, in my opinion, is when she actually makes fun of Hallmark movie plots. I was dying! It happens pretty early in the movie so it isn’t a scene that would make or break the whole show but it was pretty funny.

As for the rest of it, it’s fine. Cameron Bure and Brotherton also star in Fuller House together. It’s not like Hallmark threw two strangers together on this one. And that has actually been a big part of the marketing for The Christmas Contest. While I’m not sure the characters make a great couple, the two actors have enough chemistry together that their playful banter is fun to watch.

This one will be another tough call. If you’re a big fan of traditional Hallmark movies, this will be right up your alley. If you’re looking for something more, this is more like a movie you’d put on the background while you bake some cookies or something. On the plus side, it is much better than last year’s pile of crap that Cameron Bure starred in.

If I Only Had Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

Let me get this right, Hallmark. You took The Wizard of Oz and made it a Christmas romance movie? And everyone was OK with that?

Darcy Gale (Candace Cameron Bure) is a Kansas City publicist. In order to sign on an important client, she volunteers to work pro bono for the company’s charity in the northeast. With her help Vice President Glenn Goodman (Warren Christie) and his team find what they are missing to make their donation drive a success.

I wish I was joking when I said this movie is The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy, I mean DARCY, has a dog named Bobo that she, unfortunately, doesn’t take with her. At the charity, she works with three employees - Jackie (Jordana Largy), Bridget (Lucia Walters), and Riley (Robert Markus) - who are the Scarecrow, Tin Man (well, Tin Woman), and Cowardly Lion. Glenn isn’t really named Glenn. (Spoiler: He’s the Wizard.) There is even a scene where Darcy is gifted a pair of sparkly red heels.

It’s difficult to talk about whether this is a good movie. I mean, the acting is fine, if not a little over the top for the side characters. The plot…it’s literally The Wizard of Oz so you can’t really go wrong there. It’s a tried and true classic. But it is a weird pairing.

I suppose you could give it a try yourself. There isn’t anything particularly bad about it. And, hey, Alison Araya is in this too. That makes THREE Christmas movies she was in this year!

Christmas Town | 2019 Advent Day 6

Every year, there is a Candace Cameron Bure Christmas movie on the Hallmark Channel. This year’s gift is Christmas Town.

Hallmark’s favorite actress plays Lauren Gabriel, a teacher from Boston who gets a permanent position in Springfield. Before heading out on the train, she breaks up with her boyfriend because he wants to focus on his career instead of starting a family. On the way to Springfield, the train gets stopped at Grandon Falls due to a problem with the tracks. The passengers are forced to spend the evening in the small town. This stop proves to be a fateful stop for Lauren.

Usually, movies with Bure in them are very heavily Christian themed. Surprisingly, Christmas Town doesn’t try to shove God down your throat. Yes, there are some religious references but it’s all contained as people praying to God for something or saying it’s God’s plan type of things.

Instead of focusing on the religion, the movie focuses on foster children and charity. Travis (Tim Rozon), the romantic interest, has a foster child, Dylan (Jesse Filkow), who spends most of the movie giving his things away to the kids from a nearby town that basically burned down. Lauren, a former foster child herself, gets a donation drive started (in conjunction with The Salvation Army, of course) to help Dylan stop giving away everything he owns. (The adults don’t get mad at Dylan for giving away his coat every day. You would think someone would point out that coats are expensive and maybe he shouldn’t do that every single day.)

For the most part, Christmas Town isn’t terrible. I think my main problem is how quickly the plot goes. This would have been better as a miniseries instead of one movie. Within a few days, Lauren falls in love with the town, gets a new teaching job in Grandon Falls, decides to adopt Dylan, and falls in love with Travis. While Lauren, at one point, Lauren had said she was planning on staying a few weeks, everything seems to take place within a week. This should have taken place over a few months, especially with the adoption angle.

But should you watch it? Yes. Christmas Town is one of Bure’s better Christmas movies. It has some flaws but nothing that makes it unwatchable. On the contrary, it’s actually kinda sweet. Almost the perfect Christmas movie…for the Hallmark Channel, anyway.

Advent Day #4: A Shoe Addict's Christmas

Since A Shoe Addict’s Christmas first aired back in November, I was really hoping that Hallmark would re-air this in December so I could watch it. I mean, what Christmas movie list is complete without a Candace Cameron Bure movie? Thankfully, Hallmark came through for me.

Basically, this movie is a sort of romantic retelling of A Christmas Carol. Our girl, Candace, plays Noelle, a department store HR manager who (somehow) gets put in charge of helping plan a holiday gala for the local fire station. (The gala is for the fire station but the department store is footing the bill.) Firefighter Jake (Luke Macfarlane) gets assigned to help Noelle plan the festivities. One night, Noelle meets her guardian angel, Charlie (Jean Smart). Charlie tells Noelle that she has given up on her passions in life - photography and love. So Charlie uses shoes to transport Noelle back in time to show her the past three years of Christmases to get Noelle’s professional and love lives back on track.

Hm. Um. Yeah. Shoe Addict wasn’t as terrible as I was expecting. But that doesn’t mean it’s good either. While Noelle proclaims to love shoes, it feels empty. She continually claims that “every shoe has a story” but doesn’t really tell any stories about her shoes. I suppose we can say that Charlie using shoes to transport Noelle back to important moments in her life as a ‘shoe story’….no, no we can’t say that. Because those moments aren’t about the shoes at all. They are about Noelle saying no to things she should have said yes to. Then there is some shoehorned thing about a cross necklace that Noelle’s mom used to wear? It’s another semi-plot line that is introduced then thrown to the side until it’s needed again. Honestly, it feels like the writers wanted to throw so many things into the movie that they just couldn’t bear to cut any of them.

On the good side, I really did enjoy Jean Smart as the clutzy guardian angel. She seemed to be the most genuine character of the bunch. Everyone else turned their Cheese Factor up to 11. With that said, I’m glad I sat through a Candace Cameron Bure movie. I have seen a ton of commercials for her recent Hallmark movies but I’ve never actually sat through one. Now I feel like I sat through them all! And that is my recommendation - find one Candace Cameron Bure movie that sounds interesting and watch that one. Skip the rest.