Top 10 Made-for-TV Christmas Movies Synopses for 2025

It has been five years since the last Alicia Witt Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, “Christmas Tree Lane.” I know, I remember it, both well and not at all because My Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife and I watched it on Election Night 2020 in a futile effort at distraction. Witt has always been my favorite Made-for-TV Christmas movie lead because she tends to elevate their formulaic nature by infusing a sense of complication, soul, and wit, no pun intended. Heck, she’ll often wear gloves and a hat even if she’s filming in the middle of summer, a commitment to veracity not often replicated by her peers. Since 2020, though, she has suffered some serious personal strife, and so it’s wholly understandable if she wanted to step away, and she has since seemed to focus more on her music career, and hey, I respect a multi-hyphenate too. But while you occasionally still get a surprising lead performance in these movies, like Emily Arlook in last year’s “Leah’s Perfect Gift,” or Reshma Shetty in 2022’s “Jolly Good Christmas,” the Made-for-TV holiday movie season has not been the same without her. I don’t want to say my Christmas wish is for her return, because that still feels presumptuous given what she endured. No, I just want her to know that the Hallmark Hive loves her and misses her and hopes she is doing well and if she ever wants to return, we will break out the celebratory peppermint bark in her honor.

Now, as always, here are this season’s best synopses. (All movies from the Hallmark Channel except where otherwise noted.)  

Top 10 Made-for-TV Christmas Movies Synopses for 2025

10. Champagne Problems. (Netflix) “A driven American exec heads to Paris determined to acquire a champagne brand by Christmas and accidentally falls for the heir to the bubbly empire.” Boy, I just hope this driven American exec embraces the Parisian lifestyle more than Emily Cooper.

9. A Royal Montana Christmas. “When a princess abandons her royal duties to unwind at a Montana ranch ahead of Christmas, she meets a charming guide who offers her a glimpse of rustic life—and it’s entirely different from her regal one.” The royal-themed ones are trendy these days and it’s why if I were the publicist for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, I’d council the best way to improve her PR would be to go through the looking glass and star in one of these as herself.

8. Rodeo Christmas Romance. (Lifetime) “When fiercely independent equestrian Emma finds herself ranch-sitting for a friend while caring for her injured horse over Christmas, she clashes with a brooding veteran.” I always appreciate a nice twist on the traditional hard-charging event planner, or career-oriented CEO, and a fiercely independent equestrian is a good one.

7. Christmas at Mistletoe Manor. (GAC) “When Alice, a spirited East Coast cooking show influencer, journeys to a centuries-old English castle to honor a WWII nurse by laying her remains in the castle gardens, she finds herself swept into the castle’s holiday magic — and the unexpected warmth of its charming proprietor.” But maybe not as good as “spirited East Coast cooking show influencer.” What even is a cooking show influencer? Someone who hosts a cooking show but does not cook and instead just hawks brand name ingredients for meals that you, yourself, can figure out how to cook on your own time? And why East Coast? Is this a dig at New California Cuisine? 

6. Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper. “A Christmas-loving weatherman has had a tough year; upon returning to his hometown, he bumps into a former teacher who always cheered him on, and his former crush — and things start to look up.” Solid em dash action there. 

5. A Wisconsin Christmas Pie. (GAC) “A pastry chef returns to Door County, WI for the holidays, and must choose between her dream job and the legacy of her family’s cherry orchard business - with a little help from her high school sweetheart, and a lost cherry pie recipe.” A little digging reveals our pastry chef heroine is returning to Wisconsin from Chicago, and so, I mean, sure, 300 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline is nice and all, but who wants that, really, when you can get scenic views of the Chicago River from your CTA train car which has been stuck on the Wells Bridge for 45 minutes due to switching problems? 

4. Oy to the World! “When a broken water line forces a church and temple to share space for overlapping Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, rival choir directors Nikki and Jake must collaborate on a joint music program, discovering harmony, unity, and unexpected romance along the way.” According to sources, the FCC will be counting each utterance of Christmas and Hanukkah and if there are more Hanukkahs than Christmases, then Hallmark Countdown to Christmas will be cancelled. 

3. She’s Making a List. “The top inspector of a consulting firm, which Santa hires to help him build the Naughty and Nice List, unexpectedly falls for the widowed father of a misbehaved 11-year-old she’s assessing.” A consultant? What’s next, Santa hires an efficiency expert?

2. The More the Merrier. “Sparks fly between an emergency room doctor and a cardiologist as they work together to deliver three babies just in time for Christmas.” Our first Sparks Fly of the list! A synopsis that truly jibes with the titular pun is what makes the season bright. 

1. Melt My Heart This Christmas. “A spirited glassblower lands a last-chance gig assisting her artistic idol at a famed Christmas market, but as sparks fly with the uptight event manager standing between her and her dreams, she discovers that sometimes love is the most unexpected masterpiece of all.” The real masterpiece is this synopsis.

Pitching More Hallmark-NFL Christmas Movie Collaborations

On the strength of last year’s Hallmark Christmas movie “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” the network has inevitably re-synergized with the National Football League for 2025 by announcing “Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story.” I thought this movie was already made in 1998, but then again, maybe “Buffalo ‘66” is made for people suffering from seasonal affective disorder rather than people who do not understand how other people don’t like Christmas. Whether this was loosely inspired by Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who once threw five interceptions against Nebraska, dating Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld, just as “A Chiefs Love Story” stemmed from you-know-who, no press release mentions. But one thing is clear, this is undoubtedly the beginning of a beautiful (profitable) relationship. And so, if Roger Goodell and Mike Perry are looking for some ideas for future years, fear not, Cinema Romantico’s got your back. You don’t even need to steal these ideas from me and then use your lawyers to weasel out of paying me later; just take them free of charge! Please! 

(Note: please imagine Lacey Chabert in all female roles.)

Pitching More Hallmark-NFL Christmas Movie Collaborations 

Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story. The new franchise-saving rookie quarterback struggles on the field only to find his play improve when he begins dating the beloved, hard-charging local meteorologist. But when they break up, his game falls apart, and the Windy City schemes to get them back together just in time for the big Christmas Eve game.

Holiday Touchdown: A Vikings Love Story. When Astrid, Princess of the Scandinavian Kingdom of Karlstad, comes to America for a visit, she is eager to see the Minnesota Vikings, whom she assumes are a group of Norse warrior re-enactors. When she falls in love with the team’s handsome tight end, will she choose to stay in the Twin Cities and take a job at 3M, or will he spurn football for a life in Karlstad where her people might be very confused to meet a Viking dressed in a burgundy 1970s flared suit rather than a horned helmet and animal hides.  

Holiday Touchdown: A Lions Love Story. After becoming the first NFL franchise to go 0-16, the Detroit Lions are now threatening to become the first NFL franchise to go 0-17, leading two season ticket holders, an unemployed auto mechanic with a penchant for baking Christmas cookies and a career-oriented car saleswoman who hates Christmas, to attend games wearing bags on their heads and fall in love even though they don’t know what the other one looks like. Will the Lions pull out the win when the team plays its last game of the season on Christmas Day? And will they still love each other without bags on their heads?

Holiday Touchdown: A Seahawks-Ravens Love Story. The recently widowed Seahawks’ star tight end is convinced by his brother to start a relationship podcast through the prism of football which a Baltimore Ravens influencer listens to one night, triggering a whirlwind social media romance that cuts across team lines. 

Holiday Touchdown: A Jets Love Story. When the Jets’ star quarterback suffers a season-ending injury, he returns to his small upstate New York hometown to emotionally and physically recuperate, encounters his old football-hating flame, and contemplates leaving the big city behind to run his mom’s sports bar.

MSRP of roughly $52,000 pending tariffs

Holiday Touchdown: A Titans Love Story. As has been reported, “Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story” will not only be filmed in the greater Buffalo area but at the new Bills stadium, set to open in 2026, a little bit of stadium agitprop. The Tennessee Titans, meanwhile, are set to move from their old outdoor Nissan Stadium to a new domed Nissan Stadium in 2027. So, why not a movie in which the daughter of old Nissan Stadium’s architect balks at the new monstrosity? “Football indoors,” she says, “is like Christmas without snow.” Yet, when she unknowingly falls in love with new Nissan Stadium’s architect, she begins having second thoughts. The movie ends with them driving into the sunset in a Nissan Titan XD. 

Holiday Touchdown: An Eagles Love Story. It already exists. It’s called “Silver Linings Playbook” and it’s awesome. Go watch that instead. Next.

Holiday Touchdown: A Patriots Love Story. This will have to air on GAC with Candance Cameron Bure. Not interested. Next.

Holiday Touchdown: A Cowboys Love Story. Jerry Jones would demand final cut. Can’t have it. Next.

Holiday Touchdown: A Memphis Showboats Love Story. ION will collaborate with the USFL by remaking “Showboat” as a Christmas-themed cruise. 

Holiday Touchdown: A Broncos Love Story. A propaganda film in which a Denver fashion designer and sports memorabilia dealer fall in love as they mount a campaign to convince the Broncos ownership to return to the Orange Crush uniforms of the 70s and 80s. “These are the best uniforms in NFL history,” they say in lines from a screenplay written by me, “and they’re just sitting in the barn doing nothing. What the hell is wrong with you people?!”

Holiday Touchdown: A Packers Love Story. When the Packers’ resident running back grinch is forced to work with the team’s comely PR agent for a Christmas toy drive, he finds himself falling not just in love with her but with the season. Christmas isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. 

A '90s Christmas

At the conclusion of “A ’90s Christmas,” right as reformed workaholic lawyer Lucy Miller (Eva Bourne) is spilling her guts, the camera goes in for a close-up, and that’s when you realize Lucy’s glasses frames do not have any lenses. Was this a props person oversight? Was there a glare on the lens in the camera and so they took them out thinking no one would notice? Is this supposed to evoke how she can metaphorically see clearly now? What is happening??? It’s a little thing, but it’s evocative of how this Hallmark Countdown to Christmas ostensible ode to the nineties gets all the little things all wrong, an especially egregious oversight in a movie about time travel. The time traveler is Lucy, who lives in Chicago and hasn’t been home in years, even though home is Milwaukee, less than two hours away. Celebrating Christmas alone, she runs into her old high school flame Matt (Chandler Massey), strangely costumed less like a heartthrob than a Staples employee in an unflattering long sleeve red polo. Forced to confront her past, she is then forced to relive her past when a mystical rideshare transports her home for Christmas 1999. 

Rather than cast two different actors to play Lucy and Matt in the present-day and the past, “A ’90s Christmas” employs the same actor. Cost-effective, perhaps, but it means that in the present-day scenes, they look too young to be as old as they’re supposed to be, and in the past scenes, they look too old to be as young as they’re supposed to be, underlining the movie’s ultimate stranded-in-the-middle aesthetic, an overriding not-quite-right sensation. That ambivalence is furthered in Bourne’s bland performance, hardly on par with, say, Emily Arlook, who infuses another 2024 Hallmark Countdown to Christmas entry, “Leah’s Perfect Gift,” with nimble comic timing and genuine verve, and reminds us how these movies can succeed more than they have any right to with some actorly pep. In fairness, Bourne is not helped by the script, which barely conceives of her legal occupation as anything beyond A Character Trait and connects the inevitable dots with little flair, or the direction. When Lucy first arrives home in 1999, she greets her old dog, dead lo these 25 years, and…reacts like she just saw the dog eight hours ago? Say cut! Try another take! Tell her, “Act like you’re seeing your beloved dog for the first time in a quarter-century!” WHAT IS HAPPENING???? Lucy is like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Terminator 2”: “Why do you cry?”

What’s worst, though, is that either “A 90s Christmas” won’t, or possibly can’t commit to the 90s bit. There are glimpses. Lucy’s little sister (Alex Hook), at least, is costumed to look like she’s on her way to Lilith Fair and Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me” heard on the radio briefly suggests a role as “A ’90s Christmas’s” “I Got You, Babe.” Alas, that one play of the 90s alt rock staple is the only real pop culture reference we get, likely because it was the only one they could afford, and denoted in how we see a conspicuously modified version of the poster of the movie in which “Kiss Me” appeared tacked to Lucy’s childhood bedroom wall – that is, “She’s All That” rechristened as She’s All There. Later we get some sort of dreck that is 90s hip hop as sanctioned by the Hall family. There’s one dial up Internet joke, but after an initial mention of Y2K, it never comes up again. Lucy tells her best friend Nadine (a valiant Jenny Raven, trying to add some life) to buy stock in Apple, but doesn’t say, hey, FYI, there’s no WMDs, call Senator Herb Kohl, or maybe check out dual Canadian citizenship in 15 years. The characters constantly reference “Friends” but “A ’90s Christmas” doesn’t look like “Friends”; it’s not vintage. Why are we going back in time if we are not going back in time? You can see the problem in Lucy’s costuming; she has 90s bangs on top but the eternal Hallmark beachy waves on the bottom. In Hallmark Christmas land, way back when still looks an awful lot like any other time. 

The Christmas Quest

“The Christmas Quest” is funny. Oh, it’s funny in a regular way, aiming more for screwball than sentiment, always a welcome reprieve on the Hallmark Channel this time of year, and because Lacey Chabert and Kristoffer Polaha are having so much fun in one another’s presence, in fact, that they inadvertently undersell that their characters used to be divorced and are supposed to be falling back in love. These two never broke up! You couldn’t fool me! I didn’t care! (Filmed in part on location in Iceland, one conversation between the two takes place against the backdrop of the Hallgrimskirkja Church glowing red in the night in downtown Reykjavik, Chabert’s hair whipping wildly in the Nordic wind, and it reminds you how stuffing every scene with everything in the Balsam Hill® catalog in these movies just can’t compete with a little on the ground atmosphere.) No, “The Christmas Quest” is funny because in melding “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” with “National Treasure,” but in a neat gender reversal essentially having Chabert play the Harrison Ford/Nic Cage part and Polaha play the Karen Allen/Diane Krueger part, the movie is a treasure hunt (without action scenes that I’m sure Hallmark couldn’t afford) that leads us to the end of the treasure map to tell us the treasure is in each one of our hearts. Like Christmas itself. It wasn’t supposed to be a punchline, I’m pretty sure, but it felt like the conclusion to a big joke, nonetheless. I laughed, anyway.

Top 10 Made for TV Christmas Movies Synopses Version 2024

Being locked away in a COVID hotel for almost three weeks in late 2021 meant being locked up in the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas which is generally my favorite time of the year; I like the weather, I like the light, I like the lights, l like how despite all the attendant hustle and bustle, it’s the one time of the year when you can sort of, sometimes, feel the world slow down. It was even more distressing being in Rome, a city I’ve heard puts on a good Christmas, but which I was unable to see, because even once I was released, I went straight to the Airport Hilton so I could catch an early flight the next morning home. At least the Hilton had a Christmas tree, albeit one tucked away in some weird, empty alcove with a single red wingback chair. And though the bright lighting and pointed lack of sound that made it feel like a mausoleum were a long way from celebrating the season in the Piazza Venezia, I plunked myself down in that chair, nevertheless, just so I could scroll my phone in the presence of an artificial holiday spruce. 

At some point, I realized a door across the way was even more sparsely decorated than the alcove, a single strand of gold tinsel wrapped around its handle. If it looked like someone had been left with this one last strand and hung it there for lack of a better idea, I imagined that maybe it was someone who used that door all day long and hung it there to provide themselves this one little bit of recurring merriment, however small and futile, like me sitting in this alcove beside this Christmas tree. You take what you can get. For an American of a certain disposition, it might well be a bleaker sort of holiday season, and if it is, it is, do not let anyone tell you that there is no time to despair or that you can’t grieve in whatever way you see fit. You can; you should. But I also hope you can find a little bit of joy here and there, like tinsel haphazardly hung from a door handle, or in these, the 10 best Made for TV Christmas Movie synopses this year. (All movies from the Hallmark Channel except where otherwise noted.) 

Top 10 Made for TV Christmas Movies Synopses Version 2024

10. Operation Nutcracker. “When an antique nutcracker set to be auctioned at the Warby family Christmas charity goes missing, a demanding event planner and the heir to the Warby dynasty try to track it down.” It’s always a demanding event planner.

9. Twas the Date Before Christmas. “Jessie invites a fake date to her family’s Christmas Olympics to avoid cancellation, but as they bond over quirky holiday traditions, real feelings develop, and she struggles to keep her secret from unraveling.” Christmas Olympics? I’m listening.

8. Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story. “Alana Higman, a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan and her family are competing to win the team’s Fan of the Year contest, in a process judged by the director of fan engagement Derrick.” The Hallmark Channel Christmas universe might seem to exist outside the realm of current events, but Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are so big, they have infiltrated it. Naturally, it leads one to wonder what football celebrity couple Hallmark could exploit next. Simone Biles & Jonathan Owens? Olivia Culpo & Christian McCaffrey? I think we should go further back, much further, all the way to the 1980s and Brigitte Nielsen & Mark Gastineau. Then again, that movie would probably have to be on Lifetime. Google it, kidz. 

7. Five Gold Rings. “New York City painter Audrey Moss returns to her small hometown in Minnesota for the holidays and is met with an unexpected quest from her beloved late grandmother: find the owners of five mysterious gold rings and return them to their rightful homes before Christmas morning, only nine days away.” What do you think, are the five gold rings five pieces of jewelry or are they five ring-necked pheasants? And what is the Minnesota small town? I predict Zumbrota, “the only Zumbrota in the world.”  

6. Hot Frosty. (Netflix) “Widow Cathy magically brings a snowman to life. His innocence helps her heal and find love again. They bond before the holidays, but he's doomed to melt.” No disrespect to Lacey Chabert, the Queen of Christmas, who stars here, but I’m not sure she’s the right choice for this material just as I’m not sure Netflix is the right platform. This synopsis demands Keira Knightley in a Victorian Era tragedy.  

5. Leah’s Perfect Gift: “Leah Meyer, a Jewish woman who has always dreamed of experiencing a traditional Christmas, faces unexpected challenges when she spends the holidays with her boyfriend's uptight Connecticut family.” Hoo boy, a lot to unpack here. First of all, what even is a traditional Christmas in this context? Christmas Eve Mass and the Nativity? Or Santa Claus and chestnuts roasting over an open fire? And why does Leah want to have to experience a traditional Christmas? Can’t her boyfriend want to experience Chinese food on Wednesday December 25th? And Leah? Of course, it had to be Leah! As sure as every other Hallmark heroine’s name is Holly, or Noelle, it only makes sense it would be Leah (or Esther, or Rachel). Anyway. Maybe next year Hallmark will finally get one of these inclusive offerings historically accurate and make Christmas at the Pogroms.  

4. Trivia at St. Nick’s. “When students all flee an elite university in Vermont for winter break, the locals and faculty hunker down for their favorite time of year - the annual Christmas Bar Trivia Tournament.” It’s “The Holdovers” for Hallmark! 

3. The Christmas Quest. “An archeologist and her ex-husband, an expert in ancient Norse languages, are sent to Iceland at Christmastime to search for the legendary treasure of the Yule Lads. When others join in the hunt, the pair find themselves swept into a thrilling adventure as they race to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.” Oh yeah. This is the good stuff. This is the sort of stuff Paramount should be greenlighting for $20 million.

2. The Christmas Charade. “Facing another dull Christmas alone, sparks fly when a risk-averse librarian accidentally gets wrapped up with a grinchy FBI agent in an undercover mission to save the Heart of Christmas.” Lots of noteworthy Hallmark female coding happening in this one, but it’s the punctuating Heart of Christmas that really puts it over the top. Is Heart of Christmas supposed to be literal, like the Heart of the Ocean in “Titanic?” Or is Heart of Christmas more figurative, like they are saving the essence of Christmas, that sort of secular holy spirit that is the reason for the Hallmark season? 

1. A 90s Christmas. “While celebrating her promotion alone on Christmas Eve, a workaholic lawyer is transported back to 1999 via a mysterious rideshare experience.” We have now reached the point where 1999 is to 2024 what 1955 was to 1985 in “Back to the Future” and, oh my god, will somebody please pass the spiced eggnog? 

Friday's Mulled Wine: A Not So Royal Christmas

When I’m thinking about Hallmark Christmas movies, as I (too) often do, I like to imagine a large conference room with a big conference table surrounded by idea women and men, all staring at an enormous markerboard bearing the titles of various comedies and romances and rom coms of Hollywood years gone by and drawing arrows from one movie name to another, hoping to find a satisfactory This Meets That. If that’s true, the think tank really nailed it with “A Not So Royal Christmas.” As the title suggests, director Jonathan Wright’s celebration of the season is not about a Royal masquerading as a commoner but a commoner masquerading as a Royal, in this case Adam (Will Kemp), landscaper at the Royal palace in the fictional kingdom of Nordin when the Count of Sorhagen secretly abdicates, Edward VIII-style, to run off with a damsel from Daytona Beach. (To quote Dave Barry, I’m not making this up.) He is thrust into the role when London-based American tabloid journalist Charlotte (Brooke D’Orsay) shows up seeking an interview with the necessarily reclusive Count, mistaking Adam for her subject, sparks eventually flying between the two even as the truth lurks. It’s the idea women and men, in other words, drawing a line from “Hitch” (2005) to “Dave” (1993). Jonathan, bring me my green light!

As these things go, “A Not So Royal Christmas” is a respectable aesthetic entry to the genre. I mean, yes, sure, that rear projection, which you’ll know when (if) you see it, believe me, sticks out like a lobster in the Nativity play, and alright, it’s true, the climactic Yuletide Ball comes across so secondary that, in some ways, this hardly qualifies as a genuine Christmas movie no matter how many lights are strung in every room, and ok, you got me, D’Orsay just doesn’t come across like a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners gossip columnist at the start. We need a turn, Brooke! But. D’Orsay looks at Kemp like she’s falling in love with him, she really does, and in this chaste universe, that counts for a lot, and Kemp evinces more of the kooky charm that has made him one of the higher quality Hallmark leading men. What’s more, we get two fine supporting turns from Roy Lewis as the exasperated Royal official trying to keep a lid on and, especially, from Lindsay Owen Pierre as Charlotte’s boss. He is mostly just there to stir the plot, but Owen Pierre stirs it with comic panache, the one having the real Yuletide ball. He is our 2023 Hallmark Countdown to Christmas Best Supporting Actor. (Melissa Peterman of “Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up” is Best Supporting Actress.)

More than anything, though, I want to discuss Anna White’s script, or one aspect of it, at least. The Hallmark Channel is an apolitical place, even if their Countdown to Christmas innately disproves so much War on Christmas piffle, which is why a variation of “Dave” could not take place in the White House. After all, the White House is the People’s House, evocative of democracy, all pesky politics and debate, whereas the Monarchy evokes nothing more, really, than blood and magic. Even so, by devising a plot in which a commoner stands in for a Royal and questions Monarchal tradition, it can’t help but demonstrate misgivings about the whole Royal structure, as if Meghan Markle were working as White’s script doctor, an idea furthered in how everyone in this ostensibly Scandinavian kingdom speaks in English accents. Although all this barely rises to the level of commentary, more like a gentle op-ed for the common man, and while there are various story complications to work out, the one that stands out as “A Not So Royal Christmas” comes to a close is seeing how White ultimately will thread the nonpartisan needle. Indeed, she manages to engineer a real Made for TV Christmas miracle by transforming her Not-A-Count-Count into an elite even as he stays true to himself, proving herself a regular Hallmark Holiday Houdini. 

Friday's Mulled Wine: Navigating Christmas

Not long after reading Dorothy Wickendon’s October New Yorker profile of The Last Lighthouse Keeper in America, Sally Snowman, keeper of Boston Light, a lighthouse on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, I sat down to watch my first Hallmark Christmas movie of the season. That movie turned out to be “Navigating Christmas,” in which divorced, hard-charging something-or-other Melanie (Chelsea Hobbs) books a Christmas excursion to a lighthouse on mystical St. Nicholas Island for her and her bratty teenage son Jason (Everett Andres) when the bratty teenage son’s dad bails on Christmas. Though Wickendon’s profile touches on archetypes and episodes that would not have been out of place in Robert Eggers’s “The Lighthouse,” Snowman isn’t out of her gourd, even if she was excited to batten down the hatches and stay put when a massive blizzard blew through. But the profile makes clear that maintaining a lighthouse isn’t for everyone, that the work is taxing, mentally and physically, and isolating. And though no one goes into a Hallmark Christmas movie, not even myself, snot-nosed critic, expecting veracity, I don’t know, that “Doll & Em” episode where they hole up in a lighthouse on a writing retreat seemed truer to the experience than “Navigating Christmas.” 

Apart from a foghorn joke that weirdly doesn’t become recurring, life in this lighthouse mostly just consists of putting up Christmas decorations, as ordered by the ostensibly jaded current lighthouse keeper in a performance by Stephen Huszar that seems more in the vein of slightly standoffish than jaded. (It isn’t fair, it really isn’t, which is why this is in parentheses, but just as Ryan Gosling should have played the male lead in another subpar seasonal Hallmark offering “Holiday Hotline,” so should Chris Evans have played this part.) Indeed, everything that transpires here is like every other Hallmark Christmas movie with the climactically illuminated lighthouse functioning as the climactically illuminated Christmas tree. In fact, that thinking outside the box is why I give “Navigating Christmas” one thumb up in addition to one thumb down. Opportunity was squandered overall, but you’re also required to paint within rigid lines, and so any flourish is appreciated. Plus, Andres’s performance as Jason really worked for me, not just mildly unlikable but truly spoiled, and when his character idiotically pilots a boat into the middle of nowhere at the end to churn the plot toward its conclusion, I kind of couldn’t believe how much I believed it. Kid needs therapy. And what is Santa if not the ultimate retail therapist?

12 Potential Character Actors for Hallmark Christmas Movies

The narrative hegemony of Hallmark Christmas movies in tandem with their generally functional direction means that often what sets the good ones apart is the varying quality of the lead performances. What elevates them even further, however, is the caliber of the supporting cast. Like last year’s “Haul Out the Holly,” in which a superb group of bit players was headlined by one of the most renowned bit players of all, Stephen Tobolowksy. Indeed, consult any fly-by-night listicle of Hollywood’s best character actors and you are likely to find Tobolowsky. “Basic Instinct,” sure, and “Groundhog Day,” of course, but his resume goes so much deeper. When Michael Mann needed someone to play the President of CBS News as a corporate lackey in “The Insider,” who was he gonna call? Stephen Tobolowsky. And the wily old vet’s turn in “Haul Out the Holly” by playing cuckoo for Christmas helped transform it into truly, seriously the best made Hallmark Christmas I have seen. And that got me to thinking. It got me to thinking about other Hollywood character actors we could call to help out Hallmark. A few suggestions to get the holiday party started:

Bruce McGill. You’re telling me Bruce McGill, who should be in everything, can’t play one of those Not-Really-Santa-But-Totally-Santa characters? 

Luis Guzmán. Like how Natasha Lyonne just sort of was the receptionist on Mars in “Ad Astra,” I’m picturing the immortal Guzmán as just kind of being the clerk at a Christmas-themed hotel. 

Judy Greer. The hard-charging protagonist’s even more hard-charging boss back in the big city. A performance exclusively via Bluetooth headset. 

Clancy Brown. Overzealous mall cop hired for the holidays. 

Bill Irwin. Out of control Christmas choir director. 

Keith David. Beleaguered mayor of Santa Claus, IN.

Dale Dickey. Mystical yet practical proprietor of a reindeer farm.

Kevin Dunn. Corporate schmuck who wants to buy the reindeer farm to turn it into condominiums. 

Amy Ryan. Coffee shop owner who totally knows the protagonist better than she knows herself. 

Joan Cusack. Can’t you see her sporting a garish Christmas sweater and effusing holiday cheer to disturbing levels? 

James LeGros. Chairman of Evergreen, AK’s The 12 Days of Christmas who thinks it can be optimized into 3 days. 

John Turturro. People in these movies are always losing a loved one, but they rarely feel – they rarely look – like someone who has lost a loved one. John Turturro would look like he lost a loved one. 

Top 10 2023 Hallmark Channel Christmas Movie Synopses

Though I have friends who are regular comic con goers, I have never attended a fan convention myself, not that I’m judging. If Madeleine Stowe, a.k.a. Cora Munro, ever shows up at a Rosemont comic con, I’m there. More than that, though, when I peruse the list of 2023’s That’s 4 Entertainment Christmas Con in Edison, New Jersey, I start contemplating plane tickets to Newark in early December. The “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” luminaries get top billing but I’m more interested in all the Countdown to Christmas queens. Kimberly Sustad! Lacey Chabert! Alicia Witt! Even Melissa Joan Hart, who might be a Teenage Witch to you but will always be a hard charging event planner, in a manner of speaking, to me. If a Christmas Con sounds like an overabundance of the season, however, try a whole Christmas Cruise! “We hear time and time again that people want to immerse themselves in the world of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies,” Hallmark Media’s Vice President of Consumer Products, Natalie Vandergast, said in a statement regarding a five-day cruise aboard the Norwegian Gem from Miami to Nassau in November 2024, “and this venture is sure to bring our brand to life in a new, captivating way.” There will not only be panels and photo-ops with Hallmark Channel stars, but cookie decorating, an ugly sweater contest, and a tree lighting. 

It sounds like a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie come to life, in other words, in the way a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie might have a character’s Christmas village set come to life, mingling holiday and horror a little too much for my taste. No, I don’t need a Hallmark Christmas cruise, just a Hallmark Christmas movie synopsis. The synopses are plenty for me. Speaking of which, as tradition dictates, here are the ten best Hallmark Christmas movie synopses for 2023.

Top 10 2023 Hallmark Channel Christmas Movie Synopses

10. Christmas by Design. “A fashion designer gets accepted into a Christmas challenge to create a new holiday-themed collection and not only finds the inspiration for her next line but decides to redesign her approach to what’s most important in life.” LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

9. Under the Christmas Sky. “Sparks fly between astronaut Kat and by-the-book David when they work on a planetarium exhibit that's opening right before Christmas.” What do you think, will the stars align?  

8. Checkin’ It Twice. “A journeyman hockey player falls for a real estate agent in a career crisis when he’s traded to her hometown and moves into the cottage in her hockey-loving family’s backyard.” I mean, if that backyard doesn’t get transformed into a hockey rink that saves Christmas, what are we even doing here, Hallmark?

7. An Ice Palace Romance. “A journalist faces old fears when she returns to her hometown ice rink to cover a story. With the help of the owner and his young daughter, she begins to reevaluate her life’s purpose.” It’s just nice to know that in the world of Hallmark, the prominence of local journalism continues unabated. 

6. A Biltmore Christmas. “It follows Lucy as she’s hired to write the script for a remake of a holiday movie. She joins a tour of the grounds and when she knocks an hourglass over, she finds herself transported back in time to 1946.” 1946? Shouldn’t this be transported back in time to 1991? So that Madeleine Stowe can appear as herself in a Cora Munro costume? (Can Hallmark drop a Madeleine Stowe / Daniel Day-Lewis Christmas movie in the middle of next December without telling anyone, like a Taylor Swift surprise album? A Boar’s Head Christmas?)

5. Catch Me if You Claus. “Avery Quinn’s shot at anchoring news clashes with a Santa-suited intruder, Chris, who insists he’s Santa’s son on a first Christmas mission. They unravel a career-making story together.” Career and Christmas can co-exist! 

4. Where Are You, Christmas? “Addy wishes for a year without Christmas and she wakes up in a world of black and white. She must work together with the town mechanic to restore Christmas.” Like “Last Christmas” took Wham! literally, so does “Where Are You, Christmas?” take Faith Hill to the letter, it would seem, combining “It’s a Wonderful Life” with “Pleasantville” and leaving me to dream of next year when Great American Family produces a word for word translation of De La Soul’s “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.”

3. Holiday Hotline. “After leaving London, Abby works for a cooking hotline and connects with an anonymous caller, a single father who Abby is unknowingly smitten with in real life.” Written by the unknown fifth Ephron sister, Vidalia. 

2. The Santa Summit. “Jordin returns home to regroup after setbacks and attends the town’s annual holiday celebration with friends. She bonds with Liam but doesn’t get his name before they’re separated in a sea of Santas.” Sort of the clean version of Santacon.

1. Everything Christmas. “Christmas enthusiast Lori-Jo embarks on an epic three-day road trip with her workaholic best friend, Victoria, to a town where it’s Christmas all year round.” This is #1 because, honestly, while I know Hallmark will churn out another 20 or 30 of these movies next year, I also can’t quite grasp where else there is to go, as if the expansion of the Hallmark Christmas universe has finally stopped and in the space of this movie, finally collapse in on itself.

Haul Out the Holly

Generally, characters in Hallmark Channel Christmas movies have lost their secular faith in the secular season and need that secular faith restored. But Emily (Lacey Chabert), heroine of “Haul Out the Holly,” just doesn’t love Christmas enough. Recovering from a break-up by housesitting for her parents after they light out to the Sunshine State for the holidays, Emily plans to just hang out and watch Christmas movies, hardly the sign of a Scrooge, more someone needing a little me time. Just hanging out, though, is not sufficient for her folks’ Homeowners Association, managed by Jared (Wes Brown) whose black spectacles are less evocative of an endearingly nerdy Clark Kent type than a stickler for decorative holiday guidelines, citing her for insufficient Christmas lawn ornaments and such. This attitude mirrors the whole neighborhood, most of which appears to have no life outside of the HOA limits. Indeed, even if there is an unlikely love story tucked into Emily and Jared relationship, “Haul Out the Holly” is more about how Emily comes to accept and is accepted by the community. Well, perhaps “accepted by” is not the phrase we are looking for there. Because the boisterousness bordering on belligerence of the community coupled with the movie’s own aesthetic vigor causes that acceptance to ultimately feel more like assimilation.

Now don’t get wrong, I am not impugning that aesthetic vigor. Far from it. I have seen some Hallmark Christmas movies in my time, reader, oh, have I, and aesthetically speaking, Maclain Nelson’s “Haul Out the Holly” might be the best one of these I have ever watched. It’s not perfect, mind you. Chabert’s face-first pratfall into obviously fake snow could have been cut and the would-be comical slow-mo is as uninspired in its conception as its execution. But when I say “Haul Out the Holly” is the best I have watched, I don’t mean in the big flourishes but the little things, in the elemental rendering. These movies are plot-driven, and those plots tend to have screwball elements, but screwball elements need to be evoked with pace, crackle, and wit whereas most Countdown to Christmas entries tend to move with a polite assembly line pace. The screwball elements of “Haul Out the Holly,” on other hand, are accentuated by snappy editing (by Bryan Capri), surprisingly droll writing (by Andy Sandberg), and clever acting. And the clever acting is not just limited to Chabert. Melissa Peterman evokes a Kristen Johnson vibe that emerges as something all her own, a haughty neighbor knows best, while wily old vet Stephen Tobolowsky plays an HOA crackpot to the hilt, his turn summarized in a line about therapy spoken by Ellen Travolta where she epitomizes her impeccable comic timing throughout. Even Eliza Hayes Maher scores as Emily’s emergent best friend with nothing more than facial expressions suggesting how she’s learned to deal with living in an unrelenting winter wonderland.

If the best screwball comedies tend toward commentary tucked in amid all their hijinks, “Haul Out the Holly” manages for a while to play as a commentary on the oppressiveness of Christmas, evinced in characters like Tobolowsky’s, suggesting Clark Griswold seen through the looking glass the other way, a cuckoo Christmas militant. But even if the movie never entirely eschews its humorous tone, it still cannot prevent a gradual slide into more typical Hallmark sentimentality. The last half-hour reversal not being the standard-issue reappearance of an ex or some secret withheld bubbling to the surface but Emily failing to recruit Jared as the Christmas carnival Santa when he really wants the role for himself is pointedly not tied back to some childhood memory gone wrong, or some such, just an inadvertent allusion of Peter Pan complex, signaling a movie that’s become addled by its own eggnog. (I really wish Ellen Travolta would have received one line calling attention to this, just to let us know the filmmakers knew despite having to paint within Hallmark’s mandated lines.) Emily just rolls with this, like she gets it, which I suppose by the time the movie ends and the whole HOA shows up on her porch to sing carols, she does. Even the best holiday movie Hallmark has ever produced can’t help indoctrinating its character in the Christmas spirit.

Jolly Good Christmas

There is an ominous message lurking in plain sight in “Jolly Good Christmas,” Hallmark’s tale of a London personal shopper named Anji (Reshma Shetty) who got into the gift-whispering business because she put too much pressure on herself so many Christmases ago to find the right present for a significant other. That suggests the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping as honest to goodness neurosis, requiring therapy rather than a mere reminder of the secular reason for the season. That’s not Hallmark’s game, though, and I, as the kidz say, get it. No, finding the right gift in director Jonathan Wright’s movie is not about some soulless product but something personal, or maybe, just maybe, a person, like Mr. Right, like the handsome if slightly awkward and eccentric American architect named David (Will Kemp) Anji bumps into, first in a store and then on a bus, only to discover he is getting his English girlfriend a gift card for Christmas and hey, Anji thinks, I could be of some help here, triggering a whirlwind romance.

“Jolly Good Christmas” is a little like “Serendipity” if Sara and Jonathan hadn’t split apart at the end of the prologue and instead made the whole movie out of the prologue, like if they were searching for a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera rather than Sara putting one out into the world. This means we do not simply watch Anji and David scurry about in search of the perfect gift, but scurry about in front of prominent London landmarks in search of the perfect gift, falling in love along the way. It’s true that despite a commendable nod to London’s extensive Indian community, “Jolly Good Christmas” doesn’t capture the air of London, so to speak, quite like Franco Nero embodied the Eternal City in “Christmas in Rome,” while the familial crises of both characters don’t feel baked in enough and like a lot of these movies, it runs out gas in the final 20 minutes when the various reversals become too predetermined. Still, if Hallmark movies tend to be overly reliant more on plot, “Jolly Good Christmas” is the rare one that flourishes through [makes sign of the cross] vibes. 

There is a surprising thoughtfulness to Wright’s framing, both in walk and talk scenes and when Anji and David are standing still, tending to position her just in front of him, not leading him on but leading him along, a Christmas gift sherpa of sorts. In his performance, Kemp effuses a subtle kookiness to his turn that calls to mind Bruce Campbell, if Bruce Campbell had chosen to make these movies earlier in his career rather than waiting until now, that not only transcends the abundance of zeroes that tend to fill out these roles but embodies the obliviousness the character has where interpersonal dynamics are concerned. Shetty, meanwhile, possesses a vivacity and wit that makes her character feel truly alive rather than a beachy waved automaton while impeccably playing off Kemp’s eccentricity with expressions that are alternately quizzical, amused, intrigued, and finally, charmed. The best sequence in the movie is one alongside the Thames when he is hustling to catch back up with her and in Shetty’s eyes you can see she’s just reeling this big fish in, not only improbably animating her totally spurious sounding job description but carrying us, the audience, along in her wake. 

If I had one wish that I could wish this holiday season, it’s that Reshma Shetty become a Hallmark Countdown to Christmas regular. 

10 Made for TV Christmas Movies to Watch This Holiday Season (by synopsis)

Depending on your source there are maybe 164 new Made for TV Christmas Movies in 2022, or possibly 148 new Made for TV Christmas Movies in 2022. Without doing a lick of deeper research, let’s split the difference and unofficially call it 156 new Made for TV Christmas Movies in 2022, except that we also have to subtract the new 18 Made for TV 2022 Christmas movies at GAC (Great American Family Channel) because the network was hit with a whole host of false piety violations by the Federal Broadcast Commission. So, that’s 138 new Made for TV Christmas movies this spread across not just the old reliables like Hallmark and Lifetime but ION and BET and UPtv too. That’s too many movies from which to choose for the average Made for TV Christmas viewer. Then again, the average Made for TV Christmas viewer might not care which movie is currently airing, just one that is in the first place. To them, all these hard-charging event planners and career-oriented journalists in love with or scarred by Christmas are probably the same. To the discerning viewer, however, the kind of person who does not just buy a coffeemaker for a Christmas present when someone puts it on his or her list but does the research on drip and pour-over and French press and Moka pots, there are subtle variations within each synopsis. And that is where Cinema Romantico comes in as we do each and every holiday season, to wade into these myriad synopses and point you toward the best. 

Granted, the quality of synopsis does not necessarily correlate to the movie’s own quality. We have already watched one with much to recommend it (review to come!) that does not appear on this list. But it’s a good place to start, and besides, in many pop cultures, it is merely the Made for TV Christmas Movie synopsis that is considered the reason for the season. 

(All synopses belong to the Hallmark Channel unless otherwise noted.) 

10 Made for TV Christmas Movies to Watch This Holiday Season (by synopsis)

10. Noel Next Door. “A hard-working, single mom gets into a war of words with a neighbor who she feels is ruining Christmas, only to find that this misunderstood grouch just may steal her heart.” Can you guess that hard-working, single mom’s name? Can you???

9. The Most Colorful Time of Year: “Ryan is an elementary school teacher, who learns that he is colorblind. Michelle, an optometrist and mother of one of his students, helps bring color into his life in time for the holidays.” It’s a metaphor!

8. Reindeer Games Homecoming: “Sparks fly between a Vermont biology teacher and her high school crush as they compete in a holiday fundraising tradition.” (Lifetime) The synopsis is strong but I’m disappointed Gary Sinise doesn’t have an And Starring credit while appearing on the poster in a garish Rudolph sweater. 

7. #Xmas: “When Jen gets the chance to enter a brand’s design contest, she poses as a family influencer, enlisting the help of her best friend, Max, and her baby nephew. When her video is selected as a finalist, Jen is torn on whether to go on with her perfect ‘family’ or reveal the truth.” Some hard lessons here about our brave new world.

6. A Royal Corgi Christmas. “Sparks fly between a crown prince and a canine behavior expert as they work together to train a rambunctious dog before an annual holiday ball.” Our second “Sparks Fly”! (See #8.) These Royal Hallmark entries always take place in fictional countries, but I like imagining a version of known Corgi devotee Queen Elizabeth II showing up in this one anyway in a kind of dream sequence a la Jaclyn Smith’s glowing visage in “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.” 

5. Haul Out the Holly: “Emily arrives home, hoping to visit her parents, only to discover that they are leaving on a trip of their own. As she stays at their house for the holidays, their HOA is determined to get Emily to participate in the neighborhood’s many Christmas festivities.” This one stars our good friend Lacey Chabert. She always does fine work, and maybe she’ll prove me wrong, but I sort of feel like this one should star, say, Clea DuVall. Because Clea DuVall strikes me as the sort of person that would really want to punch this whole HOA in the face. Also, shouldn’t Emily’s name be Holly?

4. The Holiday Swap. (UPtv) “When two strangers mistakenly pick up the wrong piece of luggage at the airport, each must use the intriguing contents within to track down the other’s whereabouts in time for Christmas.” Dying to know what constitutes “intriguing contents.” A PalmPilot? They don’t make those anymore! French francs? They switched to the Euro! A Leland College hoodie? That’s not a real college! Does this person even exist?! Does love itself even exist?!

3. Wrapped Up in Love. (Lifetime) “Ashley has always been the ‘Christmas Queen’ in town. That is, until she meets her match, Ben, a handsome new guy in town, who loves Christmas just as much as she does. They join forces to make Christmas even more meaningful.” More meaningful??? This sounds like a sentient War on Christmas meme. 

2. A Magical Christmas Village: “A woman tells her young granddaughter, Chloe, that her miniature Christmas village can magically grant holiday wishes. As Chloe begins setting up the figurines, real-life events seem to mimic the scenes she creates.” Our annual reminder that all these movies are one broken snow globe away from mutating into full-on horror. 

1. The Royal Nanny: “Working undercover as a nanny, an MI5 agent must resist the charms of Prince Colin while keeping the royal family safe during Christmastime.” Answers the question I have been asking for almost 20 years – that is, what if one of the “Love Actually” vignettes had featured Sydney Bristow? 

10 Made For TV Christmas Movies To Watch This Holiday Season (by synopsis)

When the Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas programming officially began in 2009, it mostly had those made-for-TV holiday movies to itself. Gradually, however, other networks have copied the formula, like its closest competitor Lifetime but also ABC Family (since rechristened as UP), ION, and now even GAC Family which seems to be trying to start a Christmas TV movie range war by literally poaching Hallmark stars. But even Hallmark has copied its own formula, creating a new slate of movies for every season with Spring Fling, Summer Dreams (“havin’ a blast”), Fall Harvest, and even WinterFest, which sounds like the War on Christmas ™ version of Countdown to Christmas. It suggests Tim Pierce (Cameron Mathison) of the essential Hallmark Christmas movie “The Christmas Ornament” who wanted to create a place where December 25th happened year-round. This is one of my favorite times of year and when the first week of January rolls around and it ends, as I get blue. But that blueness is part of it. It has to end; if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be special. That’s why I steer clear of Spring Fling and Summer Dreams (“havin’ a blast”) and Fall Harvest and WinterFest. No, Hallmark movies are a once-a-year thing, which is why, even if every content mill in existence has already churned out its list of Made For TV Christmas movies to see, we wait to publish ours until after Thanksgiving. (All movies air on Hallmark unless otherwise noted.)

10 Made For TV Christmas Movies To Watch This Holiday Season (by synopsis)

10. The Enchanted Christmas Cake. (Lifetime) “Gwen can’t figure out why her grandmother’s Enchanted Christmas Cake doesn’t taste as magical as she remembered. Then she bumps into a chef, who just so happens to be in town to shoot a holiday special, and figures out exactly what the cake — and her life — is missing.” LET’S GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

9. You, Me & the Christmas Trees. “An arborist falls in love with a farmer as she tries to save his trees before the town tree lighting.” In Hallmark-land, where the protagonist is always an Event Planner, a Marketing Executive, or an all-purpose Career Oriented Woman, branching out into arboriculture is practically visionary…

8. Christmas at Castle Heart. “Brooke Bennett goes to Ireland during Christmastime to search for her Irish roots. Mistaken for an elite event planner, she’s soon hired to host an epic Christmas party at a nobleman’s castle.” ...But not quite as good as a protagonist who is mistaken for an Event Planner! I detect that twinkle in your eye, Hallmark!

7. Christmas CEO. “A small toy company CEO gets a once in a lifetime offer to merge with a mega toy company but will need her estranged ex-business partner’s signature to seal the deal.” No doubt this will reinforce Hallmark’s mystical belief that Rockefeller Republicans still exist. 

This is real. This is not a bit.

6. One December Night. “Two music managers must  put their history aside to oversee the televised reunion performance of their rock star fathers with a fractured past.” A solid synopsis elevated by the casting: Peter Gallagher and Bruce Campbell as the rock stars. That’s how you do. If Hollywood won’t give us a Nicole Kidman / Naomi Watts comedy, maybe Hallmark can? 

5. A Furry Little Christmas. (UPtv) “A big-city veterinarian falls for a small-town doctor when he sets out to recreate a New York City Christmas in her Vermont home-town.” Does this mean conjuring up department store holiday windows? Or does this mean staging a small town SantaCon?

4. Crashing Through the Snow. “Maggie and Sam are crashing Christmas. When he proposes they team up against his sister's perfect Christmas, neither of them are prepared for the blended family challenges that lie ahead.” Like if Cat on a Hot Tin Roof met Kevin McCallister’s obstacle course.

3. Baking Spirits Bright. (Lifetime) “Fruitcake may not be as popular as it once was, but Mira isn’t giving up hope about the future of her family’s fruitcake business. In fact, she promises her parents that she’ll do whatever it takes to keep their dream alive, no matter who (a high-powered marketing executive, for example) tries to get in her way.” Love the fruitcake reclamation angle here and the knowing high-powered executive parenthetical is sensational.

2. Christmas in the Rockies. (UPtv) “After her father is hurt in a timber accident, Katie Jolly must enter a lumberjack competition to save her family’s business. But when the paramedic who saved her dad’s life also joins the contest, a romance sparks just in time for Christmas.” I had to read this one twice to make sure it was real. 

1. The Santa Stakeout. “Two police detectives posing as newlyweds to solve recent holiday party heists are swept up by Christmas while observing the prime suspect.” I would have been proud to pitch this movie. 

Christmas in Rome

“Christmas in Rome” (2019) received fanfare in quarters where people concern themselves with made-for-TV movies and their typical minor-league production values for being shot – partly – on location in Rome, not simply saying it’s Rome and then placing the characters in bakeries with murals of The Colosseum, though that happens in “Christmas in Rome” too. And so, part of the charm of director Ernie Barbarash’s film is simply getting to see Rome; now they’re standing in front of The Colosseum, now they’re standing in front of Trevi Fountain. But you can’t make a movie just out of scenery, not in the narrative-driven world of Hallmark, and so “Christmas in Rome” is ostensibly about connecting these places to the city’s pace and spirit and air, which it does with varying success. The Italian dinners are weirdly frugal rather than lavish, only ever showing dessert as if the budget was all spent on locations and couldn’t even spring for a freaking plate of Cacio e pepe. Barbarash is more successful, however, in enlisting wise old pro Franco Nero for a supporting role, lending the kind of gravity these movies do not really deserve, a la Steven Weber in “Return to Christmas Creek” (2018) whose eyes seemed to suggest Christmas nostalgia was just another term for clinical depression. And Nero, bless his soul, embodies the air of an Eternal City as much as any cinematographic postcard op.

Business defines “Christmas in Rome” as much as Christmas, emblemized in the scene where we first meet Oliver Martin (Sam Page), who will be dispatched from an American corporation to try and buy the Christmas ornament company of Luigi Forlinghetti (Nero) as Barbarash cuts from the twirling pen in the hand of Oliver’s colleague to the Christmas mug Oliver holds in his own hand. This might seem to suggest that business and the holidays – and by extension, pleasure – don’t mix. Indeed, upon his arrival in Rome, Oliver spends his ride from the airport ignoring the sites flying by his window, burying his head in his laptop, and later, upon learning The Colosseum was built in just 10 years notes the impressive productivity, a line that sounds like a stretch unless you have experienced people who truly believe corporate jargon is a romance language. But when Oliver encounters Lacey Chabert’s Angela, things gradually begin to change, and not just because Luigi explains that he will only sell his company to someone who embraces the spirit of Rome.

Of course, the very conventions of Hallmark Christmas movies is antithetical to Dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing, never mind la gioia de bere uno spritz Campari. Structurally, these movies must hit certain dramatic beats every fifteen minutes or so to keep viewers tuned in through commercial breaks. And though I know it’s utterly absurd to think one of these assembly line movies could ever ditch its narrative midstream and espouse nothing but vibes, well, as previously established, “Christmas in Rome” was (partly) made in Rome and When in Rome, dammit...WHEN.IN.ROME. [Heavy sigh.] For what it’s worth, though, Chabert works great in this role because her energy is more relaxed, not the frenzied, drunk on Holiday Muzak air of so many Hallmark leading ladies, and Page does a decent job of letting you see that company man shell crack. Really, though, it’s Nero who brings the whole movie home. Playing a character immune to Oliver’s corporate commandments, Nero evokes a solemnity, not a stuffiness, rendering Luigi’s devotion to arts and leisure as almost religious. 

Notes on Hallmark Christmas Movie Set Design

My mom, a playwright, published and performed many times over, at one point in the past had a show of hers put on by a Des Moines, Iowa high school that shall remain nameless. Set in a high school, there is a pivotal moment late in her play when one character confronts a bully. But if this moment was written on the page as a dramatic one, and if the staging of it in other productions rendered it dramatic too, in this nameless school’s hands it became something else. One of the actors onstage, playing a stereotypical nerd, positioned himself between the bully and the character confronting him and nodded along with the latter, a goofy grin on his face, like he was the sheriff’s deputy, or something. This yielded laughter rather than rapt silence. My mom was incensed. And this was a formative experience for me, a distinct lesson in how the slightest shift in tone can entirely alter a scene in a play or a movie, not necessarily for the better and not necessarily in a way that’s true to the artist’s intent. Of course, in a movie you have more control over tone. This should not be an issue, really, the artist and the finished product tonally harmonizing, so long as everyone is on the same page anyway. And that, friends, brings me to Hallmark’s “The Christmas Bow.” 

The title’s pun means the focus is not on, say, a department store gift wrapper but a violin prodigy, one who, alas, has lost the love to play. She will find it once again by the end, of course, duh. Still, despite that duh, serious shout-out here to Lucia Micarelli playing prodigy Kate. This is Micarelli’s only acting credit aside from a few appearances on “Treme” and one on a TV show called “Manhattan” as it seems Hallmark was more determined to cast a true violinist, lending authenticity, the latter of which Micarelli, to her immense credit, evinces as much in her performance as her instrument playing. I have seen some good Hallmark Holiday performances over the years but those hue closer to rom com territory; Micarelli goes the other way, giving a quiet performance of a more indie kind. You rarely believe that people in movies like this have lost the love of their chosen profession but Micarelli brings it to life. She’s burned out and closed off, her speaking style befitting someone who doesn’t want to talk about it. That means when, in the movie’s climax, she takes to a stage and finally performs again, it feels emotional, not obligatory, a deft feat in Hallmark-land. Except.

Who did this? Whose idea was this? Who on the set design team thought it wise to have the backdrop behind our intrepid violinist include that ginormous grinning Santa Claus? Did they not see it on set? Did the cameraman not pick it up through the viewfinder? Micarelli must have seen it said, “Guys, what’s the deal?” Rarely have I seen such an egregious invasion of a triumphant character’s space. Here she is, at the pivotal moment, playing violin again (!), and the whole time your eyes are unwittingly drawn toward this overly jolly St. Nick. 

It’s a travesty, surely, but perhaps an appropriate too, crassly emphasizing the eternally looming tyranny of Christmas cheer.