For those of you that don’t know, even though Hallmark has been screaming it all over the place, A Biltmore Christmas was actually filmed at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. The estate itself is a lovely addition to the movie.

Lucy (Bethany Joy Lenz) is writing a remake of a classic holiday movie, His Merry Wife! When she has trouble giving the movie the feel good ending the studio wants, her boss sends her to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, where the original movie was filmed. After an accident with an hourglass, Lucy finds herself transported back to 1946. Stuck in 1946, she watches the filming of His Merry Wife! and finds herself falling in love with the movie’s star, Jack Huston (Kristoffer Polaha). But she has to go back to her time, right?

This is another movie I wasn’t expecting to enjoy. Especially since these type of time travel movies often suck. Maybe it was the majesticness of the Biltmore or maybe the movie actually was good. I just know that I found myself liking it way more than I thought I would. It’s not a movie I’m adding to my Annual list but it’s not one I would turn off if it happened to be on the screen.

Rating: Stay at the Biltmore! It’s beautiful!

I think I get it now. The former CEO of Hallmark didn’t leave the channel because he thought “The Gays” were taking over. It was because people actually acted like they enjoyed being around each other. I think all of the movies I have watched on Great American Family, so far, have consisted of couples that didn’t even like being in the same room as each other. It explains a lot.

Ashley (Breanne Hill), a party planner living in Los Angeles, has come home for the holidays. When she finds out that her high school sweetheart, Grant (Tanner Novlan), is dating popular influencer Bella Vega (Masiela Lusha), she decides to pretend to date her friend and co-worker, Liam (Colton Little), in order to make him jealous. Things go awry when Ashley finally gets what she thought she wanted.

Sometimes the jealousy plotline works well. But it only works when all of the people involved like each other. There are some longing looks from Grant towards Ashley and we’re supposed to gather from the very beginning that Liam is in love with Ashley but it’s difficult to see either of the men actually wanting to date her. She comes off as very self-centered, especially since her entire plan is to break up a current couple. The only person I feel bad for in this movie is Bella. She didn’t do a single thing wrong except for maybe be a little on the dumb side.

My vote is to stay away from Christmas Sweethearts. I’m sure there will be another, better, jealousy Christmas movie this year. This one is just bad.