An Unexpected Valentine | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

The first movie of Hallmark’s 2025 Loveuary releases is An Unexpected Valentine. I don’t think I’ve watched any of Lacey Chabert’s non-Christmas Hallmark movies. Her Christmas movies are rather hit-or-miss. Let’s see if she does any better with Valentine’s Day.

Hannah (Chabert), a chocolate designer about to launch a Valentine’s Day line of chocolate purses, finds an engagement ring in the backseat of her rideshare driver Finn (Robert Buckley), a photographer who has a big exhibition at a local gallery. Together, they race around the city to find the owner of the ring before Valentine’s Day ends.

So, this wasn’t as good as The Perfect Setting. Then again, I didn’t think it could fit those shoes. But it wasn’t a terrible movie. Chabert is charming, as always. Buckley is a bit boring but fine, overall. I think maybe my issue with the movie was it lacked a conflict. The closest we come to conflict is Will They Find The Owner Before They Propose and Will They Both Make Their Events. Neither of which are particularly interesting as conflicts. The only reason Hannah had to go to the chocolate purse, which is a stupid idea anyway, event is because her marketing friend is too incompetent to do the marketing herself. And Finn only has to go to his event because his gallery owner friend is too incompetent to sell Finn’s photos without him. If both of these people could do their actual jobs, Hannah and Finn could have had the whole night to themselves…which was their plan in the beginning of the movie.

If you can get over the lack of anything happening, there are some fun scenes to be found. Hannah and Finn trying to deliver a much-too-large balloon bouquet was a little funny. Crashing a drawing class, only for Hannah to be mistaken as the model of the evening…also chuckle worthy. But, alas, there wasn’t anything to make me want to really tune into An Unexpected Valentine. I guess you can’t win them all.

Rating: 3 out of 5 hearts

'Twas The Date Before Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

Ah, the first Christmas movie of the 2024 season. Hallmark’s ‘Twas The Date Before Christmas. It better be a good one!

Jessie Chamberlain (Amy Groening) has been rather unlucky in love recently. When her mother tells her that they are cancelling the annual Chamberlain Family Christmas Olympics this year, Jessie quickly tells her that she is bringing someone and they will miss out on meeting him. The festivities are reinstated but now Jessie needs to find herself a date at the last minute.

Supposedly this is based on a true story. If that is actually true, this is a crazy story. Jessie meets a man, Bryan (Robert Buckley), on a dating app and their first date is her family’s wacky holiday traditions. And she doesn’t tell her family that this is a first date for quite awhile. That is a perfect story for a movie, not so much for real life.

As for the movie itself, it wasn’t bad. The acting was somewhat decent, except for maybe the kids which I forgive because they are kids. I think the only real problem I had with it is that the story does progress kinda slowly. I wanted Jessie and Bryan to have more fun interactions during the events. Or for the events to be a little longer or something. It was missing that little “oomph” to make it a better movie. Especially for a movie about Christmas competitions. Those are almost always good movies.

Rating: A sad backstory that should make you sad but doesn’t really.

The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls | 2021 Christmas Movies

Last year, Hallmark gave us an amazingly good movie called The Christmas House. They followed it up this year with the sequel, The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls. As a general rule, sequels suck. Let’s see if this one lived up to last year’s greatness.

Now that Mike (Robert Buckley) owns The Christmas House, that makes him the King of Christmas, right? Not if his brother, Brandon (Jonathan Bennett), has anything to say about it. The brothers take part in a TV competition show to find out who has the best Christmas House. Hopefully they don’t destroy everything in the meantime.

Hallmark did it! Deck Those Halls is just as good as last year’s iteration. They did up the emotional stakes a little bit by adding Andi’s (Ana Ayora) ex-husband - and Noah’s (Mattia Castrillo) dad - into the mix. Mike wants to propose to Andi so he feels the need to be fatherly and bond with Noah but Zane (Matthew James Dowden) keeps showing up at the worst moments. Not only does this expand on Mike’s character, it also adds to the stress of being a television star competing on a television show with his brother. He feels the need to be the absolute best.

On the other side, Brandon has his own issues. Now that he has kids with his husband, Jake (Brad Harder), he feels like he has to provide the best Christmas for his family. (Even though the kids are still babies.) Plus he feels like he is missing out on important moments in the kids’ lives since Jake can work from home and be with the more while he has to go to his bakery every day. Plus he has the stress of being the older brother to a handsome television star that everyone loves.

I love that Hallmark added depth to these characters. Usually, we get cardboard cutout characters that have one thing in life…usually their job…and everything else has to get shoved aside or they have to quit their current life in order to “have it all.” These people have full lives with work and family. Sure, there are complications but that is what happens in real life. Giving the characters all of this makes them feel more real. I think that is why this series is so successful.

If you couldn’t tell, I absolutely think you should watch Deck Those Halls. As a matter of fact, you should watch The Christmas House then immediately follow it up with this one. Then tell everyone you know to watch it too. We need Hallmark to know that we want them to continue to make these good movies and stop making the terrible stuff.

The Christmas House | 2020 Christmas Movies

There has been some controversy about an LGBTQ+ movie on Hallmark. I heard people complaining about a “gay couple on Hallmark!” forcing them to cancel their subscription to the channel but I didn’t know which movie it was. Well, this is it. This is the movie that broke Hallmark.

Mike (Robert Buckley) is an actor starring in a television show called “Handsome Lawyer.” When shooting wraps for the season, he is called home to help his parents, Phylis (Sharon Lawrence) and Bill (Treat Williams), bring back The Christmas House. With some help from his brother, Brandon (Jonathan Bennett), and Brandon’s husband, Jake (Brad Harder), Mike tries to get the house ready for all of the Christmas revelers to enjoy.

The Christmas House has a lot going on in it. (Here is Hallmark’s description of the movie since mine is kinda terrible.) There’s a house being sold, a relationship breaking up, a relationship starting, a baby possibly being adopted, a career that might be ending….like I said, a lot. However, it all works. People’s lives are hectic around the holidays and this movie reflects that.

As I said in the opening, this is a controversial movie. This is the first Christmas movie on the Hallmark Channel that focuses on a gay couple. Surprisingly, they are treated well. I was expecting Hallmark to come out with at least one character that was against their lifestyle. But no, Brandon and Jake are treated just like everyone else in the movie. I know, it’s almost like gay people are…..people. (insert shocked face here) Hallmark did good.

I really don’t want to give away too much about The Christmas House because, yes, you should watch this one. Watch it multiple times. And not just because it has gay characters. It is actually a good movie. I don’t usually want to add Hallmark movies to my “annual movie” list….this may be the exception.