Family friends Sam
Reed (Dustin Milligan) and Kat Patton (Danica McKellar) spend every Christmas
Eve at the Children's Table from the age of three.
Over the years they
grew up together, sharing the highs and lows of young adulthood.
But at the age of
thirty, Sam realizes that Kat is the one...but he's afraid that the past will
get in the way.
A real gem of a
Christmas movie and Danica McKellar is an absolute delight.
Gina (Marla Sokoloff)
and Seth (Patrick J. Adams) have been pen pals for thirteen years and over the
years they graduated from handwritten letters and started corresponding by
email, but they were insecure with who they were as people and had decided not
to exchange telephone numbers or photographs, instead they sent photos of their
more outgoing best friends, Ellen (Lindy Booth) and Matt (Jonathan Cherry),
passing them off as themselves without telling either Ellen or Matt.
Each has been there
for the other through every major event that has happened in their lives, and
as such, they have both fallen for the other without either admitting it to
themselves or having the nerve to tell the other.
Living in different
cities - Boston and Denver - they have never even seriously considered meeting
in person, until when Seth, a junior executive at a toy company, is heading to
Boston just before Christmas to attend a toy convention, which Gina, a
struggling reporter stuck in "obits"
So with them both in
Boston they allowed their surrogates to meet in their places with amusing
consequences.
In the bitter winter
of 1944 in the depths of the Ardennes Forest, an American Army Captain John
Myers (Craig Olejnik) and a Belgian girl named Alina (Ali Liebert) meet and
fall in love during a brief 24-hour Christmas truce amid the Battle of the
Bulge.
When the fighting
resumes and they have to go their separate ways they promise to reunite on the
first Christmas Eve after the end of World War II, providing they're both
alive.
This seasonal drama is
about the Puerto Rican Rodriguez family living in the area of Humboldt Park in
west Chicago who face what may well be their last Christmas together.
The Rodriguez family
is headed by jovial bodega owner Edy (Alfred Molina) whose recent secretive
behaviour has convinced his hot-tempered wife Anna (Elizabeth Peña) that he is
having an affair which prompts her to unceremoniously announce at the family
dinner table that she wants a divorce.
This sets the tone for
the whole film which goes on to reveal all the flaws and weaknesses in the
lives of everyone around the table.
Freddy Rodríguez, Luis
Guzmán, Jay Hernandez, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Vanessa Ferlito and
Melonie Diaz make up the very able supporting cast in this enjoyable Christmas
offering.
A smart, sassy,
34-year-old Kristin (Shiri Appleby), who is estranged from her family and alone
on Christmas Eve goes to sleep alone on Christmas Eve and wakes up Christmas
morning seventeen years into her past to relive the worst Christmas of her
life.
So once she gets over
the initial shock she realises she has an opportunity to change her imperfect
past, so she styles herself as an older mentor to her younger self (Hannah
Marks)
Paramount to these changes
is mending the broken relationship with her mother (Elizabeth Mitchell),
something that seems impossible.
But if she can’t fix
her past then maybe she could do something about her less than perfect future.
The film has an
altogether credible cast that makes this film well worth watching if for no
other reason than that.
But the story is
excellent and well-structured and although the main target audience of this
family safe Christmas movie will be women past their teens, men should not be
put off by that because it’s very good.
Prince Duncan (Kirk
Barker) is experiencing cold feet about his upcoming arranged royal wedding, so
the charming European prince steals away incognito to the America in search of
true love.
Pretending to be
someone he isn't, the prince-on-the-lam rents a car and hits the road but he
loses control in the wintry conditions and crashes, and that’s where he meets
Emma (Viva Bianca) a diner waitress whose Christmas needs brightening
considerably, and that’s where the Christmas romance begins in earnest.
The previous
Christmas, Ali Pennebaker (Kelly Overton) broke things off with her boyfriend,
Cameron (Michael Muhney).
Looking back, she
regretted her decision and as a result no longer believed in the magic of
Christmas, but when she meets Ginny (Jennifer Elise Cox), a truly magical
being, she gets the chance to relive that last Christmas.
Determined to make the
relationship with Cameron last this time, so she pulls out all the stops but
realizes, you can't always change the past and happiness may appear in the
strangest places.
