Heaven Down Here | 2023 Christmas Movies

We’re back to Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel, which isn’t normally very religious. Heaven Down Here has changed that.

Imani (Krystal Joy Brown) is a single mother working as a waitress as a diner. When she gets called in at the last minute on Christmas Eve, she spends the night with a group of lonely people stuck in the diner due to a major snowstorm.

Heaven Down Here was such a slow movie. Since it was about the connections between people and their families, there were a lot of flashbacks. In addition, every person had a story to tell on top of it. Movies that are based on songs really don’t have anything substantial to keep the plot driving forward. Instead, we’re stuck with a bunch of separate stories smashed together in a diner setting. And the stories were so slow that this movie felt about an hour too long. I wanted better for it.

Rating: I might have braved the snowstorm to get away from these people

Writing Around The Christmas Tree | 2021 Christmas Movies

I have made it to the end! Well, the end of the Lifetime 2021 Christmas movies at least. Writing Around The Christmas Tree is the last of the Lifetime (and Hallmark!) Christmas movies on my list. There are a few Netflix movies left, though I have to see if Netflix hasn’t removed them from the service. I will be so glad when this second Christmas is over.

Mikaela (Krystal Joy Brown) is a romance writer who is suffering from some writer’s block. She decides to reopen her late mother’s writers workshop at her father’s bed & breakfast. Somehow, non-fiction writer Levi (Curtis Hamilton) manages to snag an invite to the workshop. It seems that Levi wants to write a book about Mikaela’s mother. Will Levi use Mikaela for information or will something more come out of the workshop?

Jake Helgren wrote this movie, along with a number of other Christmas movies. I’m not sure if he’s a terrible writer overall or if it’s just his Christmas movies that suck. Though I noticed that he tends to direct the movies that he writes so maybe the problem is that he has no one to tell him his stuff is just not good.

For example, there are only a few tolerable characters in Writing and they are barely used. The amazing Dawnn Lewis plays Sharon, a cookbook writer who is having problems finishing her latest cookbook. However, we mostly only see Sharon interacting with Mikaela’s father, Irving (James Black). Then there are the two gay assistants, Keifer (Gavyn Michaels) and Mitchell (Max Emerson). They are mostly used to shove the plot along when Helgren can’t figure out how to make it organically move forward.

The worst character, though, is Olive (Meg Steedle). Olive writes musicals. But her personality is harsh and abrasive and she keeps throwing herself at Levi, even though it’s obvious he’s not interested. I cringed every time she appeared on screen.

I don’t know that I would say Writing Around The Christmas Tree is worth watching. After all, we don’t even get to hear the stories any of the characters write. We only hear a couple of poems. I really wanted to like it and I was sadly disappointed.

One Royal Holiday | 2020 Christmas Movies

Do you like royal families? Does anyone like royal families? The people that write Christmas movies must think that people adore royalty. Why else would we have so many of royalty-related movies?

Anna (Laura Osnes) is a nurse in Boston. As she is getting ready to drive home for the holidays, she comes across a mother and son stranded due to an impending blizzard. She offers to let them stay at her family’s bed and breakfast in Connecticut. Only after they get to the B&B does she find out that they are the royal family of Galwick. Anna shows Queen Gabriella (Victoria Clark) and Prince James (Aaron Tveit) how they celebrate Christmas in her hometown.

Is there a way they could make these movies a little different? It’s always a foreign prince and a common American girl. The prince is cold and unwilling to change while the girl has to figure out how to warm his heart with Christmas spirit. The big difference here is that the royals fall in love with the little town and don’t want to return to their country. They have to return, of course, because the prince has to give an annual speech.

Of the prince-related Christmas movies I have watched, this one is pretty darn boring. You could watch the Netflix series A Christmas Prince…that wasn’t too bad. The Princess Switch is still royalty-related, even though it doesn’t have a prince. There’s just better Christmas movies featuring royalty, if you really need that royal fix. It’s OK to skip this one. You aren’t missing much.