Mystic Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

This may be bad. We’re barely a week into Christmas movie season and I’m already bored. At least Mystic Christmas has some animals? Well, one animal anyway.

Juniper (Jessy Schram) comes to Mystic, Connecticut for the holiday season to work at a rehabilitation center preparing a seal to be released back into the wild. A former flame, Sawyer (Chandler Massey), not only lives in Mystic but is the brother of the aquarium manager, Candace (Patti Murin). Will Juniper finally settle down or will she continue to run from her feelings?

Yeah, this movie was boring. Peppermint the seal might be the best part of the movie and she’s barely in it. Nothing really happens. It’s a lot of Juniper trying her best to avoid interaction with anyone because she’s “an introvert.” (Note: Introverts don’t hate being around people. They just need some time to themselves to recharge.) So a lot of the story revolves around people, mostly Candace, trying to get Juniper to open up to the townspeople and have fun. Which would have been fine if they made it interesting. It would have been more interesting if Juniper used the seals more to show how she interacts with animals better than humans.

Here’s to hoping we get a good movie soon. I don’t want to be bored this early in the season!

Rating: Fish out of water

Time For Them To Come Home For Christmas | 2021 Christmas Movies

Apparently, Time For Them To Come Home For Christmas is the FOURTH movie in this series! They already did Time For Me, Time For You, and Time For Us. I guess the next few years will have Time For Him and Time For Her before they run out of pronouns.

Paul (Brendan Penny) is a nurse at a hospital in Maine. Shortly before Christmas, a woman (Jessy Schram) is almost hit by a car. When she wakes up, they find that she can’t remember anything about her life. Paul, who is planning on driving to Columbia, South Carolina, to visit family, agrees to take Jane Doe with him in the hopes that her memory will return when she meets up with…someone…at the Christmas Tree lighting.

I don’t understand the appeal of Jessy Schram. She was in last year’s dud, A Nashville Christmas Carol, and she isn’t any better in this year’s Christmas movie. While she is a beautiful woman, her acting is wooden and I’m not sure she has control over her facial movements. Looking over her IMDb listing, she does have recurring roles in some big television series. That means that she does have acting talent in there somewhere. Maybe she wasn’t meant for Hallmark Christmas movies. Not everyone can achieve the right amount of cheesiness without overshooting into awfulness.

The story begins on a good note. She has amnesia and they are trying to figure out who she is. The only clue they have is a newspaper clipping about a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony with a man’s name written on the back. So she decides to just take off to South Carolina, which is about an 18-hour drive with no stops. And the police sheriff (Lochlyn Munro) lets her go? Even if she’s traveling with a nurse, it’s a terrible idea. Especially since they have no idea who she would be meeting there. Once they leave the hospital, everything falls apart.

Much like last year’s installment, this one isn’t particularly worth watching. I’ll actually reiterate my suggestion from last year: “Watch beginning and the last 30 minutes. Skip the rest.”

A Nashville Christmas Carol | 2020 Christmas Movies

It’s A Christmas Carol but in Nashville! Different, right?

Vivian (Jessy Schram) is a television producer/director that rarely takes time off. She’s too busy planning a Christmas special when she is interrupted by the ghost of her dead mentor, Marilyn (Wynonna Judd). Marilyn sends the Christmas spirits Vivian’s way in order to get her life back on track.

I’m generally not a big fan of country music. But I do like good music. Sara Evans as Belinda and RaeLynn as Alexis knock it out of the park. I could see myself watching the Christmas special with them. Especially when they were singing together. The rest of the show….

We’re all familiar with A Christmas Carol - the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future visit Scrooge to show him his terrible ways. A Nashville Christmas Carol spends a little too much time with the spirit of Christmas past, who goes by Pat (Kix Brooks), and completely abandons the spirit of Christmas-yet-to-come. That was a little disappointing. I wanted to see hints of Vivian getting together with love interest/former best friend Gavin (Wes Brown). Instead, we get a “The future is what you make it” type of speech from Marilyn.

I think maybe the worst part was that Vivian’s past was not all that exciting. We hear that Vivian and her sister, Georgia (Sarah Borne), grew up without their mother but we don’t know why their mother is gone. They just say “she left.” A lot of the Christmas Past time was spent at a Christmas party where Gavin got the job of his dreams but Vivian thought he kicked her to the curb. Of course, Vivian was wrong and….blah blah blah. Once again, these are conflicts that could have been resolved if someone opened their mouth and said something. It doesn’t make a good conflict.

Honestly? You should skip A Nashville Christmas Carol. There are better versions of Dickens’ book that are actually worth your time. The Muppets Christmas Carol is the absolute best. Watch that one instead.