Bringing Christmas Home | 2023 Christmas Movies

Great American Family’s Bringing Christmas Home is the first of the military-related movies this year. OK, I don’t know there are more military-related movies coming but there is usually at least a couple of them. It’s a pretty safe bet.

Russell (Paul Greene) runs an antique store with his sister, Jules (Jess Brown). When he finds a World War 2 uniform in a pile of donated items, Russell decides that he must get the uniform back to the soldier’s family. He enlists the help of Caroline (Jill Wagner), a retired military officer who is now a military history professor. Can they find the soldier’s family before Christmas?

I wish this move was more interesting. They could have easily made this a mystery movie but they didn’t. The movie spends more time following Caroline around and on her emotional journey than it does on the actual uniform. I don’t need to see Caroline buy and decorate a Christmas tree. I need to see them actually translating the cryptic letters and doing actual research. For someone with a master’s degree in military history, Caroline kinda sucks at it.

There have definitely been some good military Christmas movies in the past. Why do they have to keep giving us this crap? We can honor our soldiers without making them look dumb.

Rating: Lost to time

Fit For Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I was making my list of Christmas movies this year, I pretty much listed every movie on every channel that I could find. Do I have all of these channels? No. That means there are a lot of Christmas movies I will not be watching this year. But I was able to watch CBS’s Fit For Christmas.

Audrey (Amanda Kloots) is a dance fitness instruction living in New York City. When her business fails, she comes home to Mistletoe, Montana for the holidays. But when she gets there, she finds that the town council is about to vote on closing the community center and selling it to business man Griffin (Paul Greene), who wants to turn it into a ski resort.

There are definitely some cute moments in Fit For Christmas. Any time Griffin is in Audrey’s dance fitness class? Total win. Especially when Audrey’s boyfriend, Bradley (Stephan Miers), shows up. I was laughing when they were trying to outdance each other.

Adding to the fun, a lot of the side characters were actually fleshed out people and not just cardboard cutouts of random townspeople. It made the movie a lot easier to watch. Especially since a lot of the movie revolved around Griffin trying to convince the people on the town council to vote for the ski resort instead of keeping the community center.

I know a lot of people have cut the cord on cable. If you have access to CBS, you should definitely give this one a watch. (As a note, I don’t have CBS but somehow I was able to watch it for free on my laptop. I don’t know if that is a bug or a feature.) When you are finished watching, go sign up for a dance fitness class. They are a lot of fun!

I'm Glad It's Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

Hey, it’s another Christmas movie about singers! Maybe I should start a counter for how many movies about singers there are this season. It feels like A LOT.

Holly (Jessica Lowndes) aspires to be on Broadway. One morning, as she was heading into her retail job, she literally bumps into Jason (Paul Greene), who writes jingles for commercials. Through Cora (Gladys Knight), who owns the building that houses the shop where Holly works, the two work together on a new Christmas song for a local talent show…run by Cora.

Thankfully, I’m Glad It’s Christmas has a lot of singing in it because the singing is gorgeous. The script, however, could use some work. For example, Jason shares custody of his daughter, Angela (Teagan Sellers), with his wife. However, Angela is constantly running out of every single scene because her mother is picking her up. There is one whole scene where Holly and Angela are baking cookies but they don’t even get to the baking part. They just roll out the dough then use some glasses to cut shapes. End of scene. If the movie is going to have Angela as a character, she needs to be used. She doesn’t need to be in every scene but she could be leaving to go do homework to hang out with friends or something. The scenario we get makes it look like she never spends time with Jason.

Another example involves Holly’s scarf. In the beginning of the movie, there’s a joke bit about her wearing her scarf over her nose and mouth in order to “protect her voice.” We don’t see her do that at any other point in the movie. She doesn’t even wrap the scarf around her neck. It just hangs loosely as if it is only there for fashion. The least they could have done is kept up with the bit. Maybe have her friends make fun of her for always wrapping her neck up or how unattractive it makes her look. Don’t do it once then leave it go.

Once again, there is nothing special about I’m Glad It’s Christmas. Well, Gladys Knight is a joy. (Wait, I just got that the title of the movie is a pun on her name. That explains why it’s called Someday At Christmas on IMDb.) Watch it for the singing. Watch it for Gladys. Just don’t watch it for the plot. That part is boring.

Christmas CEO | 2021 Christmas Movies

I’m sorry but Christmas CEO is a terrible title. Who would want to watch a movie about a stuffy CEO? I hope the movie is better than the title.

Chris (Marisol Nichols) is the CEO of a small toy company. She gets an offer to merge her company with a mega toy company but she needs her former business partner, Joe (Paul Greene), to sign off. Joe thinks Chris is money-hungry and Chris thinks Joe didn’t care about growing their business. Can Chris convince him to sign off on the merger in time?

Ugh. Christmas CEO is just as bad as the title. As Joe thought, Chris did turn the fun little toy company into a wanna-be soulless corporation. Their toys don’t take into consideration what kids want. They only think about the newest, flashiest stuff, whether kids would actually want to play with them or not. It isn’t until Chris’s niece, Emma (Veronica Marin-Estrada), tells her that her new toys are boring that Chris realizes her toys suck.

All of the interesting parts of the story are completely glossed over. There’s a sub-plot about Emma trying to become a singer/songwriter. She does get to play the Christmas song she wrote but, beyond that, we only see her playing the guitar once. (And, really, she’s not playing it. She’s sitting on a bed holding it.) It would have been nice if she had some more musical scenes. Emma is supposedly auditioning for a solo. Why don’t we see her practicing for it? Instead, we get tossed back into corporate drama. Kathleen (Barbara Eve Harris), the outgoing CEO of the mega toy company, keeps pressing Chris to get Joe’s signature. That is almost ALL that Kathleen talks about. SHUT UP, KATHLEEN.

In case you can’t tell, I don’t think you should watch Christmas CEO. It’s dumb. Why did anyone think this was a good idea?

Christmas In Evergreen: Tidings Of Joy | 2019 Advent Day 2

It’s always interesting when I accidentally watch a movie that is part of a series. There are all of these weird references that I know I’m supposed to get…but I don’t. This is the case in Christmas In Evergreen: Tidings Of Joy. Apparently, this is the third movie in the series. Reading each movie’s “About” page on the Hallmark Channel website tells me that each movie basically revolves around the town of Evergreen, Vermont, and its residents. I’m not about to watch the other two movies so we’ll just have to believe the website.

In this iteration, a writer named Katie (Maggie Lawson) travels to Evergreen for vacation. During her train ride, she meets Ben (Paul Greene), who runs the town library. Soon, Katie learns that the entire town is searching for a rumored time capsule that they should be opening this year. And, even though Katie is on vacation, her mother keeps harassing her for a magazine cover story.

I know what you are thinking and I agree. There isn’t anything to this plot. Usually there is some sort of conflict that needs to be solved. The leading lady has to save a family business that is about to close. Or she’s trying to avoid falling in love with the leading man. Or she’s trying to become a better person. Or something! This plot is basically “Boring white lady comes to boring white town and has slight holiday fun, making her fall in love with boring white man.” Katie isn’t looking for love or to change her life or do anything beyond take a break from work. Ben isn’t cynical or trying to force his romantic tendencies on her. He’s just nice and boring.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t give me a whole lot to review. There are some side stories about some of the Evergreen residents falling in love but even those are boring. Heck, the whole time capsule thing, which should have been the main ‘conflict,’ was boring. I really don’t understand what the point of the movie was. Maybe the other two were really good and Hallmark is trying to milk the franchise.

Should you watch this? No. Should you turn it on in the background while you do chores? I mean you can but there is some terrible caroling in there that might interrupt you. Unless you are vacuuming. This is a good vacuum movie. Lots of pretty people with no substance. I hope this isn’t setting the stage for the rest of this year’s Hallmark movies.