When I first read the title Cranberry Christmas, I thought it was going to be yet another movie about a baker. But this time she loves cranberry cookies! Well, I was wrong.

Dawn (Nikki DeLoach) and Gabe (Benjamin Ayres) own a lifestyle company called Cranberry Lane. While the company has always been run as a “husband and wife” company, their marriage is on the rocks. In order to keep their business and the town’s Christmas festival running, Dawn lies on national television about the state of their marriage. But when TV host Pamela (Marci T. House) brings the show to their small Maine town, the couple is forced to cancel their time apart and focus on their relationship.

I admit that I usually go into these movies expecting them to be boring at best. Cranberry Christmas, however, was a cute movie about problems that marriages can have when a couple is trying to grow a business. Dawn kept secrets from Gabe and Gabe kept secrets from Dawn, all in an attempt to not hurt the other or let the other have their dream. At the same time, Pamela is trying to pressure Dawn (even though she claims she’s not pressuring her) into making a major decision extremely quickly. These are things that felt real. More real than any holiday movie I have watched.

Should you watch it? Yes. Yes, you should. It probably won’t be an annual favorite but it is a 2020 Hallmark movie favorite. What more could we ask for this year?