Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up | 2023 Christmas Movies

Teri Hatcher isn’t the only one with two movies this season. Lacey Chabert also has two Christmas movies! We already watched A Merry Scottish Christmas. Now it’s time for the sequel to last year’s Haul Out The Holly, Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up.

A year has passed since Emily (Lacey Chabert) took over both her parents’ house and the annual Christmas festivities. This time there are some new neighbors: Jane (Jennifer Aspen), Joe (Seth Morris), and Jimmy (Kenneth Cummings) Johnson. They are better known as the Jolly Johnsons, winners of a Christmas reality show. Can Emily and Jared (Wes Brown) keep the neighborhood traditions or will the Johnsons take over?

I really enjoyed the first movie from last year. Lit Up is a perfect sequel to it. Adding the Johnsons gave it the conflict that it really needed. Last year, Emily wasn’t super keen on taking part in all of the Christmas cheer. This year, her festiveness is threatened by the absolute insanity of the new neighbors. And of course, the secondary characters, the same comedy geniuses from last year, are still over the top and hysterical. I don’t know if they will be able to kick out a third movie but I would love to see more of this gang.

Rating: The perfect Christmas storm

Haul Out The Holly | 2022 Christmas Movies

With Candace Cameron Bure’s defection to Great American Family, Lacey Chabert has been left as the face of Hallmark. She gets to do all of the fun commercial bumps telling us to stay tuned for movies and whatnot. Her movie this season, Haul Out The Holly, was released during the coveted Thanksgiving weekend timeslot. But is it any good?

Emily (Lacey Chabert) has just broken up with her boyfriend. Needing someplace to stay, she comes back to her parents’ house for the holiday. Her parents, however, are planning on going to Florida to find a new house for themselves. Emily now has to fulfill all of her parents’ holiday duties for the neighborhood Christmas celebration.

We’re going to ignore the fact that Emily’s parents did a very crappy thing. They knew that Emily just went through an emotional breakup then they straight up lied to her about spending the holidays at home with her. They tricked her into doing things like decorating the entire house and baking cookies for the neighborhood contest and organizing snowman making events. She didn’t sign up for any of these. They are terrible parents.

On the other hand, Haul Out The Holly was a ton of fun. Normally, Chabert-led movies are overdramatic and boring. Not this one! Even the romance with childhood-friend-turned-HOA-president Jared (Wes Brown) was fun. I am going to give Chabert credit for doing an amazing job but I’d also like to note that she was supported by some major comedy players - Stephen Tobolowsky, Melissa Peterman, Ellen Travolta, Peter Jacobson…I would have been surprised if the movie failed with this amount of talent involved.

Haul Out The Holly should definitely be on your Must See list. This movie was so much fun that I actually might watch it again next year. I never thought I would say that about a Hallmark movie!

A Cozy Christmas Inn | 2022 Christmas Movies

I believe there are two Jodie Sweetin Christmas movies this season. It’s a little unusual for a known actress to be in more than one Christmas movie per year. Perhaps she’s trying to steal the Christmas season from Candace Cameron Bure. Well, let’s see if A Cozy Christmas Inn is any good.

Erika (Jodie Sweetin) is a real estate executive working for Sharon (Vivica A. Fox). Sharon sends Erika to a small town in Alaska to purchase a local inn. When Erika arrives, she finds that the inn is owned by her ex-boyfriend, Andy (David O’Donnell). Will Erika be able to make the offer before she falls in love again?

To be honest, I didn’t expect a lot from A Cozy Christmas Inn. Generally speaking, movies about inns or bed and breakfast places aren’t usually good. For some reason, they spend too much time on the hotel instead of the couple. While the romance shouldn’t be the sole focus of the movie, it should have a leading role.

Surprisingly, this hotel movie was quite good. It balanced Erika’s hesitancy at reconnecting with Andy, giving each of the interesting townspeople a small spotlight, and the actual rekindling of the romance between Erika and Andy very well. Both Erika and Andy had their “I know better than you” moment but neither of those moments were mean about it. Sometimes romance movies make one part of the couple snarky about knowing something more or being better at something than the other person. In this case, Erika cooks Andy a meal and Andy gives Erika a pair of real boots (as opposed to dress boots). There is a little bit of fun ribbing - Erika kinda makes fun of Andy’s diet and Andy kinda makes fun of Erika thinking that dress boots are appropriate for Alaska - but it’s never in a mean way that would make the other person feel bad. It’s moments like this that make them feel like an actual couple.

While there isn’t a ton of Christmas in A Cozy Christmas Inn, this is a really good movie. There is some holiday spirit and a winkwinknudgenudge that says Andy might be Santa’s son. But even if you love tons of Christmas in your Christmas movie, I think you would enjoy this one. I almost want to say it’s the perfect Christmas romance movie. Almost.